New Lessons for June 2026

New techniques, tunes, and lessons from Peghead Nation instructors

By: Dan Gabel

June 1, 2026

Peghead Nation instructors have released hours of new instruction in their courses, and here are the tunes and lessons we’ve just published for June 2026. Join us in any course and get your first month free. Just use promo code Learn26 at checkout!

GUITAR COURSES

Norman Blake-Style Guitar with Greg Schochet

Church Street Blues: Learn one of Norman Blake’s most popular originals this month. Greg shows you how to play the melody on the bass strings before adding the picking and strumming elements that give it a solid Norman Blake feel.

Irish Guitar with John Doyle

Key of E Minor Chords: John introduces “The Cup of Tea” reel to show how he plays in E minor. You’ll learn the first-position chord forms in dropped-D tuning and then some movable forms up the neck, and several ways to accompany the melody.

Contemporary Flatpicking Guitar with Grant Gordy

Floating Scale Exercises: Floating (or “floaty”) scale patterns and melodies combine fretted notes with ringing open strings to create a more legato sound. Grant demonstrates some floating scale patterns in the keys of D, G, G Mixolydian, and E.

Irish Flatpicking Guitar with Flynn Cohen

The Glass of Beer: Flynn teaches this oft-recorded single reel and popular session tune in the key of B minor. His setting makes good use of the open B string with a picked triplet as a pedal note between other notes and phrases.

Western Swing Guitar with Matt Munisteri

My Window Faces the South: First recorded by Fats Waller in 1937, the song was also a hit for Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys and became a standard in the western-swing repertory. Matt shows you a chord-melody version of the song.

MANDOLIN COURSES

Weekly Mandolin Workout with Ethan Setiawan

The Key of G: Ethan offers some challenges in the key of G this month, including major and pentatonic scale patterns, chord shapes, and arpeggios exercises. Then he shows you “Old Beech Leaves,” a great traditional fiddle tune from Kentucky.

Monroe-Style Mandolin with Mike Compton

Cindy: Monroe put his indelible stamp on this evergreen dance tune with some blue notes, slides, open drone strings, and an impressionistic B part. He plays both parts based on chop chords up the neck, with open strings ringing above.

Gypsy Jazz Mandolin Essentials with Aaron Weinstein

Avalon: Aaron teaches this 1920s hit in the key of F. With an unusual AABC format, the progression starts on the ii7 chord and rarely resolves to the tonic. The solo includes displaced melody fragments, chord tones, chromatic fills, and a blues scale.

The Advancing Mandolinist with Joe K. Walsh

Nahatlatch: Here’s an intriguing melody from Berklee songwriting professor Mark Simos. The two-part tune is nominally in D Lydian, but has an ambiguous tonal center. It also has a quirky rhythmic structure that includes a mix of bar lengths.

Octave Mandolin with Joe K. Walsh

The Old Churchyard: Ozark singer Almeda Riddle is the source for this lovely traditional hymn. Joe explains the value of thinking about the melody notes numerically in terms of scale degrees, and teaches versions in the keys of D and C.

FIDDLE COURSES

Jazz Violin with Aaron Weinstein

Sweet Georgia Brown: This hit from 1925 is a great one for jazz violinists. Aaron’s solo emphasizes rhythmic variations on the melody embellished with some chromatic runs, and repeated quarter notes on the downbeats.

Old-Time Fiddle with Bruce Molsky

Evening Rainbow Waltz: Here’s a lovely old-time waltz from the late Virginia fiddler Luther Davis. It’s a version of the “Evening Star Waltz” in the key of G with a slightly crooked B part. Bruce offers some left-hand and bowing tips as he teaches the tune.