Chitlins Con Carne Style Octaves Lesson
Octaves are a really hip way to spice up some mellow easy lines. They aren’t hard once you get the hang of it, and the skill in muting out the unwanted strings carries over to all aspects of your playing.
Enjoy the lesson 
Downloads
This Video (MP4)Mac users should use the MP4 version to download the video
- This Video (WMV)
Windows users should use the WMV version to download this video.
The TAB for the example.This is the TAB for the example in the middle of the video
Griff,I always wondered how they do this . Thank you for putting this together. It is a lot of fun to play. Mike Z.
Hi Griff..big fan for years, it wasn’t able to open the octaves lesson; don’t know why?? Help
your lessons are always interesting love stevie ray Vaughn and play all his recordings along with other blues guitarists
Cool lesson.
The lick you play at 5:53 is outstanding. Could you please make a lesson on it?
Griff,
Once again – Nice Work! This lesson demonstrates that it doesn’t have to be hard, or complex, to sound good. I’ve purchased several of your courses, and will no doubt buy more. You have a great, even-paced, logical method of teaching. Don’t change a thing! David
Griff, I think you are the best on line teacher out there! Simple instructions and you put it in a way that anyone can understand. You are the MAN!!
Loved it would love a course on bluesy jazz pieces and styles
If you’re working on this style, check out Emily Remler’s stuff too. She was a great Wes style octave player.
Excellent stuff, Griff, so well planned to put across in a simple way, great how you picked it up to demonstrate
Best regards,
John.
I enjoyed this lesson. I had a couple Wes Montgomery records from A&M back in the 60s and wondered how he produced that soft sound of his. Thanks
Love all the new lessons, it’s all new for me and you have made it all so much better for me to learn!
I watch these videos and it seems you have a very low action on your guitars and the pickups very close to the strings. Maybe you could talk about your guitar setup some time?
Thanks Griff! I’ve always liked Wes Montgomery and you make this lesson seem so easy.
Cool Stuff!
Use to have some Wes Montgomery albums and at first I liked what I heard doing this octave playing but I lost liking of it so much when Charlie Byrd was playing at the same time and George Benson too, both who I considered to be better guitar players then Wes Montgomery. When I work on lead solos I try to throw in octave playing here and there along with double stops and other cool things. I know Wes Montgomery was highly regarded but there seemed to be too much octave playing on his albums and in my opinion, not nearly as tasty as Charlie Byrd’s playing.
cool…thanks…later.
cowboy
Got my creative fire goin’ there, Griff! Thanks!
Octave playing; another murky area explained in easy to understand terms and shown how it is done. Excellent as usual, thanks Griff.
I’m mainly a bassist but I also doodle around with the electric and acoustic guitar. Love your guitar lessons. Thanks Griff.
As I listened to this I realized this is how Jimi hendrix “All Along the Watchtower” goes — cool!
excellent! Love the octaves, gives a nice soft jazzy feel. Thank you Griff!
As ever Griff, another greatly appreciated Pearl of wisdom. You always look outside the Box, so to speak, as you seem to understand your general audience needs, so well.
Thanks.
Quite elementary Watson… ;=)
Hi Griff, I’m a Wes Montgomery fan, like the course, good stuff.
Useful little tidbit. Thank-you
This is very rich sounding! You make it easy,though effort is required. Also explaining this concept using the scale makes more sense…better than guessing around. I thank you!
Many thanks Griff
That’s “priceless”
Wes was the master of octaves I say this because they dominated his playing style and he was one of the first to use this style exclusively check out his version of impressions you will hear this thanks Griff for the lesson good stuff !!!!!
Thank you Griff. This makes a lot of sense to me and I can see so many new positions opening up as if by magic.
Thanks Very Much Griff… Good as usual…Its got a little of Mr. George Benson sounds in it , love it….
Boom! Griff unlocks the secret of Wes Montgomery. At least it was a secret to me before taking the BGU course and understanding the Pentatonic scale. A bit over 50 years ago when I was a teenager, I remember going over to friend’s house to listen to a brand new Wes Montgomery 331/3 rpm album. e sat there for hours trying to figure out how he got that unique (then) sound, Got as far as the octaves fingering, but didn’t know anything about the Pentatonic scale. Amazing how Griff can demystify this whole deal in less than 10 minutes. Thanks for the courses and the extra tutorials.
Taught myself while in the service 50 years ago and when folk was my interest. Some arpeggio finger picking of chords was all. However, I strummed with my middle finger while resting my thumb heel on the guitar. I enjoyed the soft sound and the easy rhythm. Didn’t use a pick until a year or so ago. Now I can hold the pick and still strum with the middle finger and hopefully combine the two with this lesson. Thanks You are the best teacher.
I’m a music teacher, and I really appreciate your teaching style and your knowledge, and your chops. Question: what exactly is that flatted 6th turnaround chord you mentioned, and how does that fit into the structure? I haven’t seen that chord in the charts for “The Thrill is Gone”. One cool one I found is G to F#7sus4 (2 beats) to F#7 (2 beats) to Bm.
Mahalo Nui, fred
yo Griff, that was nice, help me remember some things i forgot.
Lovely. Like you so eloquently said: the more you play them, the more you master them…Thanks for sharing…Thought it means chile con carne.
Always appreciate these little lessons. Keep up the good work. Love it
Love anything associated with Steve Ray. Anything that you have on him would be great.
Thanks heaps for your lessons and clips that you have posted.
Hendrix did something like that after his guitar solo at woodstock..aesome
On the subject of “jam tracks” should we use grape or strawberry jam? 🙂
Griff, I bought your course B.G.U. and love it! Matter of fact I passed it on to my Son Sean. I’d like to give you some constructive criticism if you don’t mine. This lesson could tend to be a little confusing because you refer to crossing the B string when you get to the D. Technically you are crossing the G sting to the B string. I love your teaching. It has helped me immensely. Thanks a lot, Guitar Dan
Cheers Griff
For another great lesson as always
Learning all the time
I have to tell you , I think you are the best teacher I have found out here , now I have been a professional audio engineer for over 50 years I have worked with a lot of big Name guitarist , and I am definitely not a beginner lol but I just can’t get my fingers to do a
( flat 6th turnaround ) its just not going to happen ,, lol ,, I guess my fingers are just to fat , I keep muting strings I don’t want to ,, I love learning from you , really love all the suprise emails . please keep up the great work . I am in up state NY but one of these days I am going to come out to Cali visit some friends and meet you . my friend Arron Davis runs a Jazz club in L.A. he is Miles Davis’s Son we worked together with Joe Bananas in the Blood Line Project oh my God back in 1996 lol
Once again the perfect bite size chunk that gives us enough confidence to have a go without being too simple or too daunting
Top work mr H
Nice one as usual Griff. Yes I definitely hear George Benson in there. As for Guitar Dan’s comment; remember… Griff is talking octaves….. you have to jump over the G from D to get to the B (octave).
Thanks Griff, that really helped me with the octave, and understand where to find it after the B string ! I was trying to play some Bob Welch songs like Hypnotized ! What a great player he was in Fleetwood Mac !
My question is sorta related to the lesson here. Not being graced with a tenor voice, when I play and want to sing songs from books/sheet music, I need to change the key.Can I do that by using a capo? Capo on first fret-key of F and so on? Love the octave sound by the way, always liked listening to Montgomery.
Thanks
here is a you tube lesson from Griff covering the use of the capo … hope it helps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgbX5tXl4Ms
Hey Griff,
Just a Cool Lesson.
Michael-Sydney-Australia March 2016
Thanks Griff, very useful as always.
Hey Griff,
That is so cool. I’m guessing we can use the same idea for rock style songs, too?
Thx, as always,
Rob
Las Vegas
Was watching Wes. Seems like he use index pointer finger and index on lower octaves rather than pinky and pointer for all
Thx
Sorry meant Wes uses Pointer and index – on lower octaves
so cool, thx Griff
That was interesting..I will add it to my practice rutine as I practice BluesGuitar 2.0, 5 Easy Blues solos, with the 29 Blues Jam tracks and the Major Minor Blues Boxes lesson and where the root notes are always at no matter where you put the boxes…So many things to practice and the time gets longer and the speed increases as I get into THE ZONE….
Sounds kinda like “The Work Song”.