Hello Efe and family!

Wishing you a good week! Here is this week’s material.

This week’s Google Drive folder: Feb 7th

Last week’s Google Drive folder: Jan 31st

This week’s Google Drive

— Acoustic Open — The piece I wrote for you to learn musical notation with.

  • The PDF here is of this piece.
  • Here are some pictures of the notes on a guitar, corresponding with the music staff.
  • For the guitar, we use the treble clef. For this clef, remember the following acronyms: “Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge” for the lines, and “Face” for the spaces. They go from lower to higher. — An important thing to note is that the staff is really just 7 letters repeating themselves. A to G. So whatever letter you’re playing, the next door letters are just going up or down the alphabet by one letter. Knowing what notes you’re playing in a piece of music gets easier with time. — The pictures in this Drive folder show you the frets for each note, and where on the guitar to play them.
  • Try playing through the first 4 bars of it. I’ve left out the tab on purpose. — Use the pictures to help you find out exactly what to play.
  • Some help: The piece ends with a C major chord. So you’ll know that this chord’s lowest note is a middle C. From here, you can navigate letter by letter to determine what the notes on the other frets (or open strings!) are.
  • The goals: learn to name what letter of note you’re playing, and where to play that note on the guitar. Don’t worry about the sharps or flats for now. I’m just getting you to learn plain old letters of the alphabet. A to G, in their various octaves.
  • I’m not expecting you to be a master of this by the end of the week. But I want you to start being able to name at least some of the notes by next class. For the long term: I’m aiming for you to be able to play any named note on the guitar in the treble clef (no higher or lower notes), if you were quizzed. My goal is for you to be able to ace that type of quiz by the end of this semester.

Last week’s Google Drive

— Em pentatonic scale

  • We’ve almost covered 12 frets on the fretboard. The goal is for you to reach all 12. This will give you the ability to solo more freely.
  • There is a picture of the next group of frets I’m adding to your knowledge of this scale.
  • Keep playing powerchords with the following: pick any note from this scale on the lowest 3 strings. Then add its fifth; remember that chess-knight movement shape I told you about a while ago. 
  • Play around with all of the above over this backing track. Latest Backing track

— Chord game

  • The video here references Buddy Holly’s “Words of Love.”
  • These are chords you know. But the hard thing about them is transitioning between them all. This video is supposed to train you in exactly that.
  • The biggest help for this: Finger 1 never leaves the string. It shifts, but it never “jumps.” Unlike your other fingers; they all have to jump somewhere in order to hold down the next chord.
  • Make sure to play the A chord with the fingering I showed you today. — All 3 chords in this video have their respective charts here, with the correct fingerings. Please make sure to get these fingerings right.

Lastly

— Please find your guitar pick. You’ll need it for the upcoming classes. I’d also prefer you to play the things in this week’s homework with a pick. 

  • If you can’t find your pick then please get some new ones.
  • Get several. It’s a worthy investment.

— Listen to “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.”    Official audio

  • At least once. More is good because you’ll have it in your head more, and therefore you’ll know how it’s supposed to sound.
  • Familiarize yourself with how it sounds. Especially the parts you didn’t know recognize from it today.

Remember, a lot of this is easier than it looks and sounds. Learning music, like with many things in life, is about “getting used to it.” So just keep spending time with it.

I look forward to seeing how you do for all of the above, Efe. You’ve improved significantly over these past 5 months. I’m excited to see even more progress from you :)  I’ll see you in a week!