In this three-lesson block, we’ll focus on making your fingerstyle playing groove, move and sound more sophisticated. Explore the syncopated rhythms and independent bass lines of Ragtime, take your fingerstyle blues across the fretboard with chords, licks and melodic fills, and finish with Groove Mastery—combining syncopation, percussion, chord voicings and passing notes to create dynamic, professional-sounding guitar parts.
Originally recorded live in January 2026 and taught as a live Guitar Weekends online course. You’ll receive the complete lesson recording and detailed course materials, allowing you to pause, rewind and learn at your own pace. Selected courses may also include backing tracks and additional resources.
You will receive a 3 x 1hr video links plus the lesson pdfs via email after payment has been confirmed.
This page is just block 4.
Run by:
Andy Moore
Venue:
SHOP PURCHASE,
Ragtime finds its origins in the the 1890’s to 1910’s American music bars and halls. A lively, syncopated musical style known for its “ragged” rhythms where the melody plays off the beat against a steady left-hand accompaniment, Ragtime was mainly popularised via piano players. Originating in African-American communities and famously featuring composers like Scott Joplin. It’s characterized by its catchy, march-like feel, blending European traditions with African rhythms, and served as a vital precursor to jazz, though it was typically written down rather than improvised.
While starting on piano, guitarists begin to bring those elements onto their own instrument, using techniques similar to travis picking (covered in session 4). Players such as Blind Blake, Reverend Gary Davis, Mississippi John Hurt, and William (Bill) Moore, alongside modern players like John Pizzarelli, blended the traditional piano ragtime music with blues and early jazz to capture a unique ragged rhythm sound and complex bass lines.
In this session we’ll explore the core techniques you’ll need to master for the style as well as useful knowledge to help apply them before finishing with a full piece and some fun flat picking licks.
One of the favourite sessions from level 2 was the acoustic blues. Many of you requested having more solo blues pieces to play. So we’ve taken your request and put together a new evening. This time we will be working in the key of G Major and the whole lesson will gradually develop a simple sequence of chords from first position open chords to barre chords in three positions across the neck. Within these chord sequences will be added little musical embellishments that will show you in one session how to take your playing from basic to kick ass. The first part of the lesson will be doable for all high beginner upwards players. By the end it could be tricky for some, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a go. The beauty of these sessions is that you will have a recording from the lesson that you can then watch back and practice at any point in the future.
Here is how the lesson will be built.
Adding in barre chords and mixing strumming and finger picking. Moving away from open chords gives your playing a totally different vibe both in timbre and note choices. When playing the stacatto stabs on the 2nd dotted crotchet beat of the bar we bring in a percussive feel as we emulate the drummers snare drum.
Now we can add licks in between chords. Often this is done on beats 3 and 4 so that the chord harmony is established first. We will explain how your lick should work over the top of the current chord while leading into the next. We will also show you how fretting hand fingering choices for those scale runs will also help your movement into the new chord. This section is done with open chords and caged triads and should therefore be doable to most low intermediate players.
As an extra take away sheet you’ll be supplied with a 2 page scales and licks sheet. You can use this information and the knowledge gained in the lesson to create your own.
Session 6 turned out to be probably the most loved session from levels 1-2 with many of you highlighting it as a favourite. So we’ll be looking at this further giving you a suite of chord sequences that you can play in multiple keys (yes, we’ll provide a sheet with all the keys and chords for you to reference) and showing you how to build from something simple to something simply darn right cool. If you have an electric guitar, then this is the course to get it out on.
This is how we’d build our parts. Each step adds onto the previous
Block 4 is ideal for intermediate players upwards. Expect material that would sit a grade 4-5 level. But even if you are a high beginner don’t worry. If you’d like to buy the course, it may be difficult at this moment, but with practice and a set goal you will get there. Remember you have the complete lesson recordings, you can work through everything at your own pace and revisit more challenging sections whenever you like.
You should ideally be comfortable with:
You don’t need to read standard music notation or have an advanced knowledge of theory.
Originally recorded as one of our live online classes, this course includes the complete Zoom lesson recording together with all accompanying lesson materials. The video retains the informal, interactive feel of the original session and allows you to pause, rewind and work through everything at your own pace.
Once your payment is confirmed, we’ll email your lesson materials and private video links as soon as possible.
The lesson PDFs and video recordings are for your personal use only. Please don’t share the materials, links or recordings with others or post them online.