David Randle, Music Lesson Expert

No matter what current song or technique you’re working on in your guitar lessons, behind the scenes you are training your mind, muscles, fingers, and nervous system to be a great guitar player. The happy work is learning a new tune, showing off for your friends, or jamming with other players, but the real growth as a guitar player comes from having the discipline to consistently and rigorously train your body to do the things that make a guitar player great, and do them on auto-pilot. The key here is to develop a strategy, a practicing plan, and repetitively execute that plan until your fingers know the way on their own; you choose to play something and the mind, muscles, fingers, and nervous system fire in synchronicity, almost like magic. Once that happens, your playing becomes more about the emotional content of what you’re playing than it does about the physical or mechanical part, and your guitar lessons start to pay dividends.

Guitar Lessons and Tips

In the last post, we concentrated on developing finger control using pairs of fingers. You should have gotten a good amount of control by now pairing fingers 1 and 2, 1 and 3, 1 and 4, 2 and 3, 2 and 4, and 3 and 4. In this exercise we are going to use or fingers in groups of three. Use the same approach of placing your fretting hand on a table, palm down, and while keeping the unused fingers still, execute the following patterns:

1,2, and 3
1,2, and 4
1,3, and 4
2,3, and 4

Concentrate on the hinge mechanism at the knuckle where the finger joins the hand and raise and lower each finger independently in exercise order. Musically imagine you are playing triplets instead of pairs of notes to develop a “feel” for the exercise as you perform it.

Guitar Lessons Applied

Let’s take what we’ve learned to the guitar. I want you to take the first exercise and the second exercise and place them on the guitar in the following way:

Beginning at the fifth fret and going across the strings from the sixth string to the first string and back again, dedicating the first finger to the fifth fret, the second finger to the sixth fret, the third finger to the seventh fret, and the fourth finger to the eigth fret, play each of the finger pairs, including 1 and 2, 1 and 3, 1 and 4, 2 and 3, 2 and 4, and 3 and 4. Make sure you are pressing with the tip of your fingers and playing each note as close to the fret as possible without touching it. Practice playing the pair on each string with a down and then up stroke with your pick or alternating fingers if you play finger style.

If the span of your fingers is at first too uncomfortable at the fifth fret, you may begin at the tenth fret where the frets are closer together. Get a good stretch. Eventually, you will need to be able to play this at the first fret where the fret distance is its maximum. As with any guitar lessons, be flexible enough to adapt what is being asked of you to where you are at the moment.

After becoming comfortable with playing the pairs of fingers, do the same thing with the triplets, playing across the strings and then returning to the sixth string. Play with a triplet feel. The only difference with your picking will be that as you play three notes per string in an alternating way, you will play down, up, down on the sixth string, up, down, up on the fifth string, down, up, down on the fourth string, and so on.

Make sure you use good finger pressure and are close enough to each fret. You can tell if you haven’t because you will get an undesirable buzzing sound out of your guitar. Play evenly and with control. Don’t play faster on the parts that are easy and then slow down on the parts that are more difficult.

If you own a metronome, use it, but set it at a tempo you can play at with no mistakes. Only gradually push the tempo to a faster speed as you get enough control to play with no mistakes. This is a great practice when working on any of your guitar lessons.

Good luck, and remember, there really is no replacement for face to face guitar lessons.

We’d love to hear from you! Please make sure your comments pertain to guitar lessons.

David Randle, Music Lesson Expert

Guitar lessons can show you what to do, and even how to do it, but ultimately you’ve got to train your mind and body to actually do it. Unfortunately, there’s not much that we do with our hands in a normal day that provides the same dexterity training that’s required to play a stringed instrument. So we are forced to spend time practicing the finger gymnastics needed to freely express ourselves on the guitar. Time spent in guitar lessons and especially the time spent practicing everything learned in guitar lessons can go a long way to helping achieve that dream of playing whatever music in whatever style that you are hungry to express. What I want to do in this post is look at some holistic approaches to using your body that can help accelerate your develop on your instrument and get you where you want to go a lot quicker, kind of like a musical fast lane.

Guitar Lessons and Tips

One of the most important things to accomplish in the process of playing is to develop a lack of separation between your own physiology and the physical aspect of the guitar. It must feel as though the guitar and specifically the strings are extensions of your fingers. The mindset is feeling as though you and the guitar are one entity and what you think and feel somehow comes out the soundhole or through the amplifier. But most of the day the guitar sits in its case while you’re in school or at work, or out with friends, etc. So is there anything you can do while the guitar is out of your hands to further the training discipline the fingers will need to be a great player?

It is absolutely mandatory to develop complete finger independence in order to effectively play the guitar with any speed. The muscles that individually lift the fingers up and down are critical to accomplish this with any control.

Guitar Lessons and Exercises

If you lay your hands on the table in front of you with your palm down there are some exercises you can do to develop independence even without the guitar in your hands. For these exercises we are going to number the four fingers of the left hand from 1 to 4, beginning with the index finger and finishing with the pinky. We are mostly concerned with the fingers of the hand that will be fretting the guitar, which will be your left hand if you are going to play right-handed or your right hand if you’re planning on playing left-handed. While it can be important to gain independence in the picking fingers if you’ll be playing classical style, finger picking, or playing fingerstyle, it is critical to train the fretting hand.

What I want you to do is arch your fingers like you’re holding a ball, with your palm down, so that your fingertips are touching the table. Then practice raising and lowering pairs of fingers in the following pairs: 1 and 2, 1 and 3, 1 and 4, 2 and 3, 2 and 4, 3 and 4. You will be alternating your fingers, for example, raising finger 1, then lowering finger 1 while you raise finger 2, then lowering finger 2 back to the start. You should be able to do this for thirty seconds to a minute for each finger pair and you can do this multiple times throughout the day. Try to completely minimize the movement of the two fingers that aren’t involved in the moving pair. Begin slowly to master moving the two fingers at the same rate of speed, and once you’ve equalized the movement, you may go as fast as you can.

Start with this exercise, and you will begin training your fingers even when you can’t have a guitar in your hands. Stay tuned in to the blog and follow all the guitar lessons posts and I will add exercises that involve three fingers and eventually all four fingers. Remember, the more you train the fingers, you are training the muscles, nervous system and the mind.

We welcome comments, but please only comment if you are adding to the discussion about Guitar Lessons.

This topic is about Guitar Lessons.

David Randle, Music Lesson Expert

Songwriting Lessons show that when you set out to write a song, there are only three elements that you really need to master. Those elements are lyric writing, melody writing, and harmonic progression development or chord progressions. While there are other minor elements like song structure, rhythm, and tempo, the big three that I first mentioned are the elements that are used by the Library of Congress to determine Intellectual property rights and the basis for a claim of Copyright.

So ultimately, it would be a good idea to become really comfortable with all three of these elements, to the point of mastering them, if you really want to be a great songwriter. And not only mastering them independently of each other, but learning how to fully integrate them together so that they sound like its really only one element. This is something you’ll be able to do if you follow along with our blog, practice the tips, and put the ideas we give you into action, or especially consider some formal songwriting lessons.

Songwriting Lessons Tip #1

But I started out saying when you set out to write a song, and maybe you are a good ways away from mastering all the elements at the moment and you just want to get better. So the first thing you are going to want to do is take an inventory of your skills

Are you a great lyric writer? Is using words your default point of communication? Do all your friends love the way you write verse, prose, and even speak? You are probably a natural with language. Does that mean that you can’t improve your understanding of meter, accents, syllabification, rhyme scheme and structure, like you would from taking some songwriting lessons? I think the answer is obvious. Even the best lyricists can get better. At least if you’re in this category, you know that lyric writing is one of your strengths.

Do you think and feel in melodies? Does the shape and contour of musical phrases excite you? Do your melodies sound just as good whether you sing awesome lyrics to them or just la la la? I find that many vocalists who have been singing hit songs by other writers for their whole musical career, have developed a feel for melody almost by osmosis. Does that mean they can’t benefit from an understanding of harmonic and non-harmonic tones, antecedent and consequent phrases, as well as mastering the use of an anacrusis, appoggiatura, anticipation, or suspension like they’d receive from the very best songwriting lessons? Anything to get better, right?

Is your attention mesmerized by the drama of the chord changes? Do you feel the lingering connection of the common tones while the adventure of the leading tones make the changes happen? Do you feel the thrill of dancing outside the key by grabbing secondary chords to make stronger resolutions? Usually these folks have a strong connection to performance on a chordal instrument, traditionally piano or guitar. But you know I’m going to ask, can they benefit from a strengthening of their music theory knowledge that can be greatly expanded through songwriting lessons? Understanding how to weave between parallel major and minor keys, engaging relative major and minor keys with their varied dominant chord functions, and folding tritone substitutions into their progressions are powerful skills that can be worth learning if you want to be the best you can be.

Songwriting Lessons Inventory Completion

Hopefully one of these elements speaks to you and is where you feel your music most deeply. If so, your inventory is done. But what I’m going to suggest next might surprise you. Even though I want you to become the total songwriter package, including mastery of all three of these elements, I want you to start where your strength is.

If you’re a lyricist, write a great lyric. If you’re a melody writer, make some magic with melody. If you’re a progression developer, create a foundation worthy of a hit song. By putting your best foot forward, you’ll get a great start on a superior song. For now, don’t worry about the other elements. Take action! Make a start! And I’ll be back soon to tell you what to do with the song fragment that you’ve just created, just like these are your very own songwriting lessons.

Please make sure all comments relate to the discussion about songwriting lessons.

David Randle, Music Lesson Expert

Music lessons are a powerful thing. From time to time we will be blogging about a knowledge base of tips, tricks, and useful information to help you better understand your gift, whether that be singing, playing an instrument, songwriting, or some combination of them all.

The strength that you will gain from taking lessons in the area of performance that most interests you will take you far beyond any place that you could imagine. It’s one thing to dream about it; looking out on an adoring crowd, giving the performance of your life in the recording studio, and feeling the music coming through every pore of your being. It’s another thing to take concrete steps to actually deliver yourself to the place where that dream is a reality.

Music lessons can be an amazing pathway to bring your talent to the surface. Being coached by very talented teachers who have been where you want to be, and who know how to show you the way to get there yourself, is like having a special map that shows you all the shortcuts. But by shortcuts, I don’t mean that there’s no work involved. Just that a master teacher can show you the exact places to focus your attention so that you get the most out of your talents and the time you have to spend.

Come to this blog often and see what we have to say about what you want to learn. It will definitely be worth it. Both Rebeca and I will be sharing our thoughts about many areas of music from creativity to covers, from technical mastery to emotional expression. We hope that you join us as a regular blog reader, and even as a private student or workshop attendee. We want for you what you want for yourself, and we know how to get you there.

Please, if you choose to comment on any of our posts, make your comments relevent to what we’re talking about.