Scott Nygaard

close up of acoustic guitar playing, how to get good tone

30 Ways to Improve Your Acoustic Guitar Tone

Improve your acoustic guitar tone with these tips and techniques for fretting-hand, flatpicking, and fingerstyle playing for both your right and left hands.

Learn to Play the Fiddle Tune “St. Anne’s Reel” on Guitar

Posted by Scott Nygaard Excerpted from Fiddle Tune Essentials This flatpickers’ favorite is generally agreed to be of French-Canadian origin, but it has become ... Read More...

Learn to Play the Texas Fiddle Favorite “Beaumont Rag”

The campground jam favorite “Beaumont Rag” most likely started life near the East Texas town of Beaumont that it was named after. Recorded in the late 1920s by... Read More...

Using Slurs in Fiddle Tunes

Posted by Scott Nygaard Excerpted from Bluegrass Guitar Essentials Here’s one thing that can throw off your pick direction in a fiddle tune: slurs, otherwis... Read More...

Flatpick the Fiddle Tune “Forked Deer”

Posted by Scott Nygaard Excerpted from Fiddle Tune Essentials The traditional fiddle tune “Forked Deer” is an old American melody that was first notated i... Read More...

Learn to Play the Fiddle Tune “St. Anne’s Reel” on Guitar

Posted by Scott Nygaard Excerpted from Fiddle Tune Essentials This flatpickers’ favorite is generally agreed to be of French-Canadian origin, but it has become ... Read More...

close up photograph of scott nygaards hands demonstrating open strings on an acoustic guitar

How to Use Open Strings When Playing in Flat Keys

Because one of the things that makes something “easy” on the guitar is the presence of open strings, let’s see how many standard-tuning open-string notes can be found in flat keys.

photograph of scott nygaard in a plaid shirt demonstrating a chord position on acoustic guitar

Learn How to Navigate the Modulations in Circle-of-Fifths Progressions

Learn a few ways to understand the circle of fifths and how to play progressions with changing tonalities.

Learn These 5 Easy Pieces from ‘The Song Train’

By Scott Nygaard Grab your guitar and start singing! As award-winning folk guitarist, singer, songwriter, inventor, and educator Harvey Reid says in the liner... Read More...

scott nygaard demonstrating melodics on his acoustic guitar

Create New Melodic Lines by Looking at the Five-Note Scale in a Different Way

Create four-note patterns by removing the second step of a minor pentatonic scale.