5/19 Lesson - A Little Forgiveness

Warm up - spider - great job.
remember to do the finger gym as well at home each day

Speed: we worked on the metal speed drill on the 12th fret.

Aural training - hearing different chords

1. major 7th - jazz sound
2. Dominant 7th or just 7th - barber shop quartet or bluesy
3. minor - dark
4. minor7 e.g. Am7 - open, optimistic?
5. 6th - like a choral group (play a G with an open high e string)
6. C2 - add a D to a standard C chord
7. C9 technically requires the other notes in the triad (root, 3rd, 5th, 7th and then the 9th). check out C9 forms here
   

Singer/Songwriter
It is a crime to neglect your singing talent. This song will help you play some dynamic chords and sing at the same time. Have fun with Forgiveness by Patty Griffin.

Rhythm and Tabbing exercise. This song has 4 chords see if you can figure them out!
I Believe in Jesus

Next Week

1. Do your best with playing and singing Forgiveness
2. Practice your favorite 2 minor pentatonic forms over the blues mp3 i sent you
3. Strum your brains out and chart out I Believe in Jesus
   

5/12 Lesson

Review the 30 minute practice. With a busy schedule you won't have an hour a day to practice so we are tuning your guitar workout for 30 minutes a day. Here's the how and why that will move you steadily towards guitar virtuosity!

1. warm up with the finger gym
2. Rhythm exercise
3. Minor Pentatonics - play two forms
4. Aural training - play along with your ipod
5. Inspiration - listen to guitarists on pandora.com - Tommy Emmanuel
   

5/5 Lesson

Since we couldn't meet f2f, here's what we would have worked on.

Organizing your practice time to reap the biggest reward:

I highly recommend you check out Justin's website. In particular his tips on practicing are very good.

• Play a little everyday. This is key. Your muscle memory will improve, your fingers will get tough and you will improve much faster.
• Always practice to a beat. If you figure out Band-in -a-box great. Playing with a metronome is a drag...
• Play slow and clean, get your fingers perpendicular to the frets and play the notes with your finger as close to the top of the fret as possible.
  

If you have 60 minutes: (set a timer or you will forget to switch, write down in your practice book what you did each session - it will keep you honest and will help you re-focus the next day)

First half

1. Finger Gym - 10 minutes
2. Pentatonics - 10 minutes - alternate forms 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 1-5
3. Major Scales - 10 minutes - experiment, improvise, play melody lines

Second Half

1. Rhythm - 10 minutes - Work the right hand and get funky. Long train running, Strumming fast and smooth on simple chord changes. Its about the right hand!
2. Jam - 10 minutes - Fire up the blues tracks or play a song that you know the chords to and play along. Imitate the melody line, make up your own melody, have fun. This will begin to train your ear to listen for chord changes.
   
3. Work out and learn songs - 10 minutes. If there is a song you like and want to learn how to play, chart it out yourself. I recommend you get the lyrics online but figure our the chords yourself. Bear in mind that the guitarist might not be playing chord patterns all below the 3rd fret.
   

If you have 30 minutes:

1. Finger Gym - 10 minutes
2. Pentatonics - 5 minutes
3. Major Scales - 5 minutes
   
4. Rhythm - 5 minutes
5. Jam - Chart - 5 minutes