Rock & Roll 101

June 4th, 2024

Cody is cancelling lessons now.

May 28th, 2024

Jimmy Reed, Shame, Shame, Shame:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VR0vNRhQ294
We worked on the intro to this song, which slides up to an E using the F shape on the 12th fret. It then uses the same shape for the 5 chord, the four chord, and then a D7 shape on fret 4, fret 1, and finally ends on a regular open E shape.

May 21st, 2024

We wrote out Happy Birthday and went through it together, and then added Mary Had a Little Lamb. Cody did really well so we tried some twelve bar blues in E, using the blues scale.

May 14th, 2024

I hadn't sent the blues riff to Cody, so we tried to work it out again this week for a while and then talked about playing in time, and the importance of focusing on that. I recommended he play the blues scale over some backing tracks and focus on just playing eighth notes.

Here's a good backing track:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36X3wecT2z8

May 7th, 2024

Cody had some sheet music for Tenor Madness, but it was written for tenor sax, so not in the same key as the recording (The tenor sax is a Bb instrument).

We did some blues, and I wrote out a melodic-blues thing in tab and we talked through it.

I told him I'd send a video of this when I get a second.

April 30th, 2024

Cody is not able to come today because his dad had an eye appointment.

April 23rd, 2024

Cody is feeling unwell, and won't be coming Tuesday.

April 16th, 2024

Cody played through Autumn Leaves higher on the neck, I was really impressed with this!

We then went through it with more open chords, and that led into a conversation again about using the numbered system to understand chords. I had him tell me the notes for major, minor, seventh, and ninth chords for C, F, and G.

I was really impressed with his understanding of this already. He says he is having trouble with it, but I think he's going to really do well.

April 9th, 2024

Cody is now able to come in at 3:30 Tuesday, the 9th.

April 2nd, 2024

March 26th, 2024

Cody is sick today.

March 19th, 2024

Cody wanted to learn Autumn Leaves, so I wrote out a simple version for him, as notes and as letter note names with chords.

He's going to pick up a book this week so we have something to write in.

March 12th, 2024

This was Cody's first lesson. We learned a bunch of sevenths, as well as the way to find them (the letter before the name of the chord is the note we add to the chord to make a seventh).

We also talked briefly about bar chords, reading dotted rhythms, and more.

March 5th, 2024