Our previous courses

Over the years we’ve explored almost every aspect of guitar playing. From core techniques and music theory to artist studies, songwriting, performance and specialist genres, our course library is extensive.

Below is a selection of the online sessions, day courses and residential weekends we’ve delivered over the years—showcasing the breadth and depth of what Guitar Weekends has to offer.

32 years running

DAY & RESIDENTIAL COURSES

The courses below are re-run regularly (with updated songs and subject matter). The list will give you an idea of what may be available; check out our What’s On page to see if any are scheduled to run later this year.

Generic courses:

  • Beginner Basic
  • Beginner Plus
  • Strugglers Basic
  • Strugglers Plus
  • Improvers
  • Advanced

Styles and techniques:

  • Improvisation
  • Chord harmony
  • Fingerstyle
  • Rhythm guitar
  • Reading music notation
  • Building your groove

Genres:

  • Blues (many varieties)
  • Rock
  • Acoustic Folk
  • Country
  • Introduction to Jazz
  • Introduction to Gypsy
  • Americana
  • and many more …

Themed:

  • Many courses covering the songs and techniques of multiple artists/groups such as: The Beatles, The Eagles, The Stones, Eric Clapton, John Mayer, Bill Withers, Stevie Wonder, Prince, Dire Straits, Simon & Garfunkel
  • Blitzing Your Finger Style
  • Blues Vocabulary
  • Owning a Jazz standard
  • Fender driven – classic songs made famous by the strat and tele
  • Acoustic Heroes
  • Riffs that level up your playing

Bass guitar:

  • Playing practical bass
  • Bass – from basic to intemediate techniques

And …

  • Guitar maintenance
  • Jam days
  • Songwriting
  • Arranging

 

 

 

ONLINE SESSIONS

If you’re interested in any of the following,  let us know as we might have the materials available to purchase (lesson PDFs and access to a Zoom recording of the live  sessions).

Learn songs:

  • The River Boat Song (Ocean Colour Scene)
  • Three little Birds (Bob Marley)
  • Hotel California (The Eagles)
  • Hard Day’s Night (The Beatles)
  • Waterloo Sunset (The Kinks)
  • Just the two of us (Bill Withers)
  • Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen)
  • The Boxer (Simon and Garfunkel)
  • Summer of ’69 (Bryan Adams)
  • Lay Down Sally (Eric Clapton)
  • Sweet Home Alabama (Lynyrd Skynyrd)
  • Walk of life (Mark Knopfler)
  • Lyin’ Eyes (The Eagles)
  • Sultans of Swing (Dire Straits)
  • Wonderful Tonight (Eric Clapton)
  • Albatross (Fleetwood Mac, Peter Green)
  • Come together (The Beatles)
  • Hoochie Coochie Man (Muddy Waters)
  • Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin)
  • Sittin’ on the dock of the bay (Otis Redding)
  • Knockin on heaven’s door (Bob Dylan)
  • Crossroads (Eric Clapton/Cream)
  • Stuck in the middle with you (Stealer’s Wheel)
  • The shape of my heart (Dominic Miller, Sting)
  • While my guitar gently weeps (George Harrison)
  • Moon River (Henry Mancini)
  • Oh well (Fleetwood Mac, Peter Green)
  • Play that funky music (Wild Cherry)

Techniques:

  • Melodic improvisation (series)
  • Getting good tone!
  • The Art of Strumming
  • Fingerstyle primer
  • Practise, play, repeat
  • How to develop ninja rhythm skills
  • Mastering the barre chord
  • Putting barre chords into practice
  • Scales and chords – they’re connected
  • Rhythmic strumming
  • Pentatonics across the fretboard
  • Intro to fingerpicking the Blues

Genres:

  • Blues Primer
  • Introduction to jazz
  • Rock primer
  • Intro Gypsy jazz
  • Giving a jazz standard the Gypsy treatment
  • Classical Guitar
  • Folk Wizardry

Know-how and theory:

  • The importance of ear training (series)
  • Reading rhythm (series)
  • Write a tune in 60 minutes
  • The Creative Guitarist (series)
  • Mixing licks and chords
  • The 12 bar and beyond
  • What is the Circle of 4ths and 5ths
  • The CAGED system
  • Major and minor pentatonics
  • What are Drop 2, 3 and 4 chords
  • How can you use triads
  • Gear and getting that sound
  • How key signatures work
  • Transposition
  • Modes
  • Gear set-up
  • Recording yourself
  • Breaking out of the pentatonics
  • Slide guitar and open tunings
  • Modulation
  • Finding the key

The styles of:

  • Robben Ford
  • Mark Knopfler
  • Stevie Ray Vaughan
  • BB King

Bass guitar:

  • Introduction to the bass
  • Boot camp
  • Harmonic layering
  • The Soul basslines of Stevie Wonder
  • Taking your bass to the next level

Miscellaneous

  • Playing guitar when things stop working!