Rock & Roll 101

May 2nd, 2016

Today was Kathleen's last day, and we did two new songs.

Nick Jonas, Close:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDtO88QyKMM

Gavin James, For You:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sd5NlYvhv_Q

April 25th, 2016

We went over 18 a couple of times-- Kathleen had been busy with school so hadn't had time to practice much. We relearned the part where you lift your finger to play the chord extension.

We then added a new song by Maroon 5, called Sad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm83aODg180

April 18th, 2016

Today we reviewed the guitar part for Jar of Hearts, then added "18" by One Direction:

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

April 11th, 2016

We wrote out the piano and guitar parts (with a capo) for this song, and went over it a few times.

I showed Kathleen the way to build "inversions" on the piano -- this is when you turn a chord over so the different notes in the chord are in an alternate order other than the plain triad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v_4O44sfjM

April 4th, 2016

Kathleen came in at 7:30 this week because of volunteering at a vets.

We worked through the intro of the COle Swindell song and then the piano part for If I Could Fly.

March 21st, 2016

We started by reviewing the intro of You Should Be Here, trying to speed it up and get it more comfortable. It's kind of a reach between the lower G with the ring finger and the high C on the B string.

We then added a new song on the piano -- but ran out of time before we did too much on it. One Direction's If I Could Fly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_Gz1XaSIGc

I wrote out how to play some of the chords for her-- she's got some previous experience on the piano already, so it makes it a quick learn for her. :)

March 14th, 2016

We went through the intro to Let Her Go, and then I wrote out the chords for the verses and choruses.

We then added a new song, by Cole Swindell called You Should Be Here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz-_hNkOXTE

March 7th, 2016

NOTE: Kathleen is switching times next week to 3:30 instead of 7.

She didn't bring her guitar in this week, because she wanted some suggestions for playing piano at a performance at school on Friday. We went through it a number of times, and I showed her a few things she can do to make it more interesting.

We also talked about singing harmony at one section, and I explained to her how harmony works, and wrote out a small part for her to try with her friend.

February 29th, 2016

Kathleen added a new song tonight, which has some finger picking and is quite tricky.

I showed her how to read TAB, and wrote out the tab for the first couple of parts of the song, "Passenger's Let Her Go:"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ginx7WKq5GE

Once we get past the hard finger picking, the strumming is quite easy.

February 22nd, 2016

Kathleen added three new songs tonight:

Die a Happy Man by Thomas Rett
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2CELiObPeQ

Rihanna, Dancing in the Dark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86UbtuVpQxY

Ruth B, Lost Boy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsoUa1DuDW4

February 8th, 2016

Kathleen was at a birthday party, so we've moved her lesson to Joel's spot on Wednesday.


----

On Wednesday, Kathleen started a new song called Can't Help Falling In Love:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9HuRmTa41s

We learned it on the guitar in D, with the capo way up high on the 10th? fret.

We then went over it on the piano, and I showed her arpeggios, playing a single note with the left hand, and inversions to make the playing more interesting.

February 1st, 2016

Hope all is okay with Kathleen tonight. Missed her at lessons.

See you next week?

January 25th, 2016

We reviewed Give Me Love by Ed Sheeran, and focused on the F to Dminor chord, which she was having some trouble with. We got that really smooth. I want to say as well, that she has a real knack for strumming. She's got good rhythm.

We added a new song, by Howie Day called Collide:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca9ub9rpNK4

January 18th, 2016

We went over Infinity together, and then added a new song by Ed Sheeran.

This song has some harder chords in it, but rather than find a way around them, I'd like to see Kathleen really focus on learning and excelling at F and C.

It'd be nice to add the middle finger "hammer-on" to this as well!

Great job tonight!

January 11th, 2016

January 4th, 2016

January 4, we finished the recording and I uploaded it.

December 28th, 2015

Kathleen and I added two new songs this week-- I was having trouble with the recording (which I've since fixed).

The new songs are If I Could Fly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_Gz1XaSIGc

and Infinity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3StYvCN99g

December 21st, 2015

December 14th, 2015

Kathleen recorded tonight-- two tracks of guitar and one of vocals.

We may need to record the guitar again... there were some weak spots here and there. Her voice sounded lovely though!

December 7th, 2015

Kathleen and I went over both the Maroon 5 song, and the Scott Helman song-- we went over 20 minutes in time since I owe her for a lesson she missed... though she said she hadn't paid for that week yet anyway.

We can add the 10 minutes on another week when we record -- perhaps we should try recording the Maroon 5 song next week?

I showed her a new B minor 7 chord to work on for the Machine song.

November 30th, 2015

November 23rd, 2015

Kathleen had two songs she wanted to learn depending on which is easier. They were both pretty easy, but we started with She Will Be Loved by Maroon 5:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUVxaYdgS_Q

We then added Machine by Scott Helman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHahqEFOkMc

We didn't have time to work on that one, but I wrote out the chords for her, and we'll go over it next week.

November 16th, 2015

We finished up the recording tonight -- I added bass for her, and she sang through places where it was a little off from last week.

She sounds great! I look forward to more songs in the future!

November 9th, 2015

Moved the lesson time until 7:30 this week.

Kathleen and I went through her song once, then started recording it. We did two guitar tracks and two vocal tracks of the song. We went over by 10 minutes as I showed her how's it's mixed etc.

She sounds good-- this will be fun. I'm going to try to add bass to the track sometime this week.

November 2nd, 2015

Kathleen has decided to record this song (Stitches) that we're working on now. It's pretty fast, so I suggested downloading Audacity to her computer as it allows one to slow a song's tempo down (and change a key) to make it easier to play along.

The chord changes are really fast, but the hardest part is to keep the strums on the upbeat, yet play the downbeat on beat 1. I told her it's okay if she just plays upbeats, as we can add the downbeat in with the bass later.

October 26th, 2015

We reviewed Amnesia and Kathleen recorded a video of me playing the part, and then we did a new one, called Stitches by Shawn Mendes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbfpW0pbvaU

I wrote out the bar chords, and we took a video of this song as well.

October 19th, 2015

We went over FourFiveSeconds a few times, then added Amnesia:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u3y5fmoAvA

This has some complicated finger picking, but we'll take it a bit at a time.

October 12th, 2015

October 5th, 2015

We talked a bit about the circle of fifths today, and I drew out how there are 3 major and 3 minor chords in each key.

I wrote out the chords D/F# (d over f sharp) and B minor and Asus. We also added Dsus.

I wrote out the song FourFiveSeconds, and we went through it half speed and regular speed.

September 28th, 2015

Kathleen's first lesson!

We started out with talking about the parts of the guitar, like nut, bridge, machine heads, body, head stock, neck, frets, pick guard, etc

Then we went over a number of chords to determine what chords she already knows, and what ones she doesn't know yet.

We talked about her goals as well. She wants to improve in her strumming, and to be able to play songs she likes.

We added a few chords, and I showed her how they are written down (she plays left handed, so it's backwards to normal). We then talked about her first song, FourFiveSeconds.