Rock & Roll 101

March 10th, 2025

I cancelled tonight's lesson.

March 3rd, 2025

We started with trying to learn more of Crazy Train, but it's pretty hard - Kaleb decided to find something else to learn. We looked for some Thrash Metal, and settled on this:

Metallica, Creeping Death
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPoNXCW8Ous

February 24th, 2025

Kaleb played through Stairway to Heaven for me, and then we added Crazy Train, and worked through one guitar part in that song at this point in the tab:
https://youtu.be/y_zpUFPiCGU?t=30

February 10th, 2025

Started off with reviewing Stairway to Heaven.
Then added Highway to Hell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ocEF19Awe8

The reviewed a little bit of Blackbird

Then added a new blues scale, one position down from the learning scale.

Then I showed him how to play blues in E

February 3rd, 2025

Kaleb is sick today.

January 27th, 2025

Tonight we started Stairway to Heaven, and I found an easy version to work on. Here's the tab and video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYC3D3hPnxU https://www.kidsguitaracademy.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Easy-Stairway-to-Heaven-Full-Intro.pdf Great job tonight, Kaleb! You did fantastic!

January 20th, 2025

Kaleb has a test tomorrow on Country Roads by John Denver, so tonight we worked through it - first in A, and then he said that they'd been learning it in G with a capo, so I changed the chords for him, and we went over it a few times.
He seemed pretty overwhelmed with it, and got frustrated a bit. I think if he just goes over it tonight and tomorrow for an hour or two, he'll be fine.

January 13th, 2025

In Kaleb's lesson we changed his strings on his electric, but unfortunately his high e string was too short for the neck. I tried a few strings from my bag of miscellaneous strings, but nothing was suitable.

January 6th, 2025

We looked at the next part of Blackbird, right to the G chord that ends the verse.

We then added Back in Black, and worked our way through the intro and verse.

After that we looked briefly at SpongeBob SquarePants Closing Theme Song.

December 30th, 2024

Kaleb is coming along well with Blackbird.

We also looked at Brain Stew by Greenday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfppdaW24YQ

December 23rd, 2024

We looked at a few songs together, and at the end of the lesson I showed him the basics of Blackbird by the Beatles, the first four chords.

December 16th, 2024

Kaleb has a talent show tonight.

December 9th, 2024

December 2nd, 2024

We continued working through For Whom The Bell Tolls. I don't think Kaleb had practised as much this week, but he is picking things up a bit quicker than he was before.

At the end, he switched to Smoke on the Water, I think to take a bit of a break from the learning, and when he did I reminded him that he could probably play power chords over that now, which I showed him. He was able to figure it out, so that's great!

November 25th, 2024

We reviewed last week's songs, and learned more parts to Fade to Black. The video for the tab and finger picking is below.

We also added For Whom the Bell Tolls, and went over a few of the parts in that song. Video below.

November 18th, 2024

In Kaleb's lesson we went through the chords he started last week, and also added some other little themes from Fade to Black. I made a couple of videos so he can remember what they are:

Link one:
https://youtube.com/shorts/xZ1vx6eFgJo?si=XPK1gu8NDyuFcO__

Link two:
https://youtube.com/shorts/WFCZbEoc7p0?si=38rBXB5Oirot9_zz

November 4th, 2024

We went through the pentatonic scale from last week, and we played through many of the chords he's learned so far. I then wrote out another ten or so chords for him to work on.

We then added a song by Metallica called Seek and Destroy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUAdgt5Glk0

October 28th, 2024

We went over the songs from last week. Kaleb wanted to try the power chords again on Smoke on the Water, so we gave it a go, but he gave up after a bit saying it was too hard, unfortunately.

We then did some scales, first the G/Eminor pentatonic, then the D pentatonic. I encouraged him to play them up and down, while I chorded behind him. He tired of that for a while, and we looked for some leads to learn on YouTube, and I found this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTPdlYOSywo

October 21st, 2024

In Kaleb's lesson today, he played Seven Nation Army to start, and did really well.

He then wanted to learn Smoke on the Water, so we did a bit of that, just single notes not power chords. After that, Smells Like Teen Spirit, and then Iron Man.

He seemed frustrated with playing fast enough, and remembering things. I suggested he just spend some time working on songs, and to be patient with himself - over the weeks, he'll get better and better as he takes it slow.

October 7th, 2024

We went through Nothing Else Matters, then added a new one, Seven Nation Army by White Stripes.
Here's an easy guitar version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlKku0qIsd8

Kaleb got a bit frustrated with counting frets, so I showed him a slightly easier/different way to do that, and we worked on that until the end of the lesson.

September 30th, 2024

Kaleb is doing really well! We reviewed Metallica, Nothing Else Matters, and because one or two of the chords were weird and hard to find we looked up a (this video has chords):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HXdw3TcuKs

Nirvana, Man Who Sold the World (video with chords):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ2h8N-RpkY

September 23rd, 2024

We went over Come As You Are a few times, and then decided to add another Nirvana song, "The Man Who Sold The World"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTbl6OzH3W0

It's got some hammer-ons, which are a bit challenging, and a bar chord or two, but Kaleb is up to it if he puts in the practise. He's actually doing really well.

September 16th, 2024

We worked more on Come As You Are tonight, focusing on the E minor to G spots. I also gave him a quick overview of how TAB works and wrote out part of the song in TAB.

September 9th, 2024

In Kaleb's lesson we started with reviewing Future Days. I tried to help him to keep his place, because he got lost a lot. I'm not certain how much of what we're doing he's understanding, but I think he's having fun?

He said half way through that he really prefers heavy rock and distortion songs now, and so suggested Master of Puppets (too hard now), or Come As You Are by Nirvana.

We settled on Come As You Are.

June 24th, 2024

We added a new song today, by Hoobastank called The Reason.

The guitar video below has the chords throughout so he can practise with it over the summer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR6P2OVGkOo

June 17th, 2024

I cancelled today.

June 10th, 2024

Kaleb is doing really well. He's flying through his chords much faster now. We went over Circles, and he was able to keep up 90% of the time.

We also went over Yellow and that wasn't quite as good, but not bad. The issue is mostly keeping track of the count so he's changing on the right place.

We then Looked at Future Days again, from the Last Of Us soundtrack. I showed him the intro finger picking (a simpler version of it) to work on this week.

June 3rd, 2024

Kaleb did really well today! He's making the transition between the C chord much more quickly, from both the E minor and the A minor, and the G is even improving.

We added a bunch of new chords to his sheet today, and went through them. We also added a song by Post Malone, Circles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sca9FP6zl8

This is a great song to learn on once your C is down, because it has only two chords in it (C and F) and forces you to keep practicing them incessantly! :)

May 27th, 2024

Please note there is $150 owing on Kaleb's account still.

Kaleb has been working on the G chord, but is still slow on his other chords, especially the C. We played through Yellow at 75% speed, and it helped, but he will enjoy it more once he learns to play this chord quickly.

We then tried to find another song, and went through a few, but they were still all too fast for his abilities. We tried Stitches, Wonderful Tonight, Save Your Tears, Left and Right, and Upside Down - of those Save Your Tears was likely the closest to being possible to play through.

May 13th, 2024

Kaleb and I went over Yellow by Coldplay a few times, first without playing along with recording, and then while playing along. He's getting there, but still slow in switching chords.

We tried adding a couple of other songs, like Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash and Every Breath You Take by the Police, but the same issue of not being able to change quickly slows him down in the process.

May 6th, 2024

Tonight we continued working through the Cold Play song, Yellow. I wrote out some of the chords in Kaleb's book.

We did some drills switching between chords. This is the thing he should practise the most.

April 29th, 2024

We did some playing between chords today to try to get switching faster. He's actually doing really well between C and Aminor, and not bad from G to Eminor. He said he didn't practise, so if he did that would be amazing.

Here's a song we started working on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEJOoWFXt_s

April 22nd, 2024

We played through the chords, 8 strums each, and then tried Happy Birthday again. Kaleb still needs to put in a bit more time at home to speed up the chord changes. If it's too tricky getting him to practise at home, just let me know and I'll adjust my perspective so as not to push him too hard.

We then resumed drills, trying to get chords down to about 2 seconds each. Some were closer than others.

He thought of a song he'd like to learn, which is pretty easy if we take out the finger picking part. It's Troy Baker, Future Days:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaVpo3m1hSQ

Thanks!

April 15th, 2024

Kaleb did a good job tonight. He's quiet and understated, but seems enthusiastic in his own way.

Today we added to the E minor and G chords, with A minor, D, C, E, and A.

We added a new song as well, "Happy Birthday," which is kind of a modified version that doesn't need as many chords.

We did some drills to try to improve his speed in switching between chords. The more he does this, the easier it will be for him to play songs.

April 8th, 2024

Today was Kaleb's first lesson. We started with stringing his guitar, and I taught him how to tune it using my tuner. I suggested he try to download a tuner to his tablet or phone at home for tuning his own.

We learned our first chord, E minor, and a basic strumming pattern, and then added the G chord too, and strummed back and forth between those two chords.

I taught him the names of the strings; E, A, D, G, B, and E from the lowest sounding to highest sounding string.