Garcia Course
Explore and master Jerry Garcia's unique guitar style, improvisation, and techniques. Learn iconic Grateful Dead and JGB songs through licks, solos, theory, and real-world strategies. Taught by a lifelong Deadhead with 45+ years of experience. Whether you're a beginner or advanced, this course offers a deep dive into the soul of the Dead's music and Jerry Garcia's guitar style.
Subscriber-only. Limited enrollment per cohort. Pricing confirmed when you reach out.
About the course
Explore, learn and master the style, sound and guitar soloing concepts of Jerry Garcia!
In this course you will study and perfect the specific strategies and techniques that helped Jerry improvise so freely over the music of The Grateful Dead and JGB.
Whether you're a beginner or an advanced player, this is a great opportunity to learn about Jerry's unique approach to the instrument and improvising.
Students learn through a combination of technical exercises, in depth analysis and music theory. You'll learn trademark licks and solos in the context of your favorite GD and JGB songs. You'll grow as a player and emerge with a whole new understanding of this wonderful music and the guitar style of Jerry Garcia. I hope you'll join me!
If it's been a longstanding dream of yours to break out of your musical comfort zone, improve your playing and learn to play guitar in the style of Jerry Garcia, I think I can really help you out.
How it runs
8 sessions over eight weeks. Every session is live, and each one is recorded and added to your personal archive for the duration of the course.
Who it's for
Intermediate-and-above players, though Jack tries to keep it as palatable as possible for ambitious beginners. The songs you play sit in different harmonic neighborhoods, the skills you develop playing I Know You Rider are different from the skills for Estimated Prophet, and the course explicitly maps which songs build which chops.
The Tunes
The exact setlist for each cohort shifts as Jack tailors to the group, but the running selection draws from:
Althea · Bertha · Bird Song · Brown Eyed Women · Casey Jones · Catfish John · China Cat Sunflower · Crazy Fingers · Cumberland Blues · Dark Star · Deal · Eyes of the World · Fire on the Mountain · Friend of the Devil · GDTRFB · Get Out of My Life Woman · The Harder They Come · He's Gone · I Know You Rider · It Must've Been the Roses · It's All Over Now, Baby Blue · Looks Like Rain · Mission in the Rain · Mississippi Half-Step · Not Fade Away · Oh Babe It Ain't No Lie · Positively 4th Street · Ramble on Rose · Reuben and Cherise · Russian Lullaby · Scarlet Begonias · Ship of Fools · Simple Twist of Fate · Sitting in Limbo · Stella Blue · Stop That Train · Sugar Magnolia · Sugaree · Tangled Up in Blue · Tennessee Jed · That Lucky Old Sun · They Love Each Other · Tough Mama.
The Garcia "buckets"
Rather than teach the tunes as isolated items, the course groups them by the harmonic moves Garcia made:
- Major pentatonic with the flat three, the most-used Garcia vocabulary
- Modal playing, Dorian, Mixolydian, Aeolian; when each one shows up
- Harmonic minor over the dominant, that Spanish/Eastern-European flavor
- Cornell-style enclosures, diatonic above, chromatic below the target tone
- Retreat dynamics, Garcia's signature push-and-pull
- Mixolydian-into-Lydian moves, the IV becoming a Lydian center
Interested in the next cohort?
Slots are limited. Reach out and Jack will get back to you with the next cohort's start date and any specific prerequisites.