Greg Lake has penned a handful of great songs for guitarists. He is of course best known as the bass player and voice of progressive rock pioneers Emerson, Lake& Palmer but his acoustic guitar songs are mini- masterpieces that feature complex and intricate techniques, as well as beautiful melodies. In this set of lessons we breakdown his five most requested and popular tunes.

We start at the beginning of ELP's catalog with Lucky Man. This is really a lesson for beginners as it uses just 4 open chords and a simple strumming pattern. This is a good song to work on coordinating singing with playing, as the rest of the lessons get a bit more complicated. Level 1

Continuing chronologically, we come to The Sage. This appeared on their live album 'Pictures At An Exhibition' , where most of the album was Keith Emerson's interpretation of the classic Mussorgsky piece but Greg composed this beautiful ballad. It uses mostly an arpeggio technique, very common in many of his songs, but includes a very challenging, classical instrumental section, which uses the hybrid picking technique of combining a pick with the fingers. Level 8

Their fourth album, Trilogy, included probably his most famous piece, From The Beginning. It features a couple of unusual chords and a percussive strumming accompaniment. This is followed by an arpeggio section that uses the standard alternating picking technique. It can be quite challenging to sing along with this style of accompaniment. Level 7

Still You Turn Me On was from their next album, Brain Salad Surgery and is played in Dropped D tuning. Greg does many of his songs, including this one, on a 12-string guitar but it sounds great on a 6- string as well. Like many of his songs, it uses unusual chord shapes along with an arpeggio accompaniment. Level 6

As ELP was winding down the first phase of their career in 1974, Greg recorded a solo single that has become a seasonal standard, I Believe In Father Christmas. This piece is also done in Dropped D and uses a simple set of 2-finger chords working their way down the neck. He plays this with the hybrid picking technique but it can be done with standard fingerstyle technique as well. Level 5