Blitzing Fingerstyle Sessions 7, 8 and 9: Becoming The Pro

BLOCK 3 – BECOMING A PRO

Lesson 7 – A focus on Bossa Nova and Samba fingerstyles

In this session we explore the fundamentals of two of the most loved grooves in guitar playing, the Bossa Nova and the Samba. Originating from South America, Bossa Nova is a calmer, more modern subgenera of the classic Samba. Samba is a lively, percussion heavy Brazilian music style with roots in Afro-Brazilian traditions, often associated with energetic dancing and Carnival celebrations. Bossa Nova emerged in the late 1950’s and was prevalent throughout the cafe scene blending in samba rhythms with Jazz harmonies, emphasising a smoother, softer sound with instruments like the acoustic guitar, piano and double bass.

For those of you who have done classical guitar or even studied basic Jazz, you will likely have come across these styles. For those who have not, this will be an enlightening evening where we can delve into some great rhythmic and chordal exercises and then put them into practice using some well known songs.

LESSON MATERIALS

Two pages of exercises showing a variety of Bossa and Samba patterns that you can weave into your own playing. The third page shows you how to create your own piece from these patterns by weaving in a melody.

Please be confident with your barre chords especially Dm7, Em7b5 and A7(b13). 

BOSSA NOVA SONGS

1. Girl from Ipanema – Carlos Jobim – We will focus on the chordal accompaniment.
2. Blue Bossa – We will focus on playing the melody and then adding the chords to create a solo instrumental version. It’s important to understand how to piece your arrangements together so we will discuss the fact that the melody notes often sit within the chord shape. It’s all about keeping the Bossa feel while pulling out the melody notes with the picking fingers. 

Lesson 8 – How to accompany a singer/solo guitarist

Out of all instruments it is probably the piano and guitar that most often accompany a solo singer. And out of those instruments it is the guitar that comes up top trump in terms of its complete flexibility of being used in any location.

The best accompanists know exactly how to showcase the singer. We do this by arranging our parts to weave around the singer, to add dynamic and harmonic variety, or to piece together all the integral parts of the original track into a duo situation. In this scenario it is often important for the guitarist to be holding down not only the chordal groove but also adding in the bass guitar melody and even having solo sections where the vocalist gets a break.

We will focus on three songs in this session

1. BILLIE JEAN – This song is nothing without the famous bass guitar line and the stab chord voicing. Without both it simply doesn’t work. You can play it finger style or with a plectrum. We will show you how to piece it together.
2. MY BABY JUST CARES FOR ME – This song has to contain one of the most famous walking bass lines of all time. But like Billie Jean, we also need the chord voicings or our song won’t work. So it’s our job as the accompanist to build our parts around this. You’ll need to think carefully about how you voice the chord so that it moves with the walking bass.
3. SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW – Sometimes your job is to simply create something beautiful. In this piece we will look at how I arranged the chordal accompaniment to weave around the vocal of soprano Laura Wright. I use arpeggiated patterns and the whole length of the neck to create variety and thickness to the sound. The choice of notes adds interplay between the vocal melody and ourselves, sometimes using call and answer, sometimes creating a secondary vocal harmony.Doing too much can often not allow the vocal space, doing too little can feel empty. It’s really important to use your ears and listen.

Lesson 9 – Putting it all together: becoming the solo player

We’ve covered many solo arrangements over the years, this time we are doing a high intermediate arrangement of Summertime.

Summertime is an aria composed in 1934 by George Gershwin for the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess.

The song soon became a popular and much-recorded jazz standard, described as “without doubt … one of the finest songs the composer ever wrote … Gershwin’s highly evocative writing brilliantly mixes elements of jazz and the song styles of Black people in the southeast United States from the early twentieth century”.

We will be giving our own bespoke arrangement for solo guitar that interweaves the melody of the vocalist into the arpeggiating guitar. We’ve kept it traditional, utilising the original orchestration chord voicings. The whole neck is utilised to give dynamic variation.

This is definitely one to practice and bring out as a show piece in your sets. If it was a grade piece it would be a high level grade 5 classical guitar arrangement.

Who’s Block 3 For?

Block 3 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:

• Open chords and changing between them
• Basic Barre Chords are useful but not essential until session 6
• Basic fretboard knowledge
• Reading guitar TAB, including basic rhythm
• Some experience playing melodies

You don’t need to read standard music notation or have an advanced knowledge of theory.

What’s Included?

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.

Purchase Options

• Buy the block for £36
• Purchase individual lessons for £15 each. 

Check The Whole Series

Important Information

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.