Rock & Roll 101

April 22nd, 2025

JJ finished up working on Purple Haze tonight, and then we looked a bit for another song, then decided to go over Purple Haze one more time.

JJ's going to look for the next song to learn.

April 15th, 2025

We continued through the video today, learning the "hendrix E7 sharp 9" chord, and the thumb-over bar chords for G and A. We cycled through them for a while, and decided to save more for next week.

We started here:
https://youtu.be/YgR9F0bs2uY?t=561

April 8th, 2025

April 1st, 2025

Today JJ played through I'm Never Going Back, and did fantastic! Great job, JJ

We added a Jimi Hendrix's song Purple Haze
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgR9F0bs2uY

March 25th, 2025

We worked through Never Going Back Again and finished the song today. JJ said one week of practise and he should have it down! It's an accomplishment, as this is a tricky song, and he's done really really well on it! Great job, JJ!

March 18th, 2025

We continued working through Never Going Back Again, this time focusing on the really high part on the high strings, and then at the end of the lesson trying to refine when the bass line fits with the melody on the G chord part

March 11th, 2025

March 4th, 2025

Looks like my note didn't save from last night.

We worked on I'm Never Going Back on the guitar, which has some interesting and pretty intricate finger picking.

February 25th, 2025

We continued working through The Chain by Fleetwood Mac, and I wrote out the chords for JJ since he didn't have a book. We played through it three or four times, and worked out the bass line part as well.

February 18th, 2025

JJ knew when he came in that he wanted to play The Chain by Fleetwood Mac, so we worked on that. The capo is on only the top five strings, the second fret, making a "Drop E" style of tuning in D minor.

February 11th, 2025

Today we looked around for some more finger-picking songs to learn. We ended up settling on a new song, by Adrianne Lenker called "Cell Phone Says."

February 4th, 2025

JJ is sick today

January 21st, 2025

JJ and I continued learning Landslide, working our way through the chorus. I think he's got it generally now!

January 7th, 2025

JJ started "Landslide" today by Fleetwood Mac. This is a folk, finger-style picking song, and he recognized the name of it so decided to do it.

December 10th, 2024

We started with reviewing House of the Rising Sun, and focused some on the picking pattern. After that, we worked through the intro of True Colours, before settling on Christmas finger picking songs.

Here's the video, which has tab at the bottom:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1AFTMLwv3s

November 26th, 2024

We continued working through The House of the Rising Sun tonight. JJ worked on switching to the F chord from the D especially, and doing the arpeggio picking.

November 12th, 2024

We played through the end of Song 2 by Blur, and then added The Animals, House of the Rising Son
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKcze7oqqoY

November 5th, 2024

We worked through Blur again today, going piece by piece, and then trying to play along with it at 75% speed. It was a bit shaky, so we went through it again piece by piece after that.

I think JJ would be much better if he put even 10 minutes a day into practising.

October 29th, 2024

We went through the first two parts of the Eagle's solo video, but not the third. JJ was mostly wanting to learn the first one he said.

After that, he wanted to learn the song, "Song 2" by Blur.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqPSKdaBD_U

October 22nd, 2024

JJ continued working through Hotel California, the lead parts at the beginning. We slowed the song down to 50%, then moved it gradually up to 75% so he could play along with it.

I suggested he do that this week to get it up to 100% speed.

October 15th, 2024

JJ continued working on the solo parts of Hotel California.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmERFLc7Ukg

October 8th, 2024

JJ started work on a new song today, by the Eagles. Here's the lead tab:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmERFLc7Ukg

October 1st, 2024

JJ continued working through Johnny B. Goode. We made a bit more progress through the song. Probably a week or two and he should be ready to try another one.

September 24th, 2024

Thanks for coming in earlier today JJ. It helped with a schedule issue I was having.

We continued working on Johnny B. Goode. JJ said he had a busy week so didn't practise, but we used the lesson to continue working through the tab in the video.

September 17th, 2024

JJ wanted to learn Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Goode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to_IKcCqCNA

This is a video with the tab along the bottom. We worked through a lot of it except the solo parts, which JJ is going to work on this week.

September 10th, 2024

We continued working through Take Me Out. We added chords for the melodic guitar part (E minor, A minor, and B7) to make it fuller while playing there.

Sounds good! Keep it up!

September 3rd, 2024

JJ started a new song today by Franz Ferdinand, called Take Me Out. It's got three or four main sections that repeat, so we just worked on those, one section at a time.

June 25th, 2024

In JJ's lesson he wanted to review the "rules" of finger picking, so he could trying things on his own. We reviewed aspects like pinky finger as the anchor, using the thumb for the bass and the fifth if needed, and the other fingers as part of a pattern.

We talked about hammer-ons, adding notes to chords (like a ninth), and moving chords to unique places on the neck to change the way they sound.

Great year! See you in the fall.

June 18th, 2024

We continued working on True Colours, focusing on the verse, and the first part of the chorus.

June 11th, 2024

In JJ's lesson we continued working on the beginning part of True Colours.

June 4th, 2024

JJ has done really well on Blackbird! We played along with the recording, and then looked for another song with finger picking to work on.

We settled on Cyndi Lauper, True Colours:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPn0KFlbqX8

May 28th, 2024

We continued working on Blackbird today- not sure how I missed writing it last week- sorry!

He's got the verses down pretty good, although he's rushing them. We added the in-between part, sort of a chorus part.

May 21st, 2024

May 14th, 2024

JJ had been practising Dust In The Wind, and is doing well on it. A couple of little mistakes in the finger picking pattern, which we cleared up.

We then talked about what other songs to learn. He was interested in Evergreen, but settled on Jack Johnson, Upside Down:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQKsPDiEHpQ

May 7th, 2024

JJ did quite well on The Needle and the Damage! He decided today that he'd like to learn Dust In the Wind, the finger picking.

We focused just on the intro this week, however the finger picking positions are mostly the same for the whole song, so once he gets this down, he'll be a large part of the way along for the whole song.

April 30th, 2024

We worked more through The Needle and the Damage Done, and worked out some hammer-ons at the end of the verses

April 23rd, 2024

JJ wanted to start a new song, Neil Young, The Needle and the Damage Done
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYY87VEQtRM

We went through the first intro section up until the Esus chord.

April 16th, 2024

JJ is gone today.

April 9th, 2024

JJ decided he didn't want to work on Imagine by John Lennon anymore, so we added Good Time by Alan Jackson.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppn6YcWY_1k

He was having some struggles switching quickly between E, A, and D, so we drilled those changes for a while.

April 2nd, 2024

JJ didn't want to keep working on Sweet Home Alabama, so we looked around for something else to learn.

We settled on Imagine by John Lennon, and worked through that for most of the lesson.

At the end we diverted to drums, and I showed him the basics of reading sheet music for drum kit.

March 26th, 2024

We learned the same song that Luke is learning, Sweet Home Alabama, using this video. He forgot a book again, so I wrote out the tab on a piece of paper.

https://youtu.be/sbuYYzGgZZ8

March 19th, 2024

We reviewed Viva La Vida, and then added a new one by Vance Joy, called Riptide:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE3BUjAKz4k

This included a finger picking part in the middle which we learned.

March 12th, 2024

JJ is gone today.

March 5th, 2024

We went over Poor Man's Poison, then added two new songs:

Cage The Elephant, Ain't No Rest For the Wicked
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fX6vkBcyiuQ

Cold Play, Viva la Vida
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4zdDXPYo0I

We also timed JJ changing chords from C to the bar C on the D chord position and he got it down to 1.17 seconds.

February 27th, 2024

We continued working on Hell's Comin' With Me, and I did some drills with him to help him play chords faster. We played through the song at 75% speed.

February 20th, 2024

JJ did really well on Hurt, we played it along with the recording, and he sounded great!

We added a new song by Poor Mans Poison, Hell's Comin' With Me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oDxynh7rG0

February 13th, 2024

JJ wanted to learn some techniques for finger picking, so I showed him various hammer-ons and etc. And then we added a song, Hurt by Johnny Cash, which makes use of some basic but fun picking:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ahHWROn8M0

See you next week!

February 6th, 2024

We started with Bobcageon, and then did the chord progressions which I wrote out for him.

After that I added 6 new chords to work on, all 7ths.

January 30th, 2024

Tonight in JJ's lesson we worked through last week's chord progressions, and then added a song by The Hip called Bobcageon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6QDjDPRF5c

We only got a few minutes in.

January 23rd, 2024

JJ left his books and chord sheet here.

We went over the chords he has been learning, and then I wrote out a few chord progressions for him in various keys so he can practise the chords in a more "melodically pleasing" way.

January 16th, 2024

We reviewed the chord changes from 1 to 6 for C/Am, G/Em, D/Bm, A/F#m, F/Dm, etc.
We did some strumming between different chords and then I showed him the basics of finger picking using a simple pattern.
I asked him to work on that for the chord transitions he's been working on last week.

January 9th, 2024

JJ is a very quick learner. You have some musical kids! We reviewed the chords, and added a couple of new ones. We then practised switching between them in the following orders:
Major to relative minor
One chord to four chord
Six minor to four minor (we only did two like this).

We then added two new strum patterns and practised them.

January 2nd, 2024

JJ did very well today! He's grown up so much since I taught him back in 2020! Wow! Very polite, like Luke with great manners!

We learned a lot of chords and he picked them up quite quickly. We learned G, Em, C, Am, Bm, D, F, Dm, E, A, and B7.

May 19th, 2020

We started out the lesson with JJ playing through Billie Jean for me.

We went through a few of the things we've been working on like different beats and so on, then added Journey, Don't Stop Believin':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45oMQc6WhJI&ab_channel=sina-drums

May 12th, 2020

JJ wasn't able to make lesson today.

May 5th, 2020

It was great to see JJ today! We worked on Billie Jean by Michael Jackson.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V29FNfECL9k&ab_channel=WEBMUSICSCHOOL

It's fairly straightforward, so will be an easy one for him to work on this week.

His battery died a few minutes before the lesson was over, but he came back with the ipad. Everything worked pretty good, except for my slow Internet.

See you next week!

April 28th, 2020

I missed JJ again today.

April 21st, 2020

Did JJ forget today? Hope all is okay.

April 14th, 2020

16th beat is great! Real improvement over last week, great job!

One note: work on shortening the distance your move your arms and sticks - they should stay relatively close to the drum they're hitting.

Keep practicing moving between the beats without slowing down or speeding up - you're pretty good between the quarter note and eighth note beats, but switching to 16th beats became a problem with consistency in feel, volume, and speed.

Drum fills: when you do the crash at the end of your fill, it is often on beat 4, but it should be on beat 1 of the NEXT bar. If you play a short fill, then it needs to start later in the bar, for example, starting on beat 3, through 4, then a crash on beat 1 of the NEXT bar.

Drum rolls: try not to let the sticks hit each other while doing a drum roll.

JJ found the last song we worked on a little hard so we switched to Simple Man:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RA6zx0ssIY

We played that for a bit, but he also found that one a bit hard because the camera angles kept changing, so we tried this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SneT2YbEook

I'd like him to keep trying to work on these songs, even though he finds them hard. They are more simpler songs than we will eventually get to, and even if he plays a simplified version of what he is hearing and seeing, that's still valuable.

April 7th, 2020

It was much easier having the amp - thanks!

We went over all the drum beats we've been learning, including the sixteenth, which I retaught, because he'd forgotten... we also reviewed flams, fills, and rolls.

We went through the 5 Seconds of Summer song we'd been working on.

I asked him to do some YouTube research, and try to find something new to learn that he didn't know yet.

Also, continue working on the song and the other items we reviewed.

March 31st, 2020

We had a good lesson today, although there were some challenges with the virtual situation, one being that I couldn't hear his drums :) If you have an amplifier you can feed them through for lessons that would make this experience easier.

I also couldn't hear the music he was playing along with, so I had to use my imagination. :) I'm sorry, I don't know how useful these virtual lessons are without me being able to hear.

We started a new song today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NOTZXm2t5w

I think it's doable for him, but it will be a bit of a challenge.

March 10th, 2020

We worked again on Believer, and JJ almost has it down. He tends to speed up just a bit after the stops (and he misses the cymbal crashes on the stops).

I think one or two weeks more if he practices, and we'll have it down.

Good job today!

March 3rd, 2020

Today was the last week we'll work on Closer, and JJ did really well on it. There were two main problem: the drum rolls weren't quite the right timings, and he wasn't opening up the highhat in the right place. I asked him to keep working on cleaning that up in his practice time. Once he gets it, let me know, and we can review it together in the future.

We then added Believer by Imagine Dragons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVFHuwoIJ40

This video is a drum cover which has good camera views to help him. We just worked on the first minute and a half, as it gets pretty complex. We'll add the additional parts as he gets better at the first half.

February 25th, 2020

We tried out Ahead by a Century again, but JJ was having some challenges with it, and I think it might be a little hard for now.

Instead we went to a simpler song, with still some challenges in it, Closer by the Chainsmokers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae7bs1cxMjA

This video has the drummer playing the part, so it should help him to watch it when he practices.

February 18th, 2020

I noticed a big improvement today in JJ's playing - he said he had an electronic kit that he'd been playing on, and the increased exposure has helped him get more solid with his time. Still some issues with getting off the beat a bit, but not as frequently as before.

We started with reviewing Another One Bites the Dust and Long Time Running, and then added a song he'd been interested in learning, called "Detroit Rock City". Unfortuntately, a little hard for now.

We added Ahead By a Century today; here's a video of a drummer playing it kinda badly - but it might help.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUS4gPCOPGo

Great job today!

February 11th, 2020

We went through 7 nation army again, and it's getting a bit better - still gets a little confused with the kick and snare, but is able to correct himself after a few bars.

We then went back over the Tragically Hip, Long Time Running - I was hoping JJ had listened to it enough to know where the fills and crashes were, but he still kind of does it "on the fly," - it's just a matter of listening and learning it at home, even without a drum set to practice on.

We then added a new song, Another One Bits the Dust - this requires a kick on every quarter note beat:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7ZRpdJ5VcI

February 4th, 2020

JJ went through Seven Nation Army with me today - we went through it a few times, working on the chorus especially, where he was having trouble.

Here's the video we used:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3qy8H6-5WY

We then added a Tragically Hip song, Long Time Running:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTDoRvr06sQ

It would be great if he could get a kit to practice on.

January 28th, 2020

JJ will be away on this date.

January 21st, 2020

We continued with Back in Black today, and spent most of the lesson cleaning up the little details, and keeping him on time.

After that, we took a brief look at our next song, Seven Nation Army.

I have a former student who wants to sell their kit, I think they said $350. His name is Rob Rumbolt.

Sending because of update to financial info at bottom (hopfully clearer)

Oops, trying again.

January 14th, 2020

Here's our first song, Bak in Black:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kiq9HDUkNxg

This is an easy song to start with, and we went through it four times - JJ did pretty well especially the last time or two.

JJ is a pleasure to teach! Thanks for sending him to me!

January 7th, 2020

JJ did a great job tonight, and had a natural sense of rhythm- partly because he'd already taken piano. He understood tempo and beat, and was able to keep even time.

We started out with learning the names of the various parts of the instrument - tom toms, floor tom, snare, hihat, kick/bass drum, crash, ride...

We then learned the "boom chuck," and I talked about the kick one 1 and 3, snare on 2 and 4.

We learned the quarter note beat and the eighth note beat.

We then started adding crashes on 1, first every bar, then every second bar.

We added a tom on beat four before the crash.