M.Mus (U of T)
B.Mus (Oberlin)
Guitarist Gergely Szabo has an Advanced Diploma in Music Performance from Cambrian College where he majored in the classical guitar. Over his time there, he completed 2 years of comprehensive pedagogy courses. He also gained well grounded vocal skills, as well as basic knowledge on the piano. Outside of classical music, he exhibits a repertoire of skills and knowledge in playing the genres of rock, blues, and heavy metal music. He has experience in teaching the guitar and the ukulele to a range of people aged 6 to 54.
Gergely’s teaching methods include both the use of books and digital methods. The three main books he uses to teach guitar are as follows: “Guitar Method Book 1 by Will Schmid and Greg Koch,” “Four Star Sight Reading and Ear Tests RCM Level 1,” and “Classical Guitar Repertoire and Etudes RCM Level 1.” For teaching ukulele, he uses the book “Ukulele Songs for 1, 2, or 3 players by Elizabeth Ragsdale.” Aside from these, he frequently uses the Muse Score application as a play-along practicing tool.
Gergely’s passion for music and his dedication to growing the love of music in others are the biggest reasons why he teaches guitar and ukulele. His approach to teaching involves learning through play. The material he covers with his students is always delivered in a way that is highly interactive. Most of the assigned exercises he gives involve the elements of play that students can enjoy both in class and as homework.
Get to know Gergely…Beyond the Bio!
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Latest Homework from Gergely
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Efe — May 2nd
Hi Efe!
Proceed to check out the bands I described in last week’s Homework Post.
— An artist I’m adding: Megadeth.
- The same way: be warned about the content in their music. It’s controversial and dark.
Acoustic Open
Here’s the link to its Unlisted YouTube video. Link.
— Work on the first 16 bars.
- Practice it at 0.75x speed.
- Remember: finger 3 is never used in these bars. There are a lot of stretchy Left Hand positions and fingerings here. Be mindful of posture and push the guitar forward from your left side. — Anytime there’s a question relating to posture and the comfort & strength of your Left Hand, it’s usually helpful to push the guitar forward from your left side.
- Alternate picked. Pay close attention to this. Down-Up Down-Up Down-Up. (It can help to know that Down is usually played a bit louder than Up.) Where there are rests, just down-pick.
— The goals:
- LH (Left Hand) technique, in those stretchy positions.
- Getting used to alternate picking.
- Learning to locate the where what notes are played on the fretboard from the musical notation.
See you in a week!
Saturday, April 25th
Jack
Jack has been making good progress with Seven Nation Army but just at times lacking focus. I am ready to move him onto a new song as he has been able to play with the music and displayed the ability to change from pattern to pattern.
Nova
Going forward Nova’s assignment will always be in three part: a reading exercise, a rudiment page from stick control or other method books and section of the song we are working on. The rudiments assigned this week focuses on triplet and is geared towards learning our new song Sparkles by REDWIMP. Practise the triplet exercise pulsing every beat on the bass drum, so they know they are playing the triplet accurately. For the reading exercise, I would like Nova to work on two lines each week. We did the first two line this week. I told Nova they have the choice of either practising it at home, or we will do it as sight reading during lesson. Either way I would like them to read more. As for the new song, I have showed the first phrase. I will like them to try to read the song until bar 52 this week.
Adam
Since Adam has no drum set to practise on these past few weeks, I have resorted to giving him more rudiments exercise to work on. On the Stick Control book, he did a good job on the 16th notes exercise, and I would like him to try the page next to it which will introduce him to double strokes and roll in general. On top of that, I have assigned him several two bar drum patterns from the Drumset Musician book. This will get him well prepared to approach Under the Bridge when we are back to working on the song.
Jonah
We played through Superstition this week with the music, and Jonah did a superb job despite all the crazy transitions and how complicated the rhythms are. I have assigned Super Bad by James Brown to him this week. Please print it out and I would like him to first only work on the main pattern which is the first bar. That bar gets repeated a lot until the bridge section.
Efe – November 1st
Hi Efe and family! Wishing you a great weekend!
Below are the items I’d like Efe to work on this week.
Ode to Joy
- The circled areas on the sheet music only. I’d like these played more fluidly.
- 68bpm.
Blues
- I haven’t revealed the note names or the frets for this piece. The exercise is to locate the notes on the guitar. We did this in class and Efe did well on it. Doing this at home is a fair challenge for him.
Little Drummer Boy in D Major
— Listen to this. (This line should provide you with a link. If it doesn’t, then search up Little Drummer Boy by Pentatonix.) This is a modern version of the song. The key they perform it in is different from ours. Ours is in D Major. (I’ll talk about keys in more detail next time.) I just want you to get to know how the song is supposed to sound when sung with at least one voice.
— Play this song at both 70bpm and 115bpm.
- The video within this Google Drive link is of me demonstrating the strumming pattern and some transitions of the song at both tempos. https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1cURXZdyFoL_6FZX5V4COTxCljwXKq8wO
- It may be helpful to practice alongside the video; in that you do what I’m doing in the video.
— The 2 pictures in the above Google Drive link have the strumming pattern and the sequence of the chords.
- I’ve shortened it; this way, you’ll be learning the main parts of it.
— The strumming pattern is the exact same all throughout. Every chord has the same strumming pattern. The only difference is the last bar, which is just an open D chord; I’ve highlighted this in green.
— The first strum is circled. It should be the loudest one for each bar; so, strum it the hardest :)
— The only tab I’ve written is the frets for each chord. We looked at each of these 3 chords in class today so holding them down properly should not feel new.
— Try this song both standing and sitting.
- In both ways of playing, remember to push the guitar head outward from your body. (Or as I usually say, forward.) Remember the triangle analogy from today. Point your guitar and your left hand out from roughly the centre of your body. Doing so will help you maintain proper posture in both of your wrists.
Good work this past week, Efe. Keep it up! See you in a week!
Efe – October 25th
Hi Efe and family! Wishing you guys a great week!
Ode to Joy was looking quite good today. I’m very happy with where we are for this piece.
Below are the following items of homework for Efe this week: an exercise and a piece aimed at the improvement of the techniques we’ve been working on lately. There’s also a game I’ve given Efe to play.
Outside picking on the circled areas of Ode to Joy.
- 20 minutes a day.
- 68bpm.
- Work on these most of all. They’re the hardest things to work on this week.
- Spend time working on these circled areas alone in one day, if that’s all you have time for.
- It’s important that we isolate these hard parts of a piece first. Without doing so, the following problem will take place: when playing an entire piece from beginning to end, the same mistakes are made over and over. Whether the mistakes are technical or in the sound of the music. Hence, we must work on the hard parts first so that they are sounding clean. Then after this, we can connect all the parts into a seamless piece of music.
Ode to Joy — the whole piece.
- 15 minutes a day.
- 68bpm.
- Like I said: only do this part once the hard parts are not so hard anymore.
Strumming game.
- 10 minutes a day.
Play any chord you know well with the strumming pattern in the following picture. Do each tempo I have given. Then play it at whatever tempo you want. It should feel fun. This is a game to play and to try out different tempos in. It’s also a great chance to experiment with how to strum chords. (Since your guitar is a steel-stringed acoustic, Efe, you can strike the strings fairly hard. Not too hard, of course, because you don’t want to damage your guitar.)
- 75bpm.
- 68bpm.
- A tempo of your choosing.
- I’ve changed the strumming pattern slightly.
— This is the amount of strumming that happens in 2 separate bars. That black line in the middle represents the separation of the bars. The dots at the top represent the 4 quarter notes that fit within each bar.
— I’ve circled the Downward arrows so as to emphasize that these are the strums that are supposed to sound louder. They should feel “stronger” than the upward arrows.
Lastly:
- Every 5 minutes during practice, check to see how the left hand is looking. Make sure it is as straight as possible while playing. Feel free to manipulate the guitar’s position relative to your body in order to achieve a straighter wrist.
- Use a metronome for all the parts that I’ve added a specific tempo.
- These times are just what I would ask to be done within a day ideally. I know it’s not always possible, so just do what you can everyday. For example, the 30 minutes on 3 or more days this past week was effective. Good work on that.
Keep up the good work, Efe. I’ll see you in a week!
Preferred Books for Gergely’s Students
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Hal Leonard Guitar Method
The second edition of this world-famous method by Will Schmid and Greg Koch is preferred by teachers because it makes them more effective while making their job easier. Students enjoy its easy-to-follow format that gives them a solid music education while letting them play songs right away. Book 1 provides beginning instruction including tuning, 1st position melody playing, C, G, G7, D7, and Em chords, rhythms through eighth notes, solos and ensembles and strumming.
Four Star Sight Reading and Ear Tests
