Minor 7th Arpeggios Part 1 – In A Minor I’ve attached some arpeggio exercises to this post for practice. They will all be in A minor, and each exercise uses the same minor 7th voicing, the same 3 string arpeggio, and the examples become more complex. The first example is the introduction to the arpeggio…
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Scales Major Minor Harmonic Minor Harmonic Major Melodic Minor Major Pentatonic Minor Pentatonic Whole Tone Diminished Dorian Aeolian Phrygian Lydian Mixolydian Locrian Dorian b9 Mixolydian b6 Altered scale Lydian Dominant Phrygian Dominant etc etc etc There are scales for scales. Modes for modes. Each with their own ‘voice’ and character that you can lend to…
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Memorization Madness Part 3 Part three on a discussion about memorization, and thinking about how you best spend your practice time. So far, we’ve looked at level one mastery, which is the ability to play the concept “in your hands” or “in your ears”, without the book. Level two mastery is more complex, and takes…
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Memorization Madness Part 2 In part one we looked the 1st level to mastery, and talked about how much practice it should take to reach this stage. I also posted some numbers and ideas about how it relates to time spent “woodshedding”. In a nutshell, most people think to reach the 1st level (lick is…
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Memorization Madness – Part 1 Your time in the practice room is extremely valuable. You should not waste it on unnecessary issues, or only “half practice”. I started my study on memorization of a particular skill by using my students as subjects. I took my own experience as well, but I asked each one the…
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The Guitar Practice Routine: Some thoughts on practice routines. All players and students of all ages have their inherent strengths and weaknesses. Guitar players, in particular come in very different shapes and sizes. Some guitarists have fantastic ears, and learned everything they know without ever learning any theory, some players are the total opposite,…
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Practicing For Speed: Practicing for guitar speed really takes patience and determination, and GOALS. 1. Speed has nothing to do with talent. 2. The ability to play fast, and the ability to play well, are not always the same thing. 3. There is no clearly defined “fastest”. Meaning, what is “fast” is different depending on…
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What’s the best approach to teaching children? Part 4 In the last 3 entries we spoke about different approaches. All have their merits, as well as their own specific weaknesses. In this article we will address the Teacher themselves. Just as there are many different personalities of people, there are just as many personalities of…
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What is the Best Approach to Teaching Children? Part 3 This is part three of our series, “What is the Best Approach to Teaching Children?” In past articles we talked about the two most common methods of teaching. Part 2 dealt with the “method book” approach. We also looked at the pros and cons…
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What’s the best approach to teaching children? Part 2: In part one of “The Best Approach”, we talked about the Chord approach. Generally speaking, this is usually how a typical teacher working in a music shop will teach. We also talked about the pros and cons of this approach as well. The “Book” approach:…
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