New Lessons for April 2024

New Lessons, Tunes, and Techniques from Peghead Nation's Master Teachers

By: Dan Gabel

April 1, 2024

Peghead Nation instructors have released hours of new instruction in their courses, and here are the tunes and lessons we’ve just published for April 2024. Join us in any course and get your first month free. Just use promo code Learn24 at checkout!

GUITAR COURSES

Bluegrass Guitar Fingerboard Mastery with Stash Wyslouch

Howlin’ at the Moon In his next series of lessons, Stash gives you arrangements of solos to bluegrass songs using scales and arpeggios in the positions you’ve already learned. In this lesson, Stash shows you a solo to the Hank Williams song “Howlin’ at the Moon.”

Maybelle Carter-Style Guitar with Cathy Fink

Coal Miner’s Blues Maybelle’s lead on “Coal Miner’s Blues” is an amazing confluence of early country music and blues. Unusually for Maybelle, it’s in the key of G (without a capo), with G, G7, C, and D chords.

Irish Flatpicking Guitar with Flynn Cohen

Jim Ward’s Jig “Jim Ward’s Jig” is a popular jig in the key of G major. It has a nice shift toward D modal in the B part. Flynn plays it entirely in second position.

Western Swing Guitar with Matt Munisteri

Blues for Dixie “Blues for Dixie” is a Cindy Walker song that Bob Wills recorded in 1948. You’ll learn the melody, chords, and a version of the melody in three-party harmony that the Bob Wills band played on the recording.

MANDOLIN COURSES

Swing and Jazz Mandolin with Joe K. Walsh

Learn to play swing and jazz melodies and classic solos from jazz legends like Lester Young, Miles Davis, and Django Reinhardt, as well as swing mandolinists like Tiny Moore and Jethro Burns. For each song, you’ll learn the melody and a solo, along with tips on technique, phrasing, and improvisation.

“Bags’ Groove” Milt Jackson Solo In this lesson, you’ll learn three choruses of Milt Jackson’s vibraphone solo on the Miles Davis recording of “Bags’ Groove.” It includes a lot of beautiful bebop and blues language that works well on the mandolin.

Monroe-Style Mandolin with Mike Compton

Blue Grass Twist, Sections E and F Sections E and F are the last two parts of Bill Monroe’s “Blue Grass Twist.” The first seven bars of section E are played with 32nd-note tremolo, so Mike’s transcription is approximate as it is difficult to notate exactly.

Gypsy Jazz Mandolin Essentials with Aaron Weinstein

Learn to play swing and jazz mandolin from scratch, with a step-by-step method for learning swing chord voicings, as well as simple, swingin’, melody-based solos for some of the most popular songs in the jazz and swing repertoire. Designed for newcomers to playing jazz and swing.

Coquette “Coquette” is a swing jazz standard popular in the 1930s and ’40s. There are notable recordings by Django Reinhardt, Louis Armstrong and others. Aaron shows you “Coquette” in the key of D and gives you a new voicing of a D6 chord.

Old-Time Mandolin with John Reischman

Little Rabbit “Little Rabbit” is a popular old-time tune in the key of A. It was first recorded in 1931 by Crockett’s Kentucky Mountaineers and has five parts.

The Advancing Mandolinist with Joe K. Walsh

“Doggy Salt” Sam Bush Solo “Doggy Salt” is a banjo instrumental written by Tony Trischka and recorded on Double Banjo Spectacular. You’ll learn Sam Bush’s spectacular mandolin solo from that recording in this lesson.

Brazilian Choro Mandolin with Ian Coury

O Vôo da Mosca “O Vôo da Mosca” (“The Flight of the Fly”) was written by Jacob do Bandolim and is one of the most challenging choros because of its constant eighth notes. It’s a waltz in the key of G and has three parts.

Chord Melody Mandolin with Aaron Weinstein

“Lady Be Good” Etude In this lesson, Aaron shows you an etude he wrote based on the swing standard, “Lady Be Good.” The etude is essentially a chord melody version of “Lady Be Good” that you could use to play as a solo.

Octave Mandolin with Joe K. Walsh

Last Chance “Last Chance” is an old-time banjo tune that comes from banjo player Hobart Smith. There are a lot of ways to interpret the melody on the mandolin or fiddle. Joe’s version comes from mandolinist Dominick Leslie.

BANJO COURSES

Old-Time Banjo with Bruce Molsky

Sourwood Mountain Bruce’s version of the square dance tune “Sourwood Mountain” comes from the playing of Glen Smith, who recorded it on a fretless banjo in eBEBE tuning, which puts it in the key of E.