L E V E L I
Module III
In Module III you’ll continue learning new chords and songs, along with various essential techniques and exercises.
Learn the basics of fingerstyle, starting with the video B4Right Hand Overview and followed by practicing three fingerpicking patterns, which you’ll find in T9Fingerstyle Technique . Don’t get in a hurry to learn all three patterns now. Just learn one, practice it until it’s easy and smooth and use it in one or more songs. You can refer back to the lesson when you’re ready for a different pattern.
Lesson
1
Add a new song that will allow you to use a pattern that has an upstroke on the “&” that falls between beats. The fourth song in Getting Started is Circle Be Unbroken, which teaches this strum.
Lesson
2
Memorizing your music is important for more than just convenience. When a song is memorized, you’ll be able to play it more smoothly and expressively. The more songs you memorize, the more you’ll understand music and you’ll find that learning songs becomes easier and faster. But don’t believe that if you play a song enough times, you’ll memorize it. You’ll need to make a conscious effort to memorize it—but it will be an easy and quick process if you take the approach I’ve laid out for you in this lesson: G5Memorizing Music
Lesson
3
It’s time to start adding some cool techniques to your tool box! I demostrate the hammer-on and pull-off in this video: T15 Hammer-On, Pull-Off . You can read about it here: T8Hammer-On and Pull-Off
Lesson
4
Continue your practice of finding notes on the fretboard, spending the most time learning the 5th and 6th strings. Watch G3Fretboard Familiarity again, to make the process go more quickly. Speed at recognizing notes on the lower two strings will set you up for finding barre chords, which you’ll be ready for soon!
Lesson
5
Adding the 12-bar blues to your repertoire will help you understand of a lot of songs: R2 12-Bar Blues . By practicing in the keys given in this lesson, you’ll also get better at playing first position chords and will become even more familiar with the most common chord progression in common keys. When you’re comfortable playing the progressions in this lesson, you’ll be able to easily jump into most jam sessions!
Lesson
6
Learning the C scale in the first position is not only a great way to start playing single notes across the strings, it’s also a good way to learn the notes on the first three frets. Be sure you name the notes as you play them! LP2C Scale, First Position
Lesson
7
Look how far you’ve come! Amazing! You’re now ready to launch into playing melodies! G11Playing the Melody
Lesson
8
Even if you don’t read music, it will help you a lot to understand time signatures. I have recorded both audio and video lessons to explain them. Like most of the lessons, you’ll want to go over them multiple times, so use both! ET12 Time Signatures; Th18 Time Signatures
Lesson
9
Click here to finish Level I!
Conclusion
