Guitar Lessons

cott offers guitar lessons in a variety of blues styles. Lessons are $30 for a one hour lesson and most students find that they provide enough material to keep them busy for several weeks.

Lessons can be tailored to fit any specific needs or proficiency level. Students are encouraged to bring a blank tape to their lesson so that a quality recording of the lesson is available for them to refer to. Below are some of the most frequently requested types of lessons.

Stone Beginner
For someone just beginning their adventure in guitar playing, the blues are an excellent place to start. We offer several "Blues 101" lessons that teach the basics of the twelve bar blues shuffle. New chords, scales, licks and other progressions are introduced along the way that provide a strong foundation for developing guitarists interested in developing as blues players or want to exploring fingerstyle guitar or rock, country and jazz styles.

Slide
The wail and whine of bottleneck guitar perhaps the most recognizable element of blues guitar for most folks. Iintermediate and advanced players may choose lessons in several differnt styles of slide guitar. Once the basics of slide technique are mastered, some general slide "theory" is introduced in open G and open D tuning (the most common slide tunings). From there, students are ready to explore the styles of various slide masters, including Charlie Patton, Son House, Robert Johnson, Blind Willie Johnson, Muddy Waters, Elmore James and others. Standard tuning and alternate tuning slide lessons are also available.

Fingerstyle
If you’re an intermediate or advanced player and pickin’ the blues is your thing, you may choose to have lessons that lay out the basic techniques of many of the masters of the country blues. Rather than teach note for note versions of recorded classics (which are readily available on video and in tablature from a variety of sources), Scott provides students with the essence (signature licks, tricks and positions), employed by artists like Mississippi John Hurt, Reverend Gary Davis, Blind Blake, Blind Willie McTell, Blind Boy Fuller, Robert Johnson, Mance Lipscom, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and many other prewar blues players. Using specific songs as teaching tools, students will soon learn how the masters developed their signature sound and how to apply these tools to creating their own individual style.