Hi Efe!

Here’s the rundown of what to do for this week.

Chords

Reacquaint yourself with the E, Em (E minor), G, and B chords. 

  • The Google Drive provided on December 6th shows you how to play the E chord. https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1cURXZdyFoL_6FZX5V4COTxCljwXKq8wO
  • The B chord is played on frets 7, 9, 9, and 8 going from the low E string up to the G string. The fingerings are 5 (the thumb), 3, 4, and 2, respectively. Feel free to be nice and tough with gripping this. If it gets painful, rest your hand. Do some stretches (you’ll see some below), then get right back to it.
  • Spend 5 minutes holding down the correct frets with the correct fingerings, and strumming them with proper posture. 
  • Try playing those four chords over the following backing track. Spend 5 minutes doing your best with this. Remember: no need to play fast.  Em slow blues backing track

Scale

The Em pentatonic scale.

  • This Google Drive has pictures of the fretboard with this scale. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1GMsYAiDXsew5x_4fByy4cQp8O6KXeq_6?usp=drive_link
  • Please memorize this scale for next class. The shape of this scale is used all over the guitar neck for countless songs in many genres. This scale is an essential tool for most of the guitar music in the world. — Spend 5 minutes a day this week to work on memorizing this. My hope is that by next class you’ll be able to improvise on this scale without needing to look at the provided pictures.
  • Experiment with playing any of this scale’s notes over this backing track. Take it as a creative game to keep getting better at. Em slow blues backing track

— Do this once a day; 10-12 minutes everyday.

— Try things like vibratos (you once called them wiggles, haha) and bends. 

Song choices

Listen to the following 3 songs. Then choose the one you like best. We’ll work on that one for the spring recital.

  • Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day
  • Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana
  • Rumble by Link Wray

Stretching

John Petrucci link

  • Watch this video. In under 10 minutes, this famous guitarist clearly describes the types of stretching he does for his guitar playing sessions. 
  • What I’d like you to do with this, Efe, is to do these stretches during and after your practice sessions. He does them before his; I don’t think that’s necessary. 

Additional notes

  • Please get a new guitar strap.
  • Please find your pick again. If you can’t then you’ll have to get a new one. My guitar lessons require the student to have a pick.
  • Regarding the pain of the hand, there are 2 things to acknowledge. 

— 1, this is normal. As with any physical exercise, the body and its muscles will tire and get sore. Don’t give up when this happens. But you also don’t want to overdo this, so make sure to rest during practice sessions. 

— 2, everything in this practice plan can be done without days of 0 playing. I.e., no need to rest for an entire day. The aim is to keep exercising the hands so that these pains no longer occur. The day this happens will come once enough consistent practicing has been done.

Final note

I’m sorry I didn’t bring the teacher’s report today. I’ll bring it next class. One recommendation I made going forward is to practice a half hour a day, only. This should make it easier to find time to practice the guitar.

  • Notice that I made today’s practice instructions so that they should span a half hour, at maximum. Most of this week’s practice should take no more than a half hour. Including the stretching I’m assigning.
  • Going over a half hour this week may only happen because you must listen to each song fully and also see the full stretching video.

Good to see you again today, Efe. I’m looking forward to this new term! See you in a week!