ShigetoFukasawa
Verified buyer
01/04/25
Thank you!
Tommy Emmanuel is always the best and John Knowles' accompaniment techniques are truly remarkable.
Certified Guitar Duets
Technique, Creative Approaches & Repertoire for Fingerstyle Duets
Get this course and 1,000+ more with All Access
Try 14 days free. Cancel any time.
About this course
Few would argue that Tommy Emmanuel is the most charismatic, soulful, and technically brilliant fingerstyle guitar player walking the planet today. Learning to play any of Tommy’s songs, as Tommy himself would perform it, is no easy task for we mere mortal guitar players, but the learning adventure is rich with rewards.
Add in legendary John Knowles and the musicality is endless. Composer, recording artist and master fingerstyle guitarist, John Knowles has collaborated with the world’s finest fingerstyle and classical guitarists including Chet Atkins, Jerry Reed, Lenny Breau, Tommy Emmanuel, and the Romero Family.
We're thrilled to have both these amazing artists collaborating on this TrueFire course, Certified Gems Duets.
"Guitar players love playing duets - they get to take advantage of each other's musical ideas and the special chemistry that comes when you play together."
This course is organized into two sections. In the first section, Tommy and John talk about arrangements, song keys, dynamics, playing together, listening, making your arrangements interesting, and so many other things that will be helpful for your arranging skills.
"A duet is where two people make music together, which could be any combination of musicians: a singer and a piano player, a guitar player and a violin player, etc. - it doesn't matter as long as it's two people. The key to being in a duet is each person trusting and listening to the other ... It's important to think of playing a duet not as "you and me", but as "us". Every time we're working on an arrangement together, we get to a certain point where we agree that it starts to sound like "us", and not just both of us playing."
Then, in the second section, they will breakdown and perform some arrangements that they've put together so that you can see exactly what they're talking about.
Tommy and John will explain and demonstrate all of the key concepts and approaches along the way. You’ll get standard notation and tabs for each of the licks. Plus, they include all of the rhythm tracks for you to work with on your own. In addition, you’ll be able to loop or slow down any of the videos so that you can work with the lessons at your own pace.
Grab your guitar and let’s play Tommy Emmanuel and John Knowles!
Add in legendary John Knowles and the musicality is endless. Composer, recording artist and master fingerstyle guitarist, John Knowles has collaborated with the world’s finest fingerstyle and classical guitarists including Chet Atkins, Jerry Reed, Lenny Breau, Tommy Emmanuel, and the Romero Family.
We're thrilled to have both these amazing artists collaborating on this TrueFire course, Certified Gems Duets.
"Guitar players love playing duets - they get to take advantage of each other's musical ideas and the special chemistry that comes when you play together."
This course is organized into two sections. In the first section, Tommy and John talk about arrangements, song keys, dynamics, playing together, listening, making your arrangements interesting, and so many other things that will be helpful for your arranging skills.
"A duet is where two people make music together, which could be any combination of musicians: a singer and a piano player, a guitar player and a violin player, etc. - it doesn't matter as long as it's two people. The key to being in a duet is each person trusting and listening to the other ... It's important to think of playing a duet not as "you and me", but as "us". Every time we're working on an arrangement together, we get to a certain point where we agree that it starts to sound like "us", and not just both of us playing."
Then, in the second section, they will breakdown and perform some arrangements that they've put together so that you can see exactly what they're talking about.
Tommy and John will explain and demonstrate all of the key concepts and approaches along the way. You’ll get standard notation and tabs for each of the licks. Plus, they include all of the rhythm tracks for you to work with on your own. In addition, you’ll be able to loop or slow down any of the videos so that you can work with the lessons at your own pace.
Grab your guitar and let’s play Tommy Emmanuel and John Knowles!
What you'll learn
- Execute Travis picking with French cafe rhythm variations
- Create harmonic effects using pick technique
- Compose intros by repurposing existing melodic material
- Understand how to arrange songs for guitar duets
- Develop left-hand finger independence for complex voicings
Release date: 01/16/2019 • 1h 21m runtime
Sample lessons
Putting Arrangements Together
Overview
After Paris
Performance
Amazing Grace
Overview
Amazing Grace
Performance
What's included
22 lessons • 9 charts
Certified Guitar Duets
Hi, John Knowles and Tommy Emmanuel here, and welcome to Certified Guitar Duets. Guitar players love playing duets - they get to take advantage of each other's musical ideas and the special chemistry that comes when you play together. We used these ideas to create the duets for our Heart Songs album.
We've organized our course into two sections. In the first section, we're going to talk about arrangements, song keys, dynamics, playing together, listening, making your arrangements interesting, and so many other things that will be helpful for your arranging skills.
Then, in the second section we're going to breakdown and perform some arrangements that we've put together so that you can see exactly what we're talking about, and have some fun playing these tunes yourself.
All the tunes are tabbed and notated, and you have the ability to loop and slow down videos to work at your own pace. So, grab your guitar, get it in tune, and let's get started!
We've organized our course into two sections. In the first section, we're going to talk about arrangements, song keys, dynamics, playing together, listening, making your arrangements interesting, and so many other things that will be helpful for your arranging skills.
Then, in the second section we're going to breakdown and perform some arrangements that we've put together so that you can see exactly what we're talking about, and have some fun playing these tunes yourself.
All the tunes are tabbed and notated, and you have the ability to loop and slow down videos to work at your own pace. So, grab your guitar, get it in tune, and let's get started!
What is a Duet?
A duet is where two people make music together, which could be any combination of musicians: a singer and a piano player, a guitar player and a violin player, etc. - it doesn't matter as long as it's two people.
The key to being in a duet is each person trusting and listening to the other. Those are the two big building blocks, and being an accompanist is the most important job that a musician can learn. One of the best parts of playing with another player that you trust is getting to know them and their traits, and you find a way of "flying your kite" and making great music with that person.
It's important to think of playing a duet not as "you and me", but as "us". Every time we're working on an arrangement together, we get to a certain point where we agree that it starts to sound like "us", and not just both of us playing.
The key to being in a duet is each person trusting and listening to the other. Those are the two big building blocks, and being an accompanist is the most important job that a musician can learn. One of the best parts of playing with another player that you trust is getting to know them and their traits, and you find a way of "flying your kite" and making great music with that person.
It's important to think of playing a duet not as "you and me", but as "us". Every time we're working on an arrangement together, we get to a certain point where we agree that it starts to sound like "us", and not just both of us playing.
Your Role in a Duet
In our roles as players in a duet, we try to find the best ways to use our individual strengths. One of us (Tommy) prefers to play melody, and the other rhythm (John), as these are the areas that we excel at. We start by learning a melody, learning it faithfully and properly, and then we try to bend it a little to make it work with us.
When listening to a song to create an arrangement, we're listening to the words that are being sung and the story that is being told. When the listener hears us play the song, they know the words, so they expect the arrangement to reflect that.
This is where our individual skills come in, and we can start to build our own version of the tune. John has arrangement skills and chordal knowledge, so he often handles that part, but often times we switch between the melody and the rhythm as well. We're looking for moments in the song that tell us where to take the arrangement, such as we do with Billy Joel's "Lullabye".
The goal is to sound like two guitar players playing together, not two guys jamming. There's a strength in creating a great arrangement, and you're instincts will tell you what that is!
When listening to a song to create an arrangement, we're listening to the words that are being sung and the story that is being told. When the listener hears us play the song, they know the words, so they expect the arrangement to reflect that.
This is where our individual skills come in, and we can start to build our own version of the tune. John has arrangement skills and chordal knowledge, so he often handles that part, but often times we switch between the melody and the rhythm as well. We're looking for moments in the song that tell us where to take the arrangement, such as we do with Billy Joel's "Lullabye".
The goal is to sound like two guitar players playing together, not two guys jamming. There's a strength in creating a great arrangement, and you're instincts will tell you what that is!
Putting Arrangements Together
When we start out, we play through the song a few times, and often it's all over the place. It can be a mess, but it's important to do this in order to understand each other's interpretation, and agree on the set of chords that we'll use.
A unique situation that we have here is that John is playing a nylon string guitar, and Tommy has a steel string guitar, so there are two different voices at play here. We need to find a way to make them gel together and make them sound beautiful. One approach is playing at different parts of the neck - this allows the voices to be distinct, yet complimentary in how much of the arrangement they occupy.
Just as well, you have to be mindful of the volume of both instruments, playing softer on the steel string in order to let the nylon strings shine through. Playing with dynamics will also allow the arrangement to get louder and softer overall, making sure that you're paying attention to what one another is doing.
A unique situation that we have here is that John is playing a nylon string guitar, and Tommy has a steel string guitar, so there are two different voices at play here. We need to find a way to make them gel together and make them sound beautiful. One approach is playing at different parts of the neck - this allows the voices to be distinct, yet complimentary in how much of the arrangement they occupy.
Just as well, you have to be mindful of the volume of both instruments, playing softer on the steel string in order to let the nylon strings shine through. Playing with dynamics will also allow the arrangement to get louder and softer overall, making sure that you're paying attention to what one another is doing.
Coloring Chords
Let's use "Danny Boy" as an example here of how we can move beyond the basic chords to "color" the arrangement, and find new sounds to build off of. These are chord ideas taken from other arrangers, but also piano players and strings - all great sources to bring into the duet!
Dynamics
When you're playing a song, there's usually a moment in the song where it's building (often when you're coming out of a verse and into a bridge). Every song has a moment where it wants to do that, with dynamics being what gives music its feeling. It can surprise the listener, and is an important tool for musicians to create atmosphere and tell a story. We're trying to find the push-pull of the music, allowing it to breathe.
In a duet, we don't necessarily know how the other person is going to play dynamically. You have to sense that the other person is going to do something, and have to both take it there.
In a duet, we don't necessarily know how the other person is going to play dynamically. You have to sense that the other person is going to do something, and have to both take it there.
Note Register Choices
Sometimes, there's a lot going on in an arrangement, and other times it breaks all the way down to just the melody. With our arrangement of "Danny Boy", we reached a point near the end where we realized we had said everything we wanted to with harmony, and we needed to do so with the melody. So, what we did was have one person take it down low, and another up high and play the melody in different registers. This is a great arranging tool when playing in a duo; it's as if the whole orchestra has gone quiet and it's just two singers following each other's voices.
+ 15 more lessons
Reviews
21 results
yanaka
Verified buyer
01/07/22
Great harmony
I bought this course because the music that these musicians make is so beautiful. Even If you can’t learn all the techniques, it’s worthwhile to just listen and watch them play together. Of course, they explain and generously provide all their secrets and there is so much to learn. This is a great course for intermediate players who want to go to the next level.
Arik
08/11/21
Absolutely Brilliant
You only need to watch one performance to know what you're dealing with here. These two are true masters of the instrument. An absolute delight.
Starglazer
Verified buyer
07/02/21
I enjoy the way the songs are put together.Great lessons And players. Thanks.
StringTheorist
Verified buyer
08/06/20
CGP x 2 - The stuff dreams are made of!!
Two legendary guitarists share their stories, insights, knowledge, mistakes, approaches to the instrument, approaches to a song, approaches to a duet and share their music...what an absolute privilege it is to sit in with that! Whether you often play in duets with other guitarists or not there is still so much to learn from this course as it equally applies to multi-track recording or looping yourself, where you may layer one part over another part of your guitar playing. Playing alone you could also incorporate both aspects of Tommy's and John's playing into a single piece, moving between them, as they have such different styles and approaches it's great to hear how they both approach a piece and work to compliment each other. It's hugely valuable to hear how two players navigate playing together with sensitivity and respect for the music and for each other though, that in itself is a profound lesson to learn and of enormous value to any guitar player or musician!
Stop searching. Start improving with All Access.
Try 14 days free. Cancel any time.
