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At some point in your life as a musician, you are going to confront the option to collaborate musically with other players. Sometimes, this will be in a band setting. But you also might have the chance to play with one other musician as a duet. In a duet, it doesn’t matter what two instruments are being played. Rather, it matters most that both players play together in synchronicity. The goal is for both of your playing to form its own, unified sound rather than sound like two individuals playing in tandem.

In this unique course, Certified Guitar Duets, legendary guitarists, Tommy Emmanuel and John Knowles show you the full potential of duetting.

Here are 4 free duet guitar lessons from the course. For the full course, check out Certified Guitar Duets on TrueFire!

Putting Arrangements Together


Download the tab & notation for this duet guitar lesson

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.

Amazing Grace: Overview


Download the tab & notation for this duet guitar lesson

We only started messing around with this arrangement of “Amazing Grace” last night, so this will be going through it together. We’re starting in the key of D here, which a lot of gospel music is written in. We then go up to E, where John will take a solo, then finish things off in F (another gospel key). Let’s check it out.

Amazing Grace: Performance


Download the tab & notation for this duet guitar lesson

Take a listen to how the different guitar parts mesh together here. Next we’ll break this down.

Amazing Grace: Breakdown


Download the tab & notation for this duet guitar lesson

Let’s break down our “instant arrangement” of “Amazing Grace”. We’re starting in the key of D here, which a lot of gospel music is written in.

Enjoying these free duet guitar lessons from Tommy Emmanuel and John Knowles? Check out their TrueFire course, Certified Guitar Duets.