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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Efe — May 9th
Hi Efe!
Here is what to look at for this week.
Artists to listen to
- Van Halen — Rock — Songs to try: Good Enough, Jump, Panama, Running with the Devil, Eruption, I’m the One, Jamie’s Crying, Atomic Punk, Ice cream man
- Joe Pass — Jazz — the link from today — We were about 1 minute in when you noticed a run on the guitar that you liked
- Django Reinhardt — Jazz — This man lost a finger on his left hand in a fire. And yet he still became a magnificent guitarist
Acoustic Open
- Continue to work on the first 16 bars. I saw some improvements today. — Make sure to try it without the video. Then do it with the video at 0.6x speed. I’ve slowed it down for this week. — If it is feeling super slow, raise the speed to 0.65x speed.
- Try the ending chords. Remember to make the last one cut completely short.
The above genres of music are full of countless things to discover and I hope those given songs inspire you to check out even more songs.
See you in a week!
Saturday, May 2nd
Jack
I got Jack started on Imperial March on the xylophone and started some basic keyboard notes identification with him. I had him learn the song through remembering patterns and the different locations. If interested in working on it on a piano at home, the score is uploaded to the drive folder. We will go through more of the song or perhaps try another simple melody.
Nova
We continued following the class structure of Stick Control into reading exercise into the song. Nova did a great job practising the assigned Stick Control exercises and doing it while keeping a beat on the kick drum. I would like them to go down the same page and work on the roll related exercises. As for the song, I would like them to work on the opening passage as well as the first triplet two bar passage that I bracketed. Be reminded of the hidden dynamic changes and to be musical. We will go to the more dense triplet section this coming class.
Jonah
We started working on orchestral excerpts today. We started one called Porgy and Bess and Jonah did a great job learning the first line. Both Barnaby and myself will like to encourage Jonah giving TSYO audition a try. We will listen to some of the reps in coming lesson and see Jonah is interested.
Efe – Jan 17th
Hi Efe! Wishing you and your family a great weekend. Here’s what I’d like you to work on this week.
This Google Drive will have all the required material for this week. I’m having a delay right now. Everything will be there during the day on Sunday, January 18th. Efe – Jan 17th
Regarding my notes on last semester’s student report, I’ve implemented a plan here that gets you to practice a half hour a day.
Experimenting with new Powerchords — 5 minutes
For these, remember to use fingers 1 and 4 on your Left Hand. — Only use fingers 1 and 4 for the powerchords I give you for now. (There are powerchords with more notes in the actual chord, but I’m not going into that this week. I just want you understanding the most basic type of powerchord for now; we’ll get to those other ones later.)
- Play them anywhere on the bottom 4 strings. (E, A, D, G.) Don’t go up to the B or high E string with these; we’ll talk about those strings next time.
- ^ This is to say: Find the notes of this scale on the bottom 3 strings only. From here, you have to play that chess-like game I told you about :) which is when you start from the root note (the chord’s letter name), and then move 2 frets sideways and then 1 fret up.
Smells Like Teen Spirit — 15 minutes
There’s a video of me demonstrating the main riff of this song at 60BPM; half the original speed. Dedicate some time to playing this riff on repeat; exactly as you see me doing here.
- Don’t worry about the percussive picking you see in this video. As I told you in class, I’ll be showing you that technique a little later.
- There are 2 pictures in this week’s Google Drive that pertain to this song. 1: the 4 main powerchords that are played in this song. 2: the G powerchord. Be mindful of this chord. So many guitarists overlook this chord in this song.
- Make sure you’re sticking to the exact same strumming pattern that I’m using in the video.
E minor pentatonic scale — 10 minutes
- The Backing Track: Backing track in E minor
- There is a picture of the additional frets I’ve added to this scale.
— Well done on memorizing this. Keeping playing around with this over the backing track.
— Feel free to add vibrato on any of the notes in this scale so far. Remember your term, the “wiggle” :) this is what I’m referring to.
— We’re forgetting about the B major chord for now. I was mistaken in attempting to push you to learn this chord; it’s a bit high-level for you right now. You’ll get there eventually.
— Play the E minor, E major, and G major chords over this.
Final words
A little bit of practice everyday is far better than a huge amount of practice in one day. I’m strictly stopping you from doing a ridiculous amount of of practice in one day, because I don’t want you to risk hurting your hands. This is, indeed, a risk that some guitarists overlook and end up hurting their hands with.
It was a good lesson today, Efe. Thank you for your hard work. See you in a week!
Efe – Jan 10th
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
- 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!
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
