HighCountryGuitar.com
Elevate your guitar playing.
HighCountryGuitar.com has been online since 1999, helping improvising guitarists learn to navigate the fretboard freely and intuitively.
With a university-level music education, thousands of hours of onstage experience, and thousands more in the lesson studio, HCG owner Paul Murin has developed a clear and concise method of visualizing the fretboard in a way that is easy to use in on-the-fly musical situations.
The HCG website is in the midst of some upgrades & re-designs, but all of the material remains available as we complete the work.
Don't forget to check out the complete guitar courses now available here at HCG (scroll down for more info)!
Complete Guitar Courses
Full-length courses for a range of ability levels, designed to help with specific aspects of guitar playing. Introductory Price! Each course is available for $30 for a limited time only!
A full-featured guitar course designed to help you learn to navigate the fretboard with a chords-first approach.
Designed for late beginner and early intermediate players, Base Camp walks you through the CAGED system and pentatonic scales to give you the bread-and-butter improvisational vocabulary that will provide a great foundation, wherever you choose to go with your playing.
Brand New Course released June 6, 2025!
The follow-up to Base Camp, and designed for intermediate players, Ascent expands on the concepts of CAGED and the pentatonic scales with 7th chord arpeggios and the modes. Instead of learning the modes and arpeggios as "dots on the grid," Ascent continues with the chord-based approach so that you can skip the noodling and create melodic solos on the spot.
More courses in the works!
Grateful Dead for Beginners
Learn the guitar through the music of the Grateful Dead.
A Touch Of Blues
Bring a little bit of blues attitude and vibe to your playing, and apply it in just about any musical context you can name.
Coming Soon!
Free Stuff at HCG!
Check out HCG's free YouTube series on music theory, designed specifically for guitar players.
HCG Email List
Always private, never shared
Thanks! Look for an email once a month or so.
Visit HCG's Instagram page for short lessons, improv tips, theory nuggets, and other interesting guitar-related stuff.
Visit HCG's YouTube channel & hit subscribe lessons, song analysis, solo transcriptions, backing tracks, interviews, etc.
Copyright 2025, HighCountryGuitar.com. All Rights Reserved.
Background artwork: "Guitar Adventure" by Tom McGrath, www.spikedmcgrath.com (Used with permission).