Millions of guitar players around the globe love the sound of smooth emotional guitar playing. It's both rich and soulful and while it can also be sad to listen to, it is often very uplifting and calming as well. If this style interests you, then you'll definitely want to check out this guitar lesson. We'll cover the important elements that create this style and we'll break down the options guitar players can have for composing in this style...

 

 

 

 

In a recent online poll, pop music was declared as the most sad music, with country, R and B and soul coming in close behind. 

 

On the guitar we tend to hear an interesting blend of all these "sad" music styles performed as instrumental pieces. Often times this musical blend is played on the acoustic guitar. 

 

For the guitar player, one problem with learning to play this emotional style of music can be not knowing the best way to approach the chords along with the inter-woven melody lines so that they work together effectively to achieve the best sound.

 

In this lesson, I put together a collection of the best ways that a guitar player can use to develop both harmony and melody. 

 

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This emotional style of playing offers up a smooth and captivating sound for both the guitarist, as well as for the listener. The result is a style of guitar playing that is easy to relate to and more natural feeling to perform.

 

 

 

 

Guitar Players LOVE Playing This Style!
The focus of this lesson is all about the favorable artistic taste that millions of guitar players have for practicing guitar ideas that sound very captivating to the listener. 

 

You've heard those open sounding guitar picked lines that when played in both a smooth and emotional way come across as being very endearing to those who are listening to the music. 

 

What’s really cool is that this sound is not very difficult to develop and it makes for some fantastic guitar music to perform any time that somebody goes and says to you, “Oh hey, you play guitar, play me something.” I’m sure that’s happened to you.

 

Let’s begin by looking at a couple of things that you can start doing right away to make this sound a part of your guitar playing and help you begin dreaming up guitar music in this style as soon as possible. So, grab your guitar, and let’s get started.

 

 

 

 

Example 1).
One of the most popular ideas that create this style of guitar playing is the addition of open strings around small chord patterns accompanied by single-note melody lines. 

 

This is a powerful approach to obtaining this emotional guitar sound and it is one that allows a melody to be built directly into an already existing harmony. Here’s an example, (see below) of exactly how this can work. 

 

 

Coming up next, I’ve got another way for you to be able to add this type of guitar style into your playing. Then, we’ll also learn a short 2-part example song that applies this idea into a musical context.

 

But first, I want to tell you about a special promotional offer that’s related to my; Handouts Collection eBook. 

 

 

 

 

Example 2).
Another interesting compositional idea that works very well to generate this style of playing is based upon adding a wider interval between the notes in use up in the treble along with bass-tones. 

 

The larger separation between bass and treble tones (typically separated by at least one guitar string), will go a long way to producing a sweet sound from the guitar.

 

Along with the larger interval you’ll also still want to maintain the use of a few open guitar strings as well. Here’s an example of how all of this can come together… 

 

 

 

There’s a lot you can take away from learning the techniques of this style! We’ve just covered some of the important ones. 

 

But, the thing is, if you go beyond the techniques and start trying to write some original ideas of your own, you’ll actually get a lot more out of what you could ever possibly get from just learning a composition written by somebody else. 

 

In wrapping up, what I want to do is perform and then break down a simple example piece (it was performed at the start of the video). This piece applies all of the ideas we have been discussing in the lesson.

 

 

 

 

Example 3).
This piece applies as well as, adapts and evolves each technique that we discussed earlier. Spend time practicing to be able to play the piece as perfectly as possible and also practice creating songs like this using the techniques as well.