Hello Efe and family! Wishing you guys a great weekend!

Below is the rundown of material to work on from today’s lesson. Aim to do this practice routine once a day leading up to our next lesson.

  • Practice everything with a metronome.

Tempos are listed for each item.

  • Please get the Guitar Method 1 book this week. The Amazon link is attached. There is homework from it. Aside from this, the videos of the scales we covered today are accessible in the homework of last week.
  • Play the guitar both standing and sitting. Try playing all the chords we’ve covered so far, both while seated and while standing. – 10 minutes.

Make sure you’re always wearing a guitar strap. This will ensure that your posture on the instrument is good regardless of whether you’re standing or sitting.

  • C Major scale – 10 minutes. 45 BPM.

This is a classical scale. Its fingerings were found out by Andrés Segovia. He found that these were the most efficient possible fingerings for the major and minor scales on the classical guitar. Playing this scale and anything else from classical music calls on the most efficient and strict posture on the whole body of the guitarist. This means that the guitar head must be held so high that the instrument looks almost like a cello. As well, your thumb must be behind the guitar neck so that no one from in front of you can see it. So whether standing or sitting, make sure that the guitar is positioned in such a way that the wrists are straight. Remember, the adjusting the strap properly will help. Playing this scale in any other way will result in injury of the guitarist’s hands or body.

  • A minor pentatonic scale – 10 minutes. 45 BPM.

This scale is used in the genres rock, pop, folk, country, heavy metal, and more. For these genres, it is not quite as strict how the guitar must be held. However, the rule I will enforce is that you play with the guitar head pushed forward, away from your body. Remember, twisting the wrist slightly will help you get the right position. Also: having the thumb on top of the guitar neck (as opposed to the classical hand position) is a good thing to help you maintain a suitable posture for this scale.

  • Practice pieces 2 and 3 from page 6 of the Guitar Method 1 book. Then try playing as much as you want of anything from page 7. – 15 minutes. 60 BPM.

While they might be good beginner pieces, the challenge here will be to make sure you’re playing right on the beat of the metronome. I noticed that playing things exactly on the beat was more of a struggle today.

 

Thank you for your work this past week, Efe. Keep it up! You’ve got this! I’ll see you in a week!