Taught by Dennis Hodges in Rock and Country Songs With Dennis Hodges seriesLength: 27:48Difficulty: 2.5 of 5
Dennis Hodges is known on JamPlay as a "Metal" guitar instructor but in this series he'll teach you classic songs from bands such as ZZ Top.
Lesson 1
Here is a lesson on a very popular song from ZZ Top's Tres Hombres, which was released in 1973. Dennis Hodges teaches you all the parts, so get ready for some good ol' fashioned blues rock!
Length: 33:00 Difficulty: 3.0 Members OnlyLesson 2
Dennis Hodges teaches you how to play this classic song from ZZ Top. If you are a Billy Gibbons fan or just a fan of tasty, slow blues playing in general, check out this lesson!
Length: 60:04 Difficulty: 3.0 Members OnlyLesson 3
Learn this early rock 'n' roll classic from Big Joe Turner. Dennis Hodges teaches all of the guitar parts as well as the saxophone solo adapted for guitar.
Length: 31:00 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 4
Learn the guitar parts to Jethro Tull's "Locomotive Breath" as well as a guitar arrangement of the flute solo.
Length: 56:00 Difficulty: 3.0 Members OnlyLesson 5
Dennis Hodges covers the acoustic Beatles classic "Yesterday."
Length: 20:25 Difficulty: 2.0 Members OnlyLesson 6
Dennis Hodges teaches both the acoustic and electric parts to the classic Beatles song "Can't Buy Me Love."
Length: 27:48 Difficulty: 2.5 Members OnlyLesson 7
Dennis Hodges teaches "Drive My Car," a classic song from The Beatles.
Length: 25:32 Difficulty: 2.5 Members Only
About Dennis Hodges
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For better or worse, Dennis Hodges cannot stop playing music, and (he hopes) will never stop playing music.
Growing up in Flint, Michigan, Dennis had a tremendous passion for drawing. He couldn't stop copying moves from bands he saw on MTV, though, and it didn't help that his parents filled the house with Santana, Stevie Ray, and Allman Bros. (on real records, no less!) so it wasn't long till he got his first guitar. It was junk. Within a few weeks his parents traded in a poor acoustic for a less junky 3/4-size electric.
Dennis started lessons right away at the age of 8. He still remembers hating it for awhile, and not taking it seriously until he was 12. He is thankful his parents forced him to practice early on and kept paying for lessons,
even though rational thinking should have stopped them after a year.
Around this time drawing became less important, and guitar consumed all his attention. After 6 years of lessons he parted ways with his teacher and, after trying out two others with no results, decided to continue alone.
His nerdistic tendencies paid off, as he put in hours working on picking and left hand exercises and learned as many Randy Rhoads and Kirk Hammett solos as he could.
Luckily, there were playing opportunities at school talent shows and church. Dennis was playing bass at his church when he was 13, helping to hone his performance skills in a group setting.
In high school, Dennis joined the marching band on sousaphone for all 4 years. It was as awesome as you could expect. He was also fortunate enough to be in several different metal bands, still play at church, and get the
incredible opportunity to play guitar for many local community theaters. This kept his sight-reading in shape and gave him an appreciation for different styles of music (and paid pretty well, from a high
schooler's perspective).
In 2001, Dennis came to Bexley, Ohio to study guitar at Capital University with Stan Smith. His studies emphasized jazz and classical guitar. Here his metal past merged with a deeper understanding of the instrument and
music in general, and the basis for most of his teaching style was set in motion.
Dennis now plays guitar for Upper Arlington Lutheran Church every Sunday, for St. Christopher in Grandview, Ohio, with the youth group, and also plays for touring Broadway shows that stop in Columbus. Occasionally,
he plays weddings and private parties, and he is starting a new cover band with some friends, called Dr. Awkward. He is blessed to have his understanding and supportive wife Kate, and is glad to be at JamPlay!
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Member Comments about this Lesson
Discussions with our instructors are just one of the many benefits of becoming a member of JamPlay.Sorry, I mean that the chord is XX0453 (and bass is playing the G I think)
One little thing here: If you look at live versions of them playing this, you can see that the Dminor shape actually just moves up a whole step, so it's like a G6 instead of an open G. Actually, I even hear it in the studio version now that I listen to it closely. Sounds like guitar is doing xx05453 instead of 320033 like it says in the tab. I know it's just a minor difference though, and a regular G still sounds correct here.