PRESENCE - Volume 64
Inspiration For Guitarists
Something started happening after I released my YouTube videos on Mary Jane's Last Dance, Comfortably Numb, and Hey Joe.
People started reaching out.
Not just "great video" messages — but specific ones. Things like "I've been playing for 20 years and I never understood why that chord shape worked there until you showed it in context." Or "I finally get the CAGED system now that I can hear it in a song I actually love."
That told me something important. Concepts land differently when you hear them inside music you already have a relationship with. Theory in isolation is one thing. Theory inside Comfortably Numb is another thing entirely.
So I went to work.
Here's what I just added to the Essential Skills Course:
I built out two new sections — one inside the Pentatonic Practice Studio and one inside the CAGED Practice Studio — both built around real songs.
13 new backing tracks in the Pentatonic Practice Studio and 5 in the CAGED Practice Studio - built around real songs:
Mary Jane's Last Dance — Tom Petty
Comfortably Numb — Pink Floyd
Wonderful Tonight — Eric Clapton
I Don't Trust Myself (With Loving You) — John Mayer
Blue Sky — The Allman Brothers
One Of These Nights — The Eagles
Slow Dancing In A Burning Room — John Mayer
Let It Be — The Beatles
Another Brick In The Wall — Pink Floyd
I'm Bad I'm Nationwide — ZZ Top
Bad Moon Rising — Creedence Clearwater Revival
Hey Joe — Jimi Hendrix
Melissa — The Allman Brothers
Great songs to practice with. That part was important to me.
And then there's the piece I'm most excited about.
A full Hey Joe deep dive — now inside the CAGED Bonus Library
I added a complete lesson on Hey Joe using CAGED shapes — and this one comes with something course members have really liked: interactive video tabs.
Here's what that means. As I play, a tab I created moves in real time with the video. Whenever I'm on a specific chord or note, the tab is showing you exactly what I'm playing — not a static diagram you have to cross-reference. It moves with me. You can also slow it down if you need to.
There's also a downloadable PDF tab included so you can take it away from the screen.
I put Hey Joe in this section for a reason. The song uses five chords — C, G, D, A, and E. Those also happen to be the five open chord shapes the CAGED system is built on, and five of the most common keys guitarists play in. In the lesson I take each CAGED shape and apply it to all five chords in the song using the same grip. You move the shape — not your hand position — and suddenly the whole fretboard starts to make sense in a way that practice exercises alone can't give you.
Here's a link to one of the interactive tabs from that lesson so you can see what I mean:
If you're already in the course — log in and dig in. This is all waiting for you.
If you're curious what the course looks like, the link below will show you everything that's inside..
Happy Practicing - Dustin.
P.S. — The Essential Skills Course covers the Number System, the Landmark Pentatonic System, and the CAGED System — the three frameworks I've used for 40 years to learn songs, navigate the fretboard, and actually understand what I'm playing. If that sounds like what you've been missing, the link above will tell you everything.