Newsletter

Bird Blues, Ian Stich

The newsletter for guitar players.

by Vivid Guitar

Jun 3, 2025

3 min read

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Action is the only difference between someone who constantly creates and shows off their work and someone who doesn’t. Both people were afraid. Neither of them knew what the outcome would be. Neither knew how others would judge them, but the first person did it anyway. - Paul Jarvis

Guitar Practice

In the previous issue, we took a look at a way to jazz up a standard 12-bar-blues progression.

Today let's take it a step further, and look at a version of jazz blues sometimes referred to 'Bird Blues', from Charlie Parker using it the songs 'Blues for Alice' and 'Laird Baird'.

This blues in F features a lot of chord substitutions, and uses three ii-V patterns in a row (Em7-A7 | Dm7-G7 | Cm7-F7).

While there are of course many different way to play these chords, in this example, we use shell chords, which are basically smaller chunks of the full chords. In some of these voicings, we're not playing the root note.

Showcase

Ian Stich, StichMethod

Ian Stich is a guitarist and teacher who helps people learn to play guitar in a fun and easy-to-understand way. He runs a popular YouTube channel called StichMethod, where he shares lessons on blues, improvisation, and how to make sense of the guitar neck. His goal is to make learning guitar feel less confusing and more enjoyable for everyone.

With over 25 years of teaching experience, Ian has the guitar chops and knowledge, but also has a teaching style that is friendly and encouraging, making students feel confident as they learn.

Ian explains things in a way that just make sense. He does a great job of simplifying and explaining complex guitar topics - so you'll actually retain what you learn.

Instead of just teaching licks and songs, Ian breaks down and analyzes music, and does a nice job of explaining how to use his lessons as a jumping off point to start doing your own thing.

Ian is known for creating the NeverLost™ system, which helps students understand how to move around the guitar neck using pentatonic scales.

In addition to his YouTube lessons, Ian offers live classes, masterclasses, and personalized video lessons through his website, stichmethod.com. He also teaches courses on platforms like Udemy and TrueFire, reaching students all over the world. With over 322,000 subscribers on YouTube, Ian continues to inspire guitarists of all levels to enjoy playing and keep improving.

Ian's passion for music and guitar shows on all of his videos, and his engaging teaching style make sure you'll get a lot of value from his lessons.

Check out Ian Stich

StichMethod | YouTube | TrueFire Courses

News & Notes

Seventy Seven ALBATROSS-JAZZ-JT guitar — Seventy Seven ALBATROSS-JAZZ-JT

Deviser & Seventy Seven Guitars announced Seventy Seven ALBATROSS-JAZZ-JT and ALBATROSS-HINOKI PP-SP’25/E models. While Seventy Seven guitars are typically made in Japan, these 2 models will be produced in their overseas factory, and set up in Japan.
Fender released Fender Studio - a free new music recording app that features authentic fender amp simulators, professionally-recorded jam tracks, editing and mixing tools, and more.
Gibson announced a new Historic Reissue Parts Collection featuring parts and pickups for replacing missing or damaged components on Gibson guitars. These are the same parts used on many Gibson Custom and Historic Reissue models.
Fender is selling a limited quantity of their Josefina Hand-Wound Stratocaster pickups.
Greg Koch interviewed Seth Rosenbloom - a fiery young blues guitarist from Massachusetts, on his podcast. Apple | Spotify