Today's guitar tutorial is a demonstration of how to play "Horse With No Name" by America.

Released in the US in 1972, America's "Horse With No Name" was a smash #1 hit. It remains prominent in pop culture, still in heavy rotation on FM radio and consistently utilized in hit televisions shows, including Breaking Bad, Friends, and BoJack Horseman. It was written by Dewey Bunnell.

This lesson shows you how to play "Horse With No Name" on a 6-string guitar in standard tuning (E A D G B E). The original recording features multiple guitars, including a 12-string. America used an alternate tuning (D E D G B D) on the original recording. Here, we are approximating the feel of the original while remaining in standard tuning.

I wish you happy playing!

This video shows you how to play the most common A minor seventh chord shape on your guitar (commonly abbreviated as Am7). It also includes a few adaptations to hopefully make guitar playing more accessible to a wider range of musicians. Enjoy your playing time!

This video shows you how to play the most common C major chord shape on your guitar (commonly abbreviated as simply a C chord). It also includes a few adaptations to hopefully make guitar playing more accessible to a wider range of musicians. Have fun!

Harmony Integrative Therapy has an extended family. Key people who have inspired us and help make the world a better place. For our first spotlight on the community, we're sending a special shout out to Austin Morford of Morfbeats.

Austin is a skilled designer, builder, and engraver of innovative instruments for Morfbeats alongside his brother Adam. It's not often you come across a family who is creating new instruments, building them from scratch, and inspiring unparalleled levels of creativity in the music realm. In this video you can hear Austin creating a hypnotic rhythm with Morfbeats' High Octave Gamelan Strips and Low Mid Octave Block Bells. It's a thing of beauty to witness.

Aside from the credentials mentioned above, Austin is a composer, ultra talented musician, and all around great person. His designs are a dream come true for the music therapy world: beautiful sounding, hand crafted instruments that can be arranged in a plethora of adaptive, accessible set ups. For example, his Chromatic Gamelan Strips can be arranged in the same shape of a piano octave, or you can reduce the number of pieces at your heart's desire. Try out just having two tones to bounce off of. Need a specific scale? Eliminate a few strips and you have the notes of the pentatonic scale. Or, throw the constraints of music theory and tonal harmony out the window completely, make a custom arrangement, cease to analyze, and just follow the muse. It's endless fun.

Here at Harmony Integrative, we feature a full Chromatic Gamelan Strip set in our library for utilization during music therapy sessions. Thank you Austin for doing all that you do, and for helping us provide the highest quality therapeutic services possible.

https://www.morfbeats.com/

This video shows you how to play the most common E minor chord shape on your guitar (common abbreviations: Em, em, Emin). It also includes 2 adaptations to hopefully make guitar playing more accessible to a wider range of musicians. Have fun!

There are more videos being added to our YouTube channel weekly.

Head over to the Lesson Resources section of the site to check out a new 3/4 backing track that was added today!

"Here's a fun beat for playing in 3/4 waltz time. There is a lot of syncopation in this one. Not every drum part is hitting on the strong beat. Have fun grooving along with it! The tempo is 135 BPM. This is an example of a composition made using the Supermoon drum beat."

Watercolor + gouache painting by eldowho. Right Click it and hit "open image in new tab" to see it in glorious detail.

Did you know there is a Lesson Resources section of this site? It includes many different resources for people who are learning an instrument. The goal of the Lesson Resources section is to help make practicing more fun and effective. I will be adding to this page ongoingly.

I just started a new collection called Drones & Pedal Tones. The key of C was the first in the series, and now earlier today the key of G has been added. Expect more to arrive shortly. But why pedal tones, and what are they?

Pedal Tone - Pedal point, in music, a tone sustained through several changes of harmony that may be consonant or dissonant with it; in instrumental music it is typically in the bass.

Drone -  A sustained tone, usually rather low in pitch, providing a sonorous foundation for a melody or melodies sounding at a higher pitch level.

"Try practicing some scales over these sustained tones. Or, you may find yourself treating the sound as a pedal tone to play chords over. It could even inspire some improvisation. Alone, these drones can sound monotonous. However, treating them as a foundation for musical exploration, you can easily get lost in your playing and take flight." - Will