Rock & Roll 101

September 17th, 2013

Sophia doesn't start this week.

September 10th, 2013

Sophia doesn't start this week.

June 26th, 2013

This has been a fun year, Sophia! Good job with learning lots of different stuff. Try working on the rest of "Hallelujah" with both hands, in the key of G over the summer.

Have a fantastic holiday!

June 19th, 2013

Today Sophia recorded guitar and shaker on her song Blown Away. Next week she's going to give a try on the vocals!

June 12th, 2013

Sophia recorded the piano for Blown Away today. Next week she's going to record guitar and possibly vocals.

June 5th, 2013

Sophia wasn't able to come in today... sickness in the family.

May 29th, 2013

Sophia brought her guitar in this week, and decided to work on a new song, "Blown Away".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9O3KOKQynm8

It was quite simple so she finished it quickly, and we talked a little bit about strumming... then she decided to learn the piano part for it.

I showed her the way the melody went in the intro, and wrote out the notes for it. We went over it a few times together.

She would like to record it, so hopefully we have time to do that next week.

May 22nd, 2013

May 15th, 2013

Sophia switched to piano again today, and we worked on Hallelujah. She was very close to ready, so we recorded what she had-- there were a number of mistakes in the piece, but I showed her how we can go through it and edit out some of them.

It would be fantastic if she could work on this a bit more and iron out those issues, but otherwise, next week I'll finish up the editing of the song so she can share it with family/friends.

May 8th, 2013

We learned a new song, Titanium:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLzpWqb3DOk

The guitar part at the beginning is kind of tricky. Have fun with it!

May 1st, 2013

We added "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen, and worked through the arpeggios with both hands.

She brought her own in C, but we switched to G after a bit.

April 24th, 2013

April 17th, 2013

We worked on adding more interest to the left hand on apologize, making the song develop and evolve as it progresses by changing the things the left hand is doing.

We also talked about better hand positions between Eb and Bb so your wrist isn't moving so far.

April 10th, 2013

We added Apologize from Timbaland/One Republic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSM3w1v-A_Y

The chords are Cm / / / | Ab / / / | Eb / / / | Bb/D / / / |

April 3rd, 2013

March 27th, 2013

March 20th, 2013

Today we went through the Amazing Grace song and talked about slash chords.

I showed her how a D/G, for example, would mean that her bass note on the chord would be the G on the lowest E string, while the rest of the fingers played the D chord.

March 13th, 2013

March 6th, 2013

This week I asked Sophia to practice the inversions like a staircase for E, C#m, F#m, and B,,, up then down.

IF she feels like being a keener, learn them for lots of chords, up and down the keyboard as fast as she can.

I want her to play me a C11 next week, and three other 11 chords.

Work on playing All This Time without moving the wrist.

Look for another song to learn.

February 27th, 2013

February 20th, 2013

We reviewed the song Stronger, and she has got it really good.

Play the new song, All This Time, without moving your wrist very much... F#m, especially, is far away from the previous chord.

Good job!

February 14th, 2013

February 6th, 2013

This week we decided to start piano, instead of guitar.

We learned triads, major and minor chords, that there are 3 of each in every key, and one diminished.

We played through the scale of chords (triads starting on C up to C).

We learned stronger, and I encouraged er to play it with inversions, without moving her wrist, along with octaves in the left hand.

January 30th, 2013

Today Sophie and I worked on finger picking, and hammer-ons.

She should try hammering on for lots of different chords, finding out which fingers sound best hammered for which chords.

Take the chords from a quadrant of the Circle of Fifths to make a song... keep it in 2, 4, 8, 16 bar chunks so it's even.

January 23rd, 2013

Sophia and I went over the All This Time song.

We went back and forth from the C#m to the E and the A to the B7. She can do that as a way to get better on the chords too.

Then we did some finger picking, and extended patterns over two bars.

She assembled chords together to make a song.

Perhaps for homework she could come up with a song that is different than the one she did today.

January 16th, 2013

today Sophia and I reviewed the song she worked on last, Dark Side.

She really nailed it-- it's the best she's sounded yet! Great job, Sopia! She opted out of recording the song.

After that we added All This Time by Britt Nicole:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bw8pIoLeMU

She had chord charts for this song, that were only slightly off, so I fixed them up. We added two new chords: C# minor and B7.

January 9th, 2013

January 2nd, 2013

December 19th, 2012

December 12th, 2012

We added a new song, by Kelly Clarkson called Dark Side, as in Darth Vader
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5ArpRWcGe0

It has a G minor and a Bm in it.

December 5th, 2012

November 28th, 2012

After reviewing the guitar, we talked about strumming pattersn, and videoed some ways to strum, with upbeats for emphasis. And muting them as well.

We did piano after that, and i asked her to learn the elevator in C. If youre feeling smart, learn the elevator in G and Am, and F.

November 21st, 2012

New Taylor Swift Song, "Never Ever Getting Back Together"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA4iX5D9Z64

Work on getting through the chords as quickly as Taylor Swift does.

November 14th, 2012

Great job!! Keep working on the chord changes.

Bb, G, and F need special attention.

November 7th, 2012

Good job going over the Tear Drops song on Skype today! That was kind of fun, but the time delay was challenging, eh?

Anyway, please go over the chords of this song, with the capo on bar 1, and try to play along with Taylor Swift. Keep in mind that the chords don't always repeat-- they are different just before the chorus.

Keep working on changing the chords quickly as well.

Good job!

October 24th, 2012

October 17th, 2012

We wrote out the chords for both songs today, and went over the music -- she used my capo.

Tear Drops:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKCek6_dB0M

We learned F#m and Bb, and D minor today.

October 10th, 2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khiz9yrMpDE

Today we first reviewed the chords that Sophia has learned, and then we went over the Clarkson song, first slowly and then tried to speed it up a bit.

She needs to work on playing the chords faster, and so I recommended two things:

1. Keep the guitar out in the open, so you're reminded or even tempted to play with it. Don't worry if you only play for a minute or two, as long as you are playing it often.

2. Practice making the chords without looking at your hand. This will help you learn to play more quickly, because you'll instinctively know where to put your fingers, without having to stop and check.

October 3rd, 2012

We worked on the Stronger song with the chords:

[: Am / / / | F / / / | C / / / | G / / / :]

So the new chords this week were C and F.

Now she knows the following chords:

E, D, Em, Am, A, G, C, F and now Dm

We talked about how to make a minor chord from a major, by lowering the third not one half-step.

September 26th, 2012

Today Sophia and I went over the chords Am, G, and Em, and she has done well with them. She should continue playing between them quickly.

We also introduced two new chords, D and A... not to be confused with Am.

She wants to learn Kelly Clarkson's Stronger, and I wrote out the chords, which Am F C G.

Next week she'll be learning F and C.

September 19th, 2012

We learned Em, Am, and G... we timed her to get it as fast as she could. She's going to work on those chords.

I asked her to pick a song to learn for next week.

September 12th, 2012

No show