Evaluation- find out what you know, what you want to learn, and talk to you about your musical interests. Review what you already know and figure out what skills you would like to strengthen. Provide a practice routine and an assignment to learn for next lesson.
Students can bring in material they wish to learn or we can continue with the curriculum I provide based on their evaluation in lesson 1. Standard chords, scales and basic music theory build the cornerstones for success. We will go through exercises to help solidify these fundamentals and build a strong knowledge base.
At this point, we will go over various techniques on the guitar to improve tonality, add flair and style, and define your personality on the guitar. Influences from favorite bands, artists, and genres will begin to show themselves in your playing. We will continue to learn theory and chord shapes that lend themselves to improvisation. We will work on rhythmic exercises and practice with a metronome. We will learn modes and begin to understand how to apply them within the framework of a song.
At this point, a beginner has most likely advanced to a higher level class. Depending on the pace of the student, we will continue with exercises to strengthen core skills, build and improve on fundamentals, and advance to more complicated music theory. We will practice changing chords and seek to understand relationships between chords. We will learn full songs and performance techniques. We will use dynamics and flat picking techniques to embellish melodies and fill out empty spaces in songs. We will strum chords and pluck melodies that come from those chord shapes. We will explore different positions up and down the neck and learn how scales connect with chord shapes as we move along.
Evaluation- what do you already know? What styles/genres do you play and do you want to branch out into new styles? We will go over music theory and find out where you are looking for improvement. We will find where you fit in the lesson plan with your current abilities, and create a practice routine for the next lesson. I will ask you what material you wish to learn (if you have any songs or artists you wish to emulate) or if youβre more interested in writing music.
We will strengthen prior knowledge and reinforce techniques necessary for next level advancement. I will introduce new rhythmic techniques and we will practice with a metronome. We will build up speed without sacrificing accuracy and tonality. We will discuss proper finger placement and movement on the fretboard to improve speed and accuracy when playing fast or difficult melodies. We will go over chord shapes and integrate melodies into moving chord positions.
We will continue to improve music theory knowledge and learn more complicated chords, rhythms and techniques. Depending on the direction the student wishes to move, we will focus on techniques applicable to their preferred style or method of playing. I will explain jazz theory as it is applicable to every style of music, and explain relationships between chords, scales, and modes within a given key. We will talk about going outside the key and when it is appropriate to do so.
We will continue to grow and improve through practice exercises in finger dexterity while playing modes and also while playing the changes. We will practice rhythmic exercises with a metronome to improve timing, swing, shuffle and straight ahead rhythms. We will dive into genre specific styles depending on the studentsβ preference. We will continue to explore and challenge our knowledge and expand our playing styles. I will encourage the student to find performance opportunities and we will work through a set list and discuss where to place songs in the set list based on similarities, difficulty level, key, and natural flow.