Rock & Roll 101

February 25th, 2014

February 18th, 2014

Today Giuseppe and I started with review of last week's bar chord relationships.

To summarize:
3 major chords : 1, 4, 5
3 minor chords : 2, 3, 6

1: E form at home fret
2: E minor form at third fret
3: E minor form at fifth fret
4: A form at home fret
5: A form at third fret
6: A minor form at fifth fret.

We then did some 'hammer-ons' with chords, and some walk-ups, walk-downs on a G scale between G, C, and G, Eminor

February 11th, 2014

Giuseppe and I talked about theory today, specifically working through how the higher frets on the guitar worked.

We talked about what I call "fret logic" -- the actual workings behind the relationships in chords and strings.

We learned the E form pattern of 1 through 6 (and talked about 7-diminished as well).

We also talked about the A form, and I showed him how you can play pentatonic scales on the A form, using the "home row".

February 4th, 2014

Giuseppe is at a funeral today. We'll try to make up sometime when he's here visiting.

January 28th, 2014

Giuseppe is away this weekend in Georgia!!

January 21st, 2014

Giuseppe and I went through a bunch of random songs to work on finger picking.

He mentioned that he's only going to the end of this month, and will miss next week.

We worked through the worship song book, and I gave him a strategy for finger picking on the songs.

January 14th, 2014

We went over Imagine together, working out the chords for the chorus, and how to play them with finger picking.

I'd neglected to mention that we had started that last week.

January 7th, 2014

Today Giuseppe and I focused on strumming, and I talked to him about keeping a sense of where he is in the bar-- beats 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Beat 2 and 4 get an emphasis, sort of a counter-point to the melody often... having the beat strong on those beats gives the instrument a percussive nature, kind of like playing a drum and a guitar at the same time.

We did this for a few of his songs he's learning, and then did it along with drum beats. I showed him how to find a beat that fits with a song (60 is 1 beat per second)

December 31st, 2013

December 17th, 2013

We went over the song from last week by the Beatles, then picked Sally Can Wait (or something like that) for the next song.

December 10th, 2013

Giuseppe and I went over "Hurt" by Johnny Cash, and talked about different ways to play the F chord.

We added a D minor 7th chord.

I wrote out "House of the Rising Sun," and gave him "Imagine" to work on.

December 3rd, 2013

Today Giuseppe and I went over all the chords he knew already, which is most of the non-flat/sharp majors and minors, and a few sevenths, and then we talked a bit about strumming.

He was strumming "Ring of Fire" with his thumb, and so we talked about using the back of the finger nails (and thumb nail) in an up and down action, while rotating the wrist. We tried it with a pick as well.

We then talked about three major and three minor chords in every scale, and one diminished, and how to create those chords on a piano (lowering the third and fifth notes respectively).

We talked about the natural/relative minor (the same thing) and the harmonic minors which have a leading tone.

He will continue to learn the 7th chords he doesn't know yet, and we will work on Johnny Cash songs in the coming weeks.