New Lessons for March 2024

Peghead Nation instructors have new lessons, techniques, and tunes to keep your musical journey on track!

By: Dan Gabel

March 12, 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 March 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

Arpeggios: Tying It All Together In this lesson, Stash gives you an exercise to test your knowledge of arpeggios. The exercise goes through every G major seven and G dominant seven option, in order: 2E, 2D, 4A, 2A, and 4E.

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

Captain O’Kane “Captain O’Kane” is a waltz written by Turlough O’Carolan. It’s in the key of E minor, and in the B part, the E harmonic minor scale appears in a couple of places, with a D# instead of a D natural.

Western Swing Guitar with Matt Munisteri

Twin Guitar Special “Twin Guitar Special” is the culmination of Eldon Shamblin and Leon McAuliffe’s twin guitar work with the Bob Wills band. You’ll learn the intro, the steel guitar melody, and both parts of the twin guitar solo.

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” and Arpeggio Workout Milt Jackson’s classic blues tune “Bags’ Groove” is a blues in F with a more complex version of blues chord changes. In this lesson, Joe gives you a great arpeggio workout on the “Bags’ Groove” chord changes.

Monroe-Style Mandolin with Mike Compton

Blue Grass Twist The rockabilly blues instrumental “Blue Grass Twist” (also called “Blue Grass, Part 1”) was recorded in 1960. Monroe plays three double solos back to back, for six solos in all. In this lesson, you’ll learn the first two solos.

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.

Daphne “Daphne” is a classic Gypsy jazz song from Django Reinhardt, Stéphane Grapelli, and the Hot Club of France. It’s in the key of D, with a bridge in Eb that repeats the same chord progression as the first two bars of the A part, but in the key of Eb.

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

The Golden Ticket “The Golden Ticket” is a fiddle tune in the key of G written by fiddler Eric Merrill. Eric’s playing is a mix of old-time and Celtic styles and “The Golden Ticket” is a good example of that.

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

Rosetta “Rosetta” was written by jazz pianist Earl Hines in 1933, and it quickly became a swing standard, with recordings by Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Fats Waller, and many others.

Octave Mandolin with Joe K. Walsh

Just a Closer Walk with Thee “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” is a traditional gospel song likely dating back to the 1800s. You’ll learn the melody in the key of C as well as ways to dress up and create variations on the melody.

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.

FIDDLE COURSES

Western Swing Fiddle with Chad Manning

Time Changes Everything “Time Changes Everything” was written by Bob Wills singer Tommy Duncan and recorded by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys in 1940. In this lesson, you’ll learn the melody in the key of F in two octaves with and without double stops.