Multi Skill Focused exercise 2: Building chord progressions

Article two of the multi skill focused exercise is a bit different than the other one but I think just as fun. These are the types of exercises you should focus on if you don’t have a lot of practice time. They work on several skills all at once which makes them an effective and efficient way to practice.

This particular exercise will work on Chord knowledge, music theory skills, visualization skills, rhythmic skills and songwriting skills. All you need to do is practice writing but with new tools.

Generally, when writing chord progressions or songs you want to stick with the tools you know well, but experimenting with new chord shapes tools and theory concepts is also a great way to learn new songwriting tools.

The process for this process is simple.

1)     Give yourself a set of restrictions to work with.

A restriction is a concept that you are committing to use in your idea. If you ever watched those cooking shows where they make the cook use certain 4 specific ingredients or one special ingredient had to be in there recipe, this is a similar concept. The restriction will allow you more creativity because it can get you out of your comfort zone while still giving you parameters to work within it. Another way to look at it involves an old saying. Instead of playing inside the box, you’re taken out of the box and placed in a new box that’s a little bit shinier.

Here’s an example of a restriction that would work well for building chord progressions.

I’m going to use sus2 chords, secondary dominant chords, 6/8 time and keep myself limited to only eighth notes and quarter note rhythms.

This list of restrictions is perfect because it gives you some interesting territory to play with and involves all the steps were going to work on.

2) Write the chord progression:

This section is somewhat self explanatory. You’re going to write the chord progression. This will involve your music theory skills (circle of fifths, non-diatonic chords, harmonic progression) and will also allow you to explore theory terms you may be working with.

3) Write the rhythm:

Then you can write out the rhythm. Often times, I like to just write out the rhythm without playing the rhythm on the guitar so I can see if I like the rhythm first. You can also play the guitar to see what rhythm you like, just keep the restrictions you set for yourself in mind.

4) Create variations:

If you have a chord progression that sounds semi decent start making variations. There are so many possibilities, why limit yourself to just one? Change up the rhythm, change up the chords and change the restrictions. The idea is to be creative, while still working on all of these different skilled areas was well. It’s like a quick focus rotation exercise, every minute or so you’re playing something else and focusing elsewhere.

5) Listen to what you wrote:

Here comes the fun part, not only is this a great exercise for developing many skills, it’s also just a great songwriting exercise. Take this material and sift through it, take what you like, put it to the side and save it for later. You can expand this chord progression into a whole song, attach a riff to it and sing a little melody over it or simply just hold on to it for later. Practice and a song, how efficient is that.

About the author:

Chris Glyde is a guitar teacher and business owner. With a busy schedule and lots of people vying for his time he is always looking for a more efficient way to get things done. If you’re looking for the most efficient guitar lessons in Rochester NY, contact him

How To Create Interesting Chord Progressions

By Matthew Chanway

This article is targeted towards intermediate level players who have some experience with songwriting, and specifically writing chord progressions. If you've been a student of mine or any reputable teacher, likely you've learned about the diatonic chord formula for major and minor keys – in other words, being familar with the 'I' chord being major in a major key, the 'ii' chord being minor, such and so forth. When you first learn this formula, it can be quite liberating as it can show how a lot of really popular songs use chord progressions derived from it. So much of the magic in songs we know and love come from selecting a few numbers, and then playing those chords on a guitar.

If you're strictly interested in composing pop music, you may find that the original diatonic chord formula may be enough for your songwriting purposes. However, for most other styles, and even in certain sub-genres of pop music, you may want more chords to play with, and that is what we will explore today.

Let's say we begin writing a song in the key of C Major. The seven chords of C Major are Cmaj7, Dmin7, Emin7, Fmaj7, G7, Amin7 and Bmin7b5. Here are three approaches we could take to expand our available chords to work with:

Option 1: Modulate To Another Key Using The Circle of 5ths

This article assumes you are aware of the circle of 5ths and what it represents. The key signature next to C Major is G Major. You're likely aware already that adjacent keys on the circle of 5ths have only a one note difference in their key signature. So, the notes of G Major are G, A, B, C, D, E, F# - only F# is different from C Major. However, if we carry out our diatonic formula in G Major, we end up with the chords Gmaj7, Amin7, Bmin7, Cmaj7, D7, Emin7, F#min7b5. Even if we ignore the min7b5, we still have three new chord possibilities – Gmaj7, D7, and Bmin7. These chords may work well to complement your existing chord choices in C Major.

Option 2: Modulate To The Key Of Any Chord in C Major

Another possible smooth transition would be to modulate to the key signature of any diatonic chord in C Major, for example, modulating to F Major. This would yield us the chords Fmaj7, Gmin7, Amin7, Bbmaj7, C7, Dmin7, Emin7b5. Lots of potentially interesting chords come up from using this technique. We would generally avoid the vii or min7b5 chord when picking a key to modulate to.

Option 3: Modulate To The Parallel Minor Key of C Major

A parallel minor key is the minor key of the same root note as your original major key. For example, C Minor is the parallel minor key of C Major. If we take this approach, remember that the diatonic chord formula for minor keys is the same as major keys, we can just consider it as starting on the 'vi' chord of the major key. There are a couple of steps here, but the chords of C Minor will be Cmin7/Dmin7b5/Ebmaj7/Fmin7/Gmin7/Abmaj7/Bb7.

Regardless of the approach you chose to adopt, make sure you have a strategy in place of how you plan to shift between keys. Do you want to just borrow one chord from one of these other keys? Or, do you want to do one or two chords from your original key, and then modulate to your new key for the rest of

the progression? There are many possibilities, but by expanding your chord awareness, you can ensure that you are never stuck for effective chords to use in your songwriting process.

Matt Chanway is a professional guitarist and teaches guitar lessons in Surrey, British Columbia.

Harmonizing Melodic Content

by Dennis Winge

 Harmonize a melody can really make a song come to life.  This is done to great effect not only in metal bands like Iron Maiden, but also in classic rock groups such as The Allman Brothers and Thin Lizzy.  Learning to harmonize a melody is a great practice because it combines ear training with music theory with fretboard knowledge.  We will take this melody in E minor as our example:

The objective is to write another melodic line to be played (presumably by another instrument, or specifically in the case of the rock bands mentioned, two guitars each playing one of the lines.)  Here are the basic steps:

1.  Write the line out in numbers

This means to represent all the notes as intervals within the key.  If your ear is trained you can recognize these much more easily.  For example, you would simply ‘hear’ that the first note is a 5th if you have learned to associate that interval with a famous song (i.e  the notes e to b, which form the interval of a perfect 5th, is the same as the first two notes of the “Star Wars” theme.) 

If your ear is not well trained, then you have to use music theory.  Since E minor is the key here, e is 1 and b is 5, the first and 5th notes of the scale.  You must know that the notes to a minor scale are 1, 2, b3, 4, 5, b6, b7, and 8 (which is the same as 1).  Further, since it is a given that in a minor scale the third, sixth and seventh are flattened, it is not necessary in our analysis to constantly use the “b” symbol.  When we say “3” or “6” or “7,” we shall mean “b3,” “b6” or “b7,” unless a natural symbol (♮) is used.

Here is the result for each bar:   |  5 1 7 6 5  |  6 5 4  |  5 6 5 4 3 4  |  5  |

2.  Start the harmonized line on the next note in the triad

A triad is the 1st, 3rd, and 5th note of a particular key all played together.  In this case, Em is e, g, and b.  If the melody note is e then you can start the harmonized line on g, and if the melody was g then you could start on b to harmonize it.  The first note of our melody is b and the next note of the triad goes back to e, above the b.  In other words, think of it as a continuous series of triads (e, g, b then next octave e, g, b etc.)

3.  Follow the contour of the original phrase

Contour means the overall shape of the melody.  When it goes up, your new harmonized line goes up, and when the melody goes up, your new line goes down.  (This is called “similar motion.”  There are other kinds of motion that can be used to harmonize a line but this one is the simplest and most immediately relevant to most rock/pop contexts.)

We start our harmonized line on the 1, the e note, and then follow the overall direction, and get the following result:

Original line:                      |  5 1 7 6 5  |  6 5 4  |  5 6 5 4 3 4  |  5  |

Harmonized line:               |  1 3 2 1 7  |  1 7 6  |  7 1 7 6 5 7  |  1  |

In standard notation it looks like this:

4.  Keep in mind the underlying harmony

Notice that in the two sets of numbers above, the harmonized line is often a “3rd” above the original, i.e. 1 becomes 3; 3 becomes 5; 5 becomes 7.  However, this is not always the case.  For example the second to last set of notes, according to our theory of thirds, should be 4 and 6.  I chose to harmonize with 7 instead for two reasons, both of which relate to the harmony:  a) the d note is chord tone to Bm, whereas the c (the choice of the 6th) would clash  b) we are resolving to an e so it sounds stronger coming from a whole step (d to e), than it would coming from two whole steps (c to e)

5.  Adjust aesthetically

The last point above, it could be argued, is more of an ‘aesthetic’ choice on my part than a theory-based choice.  Let your ear decide.  If it doesn’t sound right, all the theory in the world will not help make it sound right to your audience.  Harmonizing a melody is both math and art.

Have fun with harmonizing melodies.  If you find it too overwhelming to start, begin with a nursery rhyme.  Here, I’ll even get you started.  Mary Had a Little Lamb:  3 2 1 2 3 3 3,  2 2 2,  3 5 5,  3 2 1 2 3 3 3 3 2 2 3 2 1.  Play it in the key of G or something easy, so you can start hearing the effect of it right away.  You’ll be hooked in no time. :)

About the author: Dennis Winge is a professional guitarist living in New York with a passion for vegan food and bhakti yoga.  If you are interested in taking Guitar Lessons in Newfield, NY, then be sure to contact Dennis!

The Augmented Chord

by Dennis Winge

 Augmented Triads

The augmented chord is a root, 3rd and raised (or augmented) 5th.  In the key of C this is c, e, and g#.  A typical place to play this triad on the guitar would be:

But when all your other chords are 4 strings or more, just playing 3 strings as in the voicing above can sound a little thin.  The notes above, from bottom to top (meaning 3rd string to 1st string) are g#, c and e.  Suppose we double the e and c notes.  Then we can play it like this:

This is the most common form of an augmented chord.  And it is symmetrical.  This means that every 4 frets the chord ‘repeats.’  In other words, all these voicings can interchange for the 4-string chord above:

In order to see why, play the notes e, g#, c, and e on the 1st string of your guitar at frets 0, 4, 8, and 12.  Each note is a note in the Caug chord (also written as C+) above (and we also played the e an octave above where we started), and each note is evenly spaced, four frets apart from each other.  That is why the augmented chord is called ‘symmetrical.’

Going further with this, you could play any of the chords above a Caug, and you could call them Eaug, and you could call them G#aug.  All 3 have the same notes, so any one of the notes could be considered the root.

Thus there are 4 ‘families’ of augmented chords, and each family has 3 members.  The augmented families are:

 Knowing these families can help because if you see an F augmented and your fretting hand is down by the nut because you’re playing open strings, it would take you way out of the way to put find the F on fret 8 of string 5 and play the voicing above where the root is on this note.  It would be a lot closer to play it here:

This voicing puts C# (or Db) in the bass (at the 4th fret of the 5th sting) and because it’s in the same family as F, it works great.  Can you see that as long as the note of the root being asked for (in this case the note f) is in the chord (in this case at 3rd fret of the 4th string) then it’s a good choice? 

Can you also see that there are only 4 augmented chords in the musical universe?  What I mean by that is, if you played the chord above at fret 1, then 2, then 3, then 4, they would all be separate chords, but when you move it to fret 5, it will be the same chord as the one on fret 1 (as show in the earlier diagrams.)

Augmented 7th chords

If you are reading a chord chart on the fly and you see “C7+5” or “C+7” or “Caug7” (all of which mean the same thing) and you don’t have time to grab a full augmented 7th chord, then you can play the 4-string voicing we have been talking about above.  In other words, you can ignore the 7th and just play C+.  I present this simply to save you potential headache.  If you leave out the 7th, it won’t be a big deal.

Having said that, it will be useful to get at least two aug 7th chords under your belt.  I say “two” because you should have one whose root is on the 6th string and one whose root is on the 5th string, just as you do with regular barre chords.  For the one whose root is on the 6th string, I personally find this one the easiest:

When it comes to the 5th string roots, none of these may strike you as being particularly easy, but pick just one of them and stick with that for any time you need a 5th-string root aug 7th chord.  (Or, as I mentioned, simply ignore the 7th and play the original 4-string triad voicing presented.)

Common Uses

The augmented 7th chord is a type of dominant chord because it has a root, major 3rd and flat 7th, the same as a regular 7th chord.  The only difference, for example, between C7 and C+7 is that the fifth is raised.  Typically, the augmented chord adds more tension to resolve back to the tonic chord than a regular dominant chord.  In other words, play C7 to F.  Then play C+7 to F.  The latter is a bit more dramatic, don’t you think?

Some famous songs start with augmented chords which are a great way to pull you into the song’s tonic (or root chord) as in the Beatles’ “Oh, Darling!” or Chuck Berry’s “No Particular Place to Go.”

Pop/ rock songs that use the augmented chord

All My Loving – Beatles; Anybody Who is Anybody - Fat Sam's Grandslam; Break Free - Ariana Grande; Dogs - Pink Floyd; From Me to You – Beatles; Goodbye Stranger – Supertramp; I’m So Tired – Beatles; It Won't Be Long – Beatles; Life on Mars – Bowie; Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds – Beatles; Modjo - Saviour Eyes; Muffin Man – Zappa; Out of Time – Blur; Stormy Monday - T-Bone Walker; The Impossible Year - Panic at the Disco; Zanzibar - Billy Joel

About the Author:  Dennis Winge is a pro guitarist and educator living in the Finger Lakes Region of New York State.  For guitar lessons in Newfield, NY be sure to check out his school. 

4 Keys To The Sweeps

By Zach Payton.

Do you ever find yourself practicing that same sweep over and over again? Today we’re going to talk about three quick tips that will help you massively make leaps with your sweep picking. Before we do that if you have no idea what sweep picking is I suggest you go and check out my website www.lewistonguitarlessons.com.

First thing this will drastically help your sweep picking is take your pick and slightly angle it roughly at 45 degrees. This will make it when you go to sweep pick that the pick will slice right through the strings and you won’t feel your pick trying to grab the strings.

Second thing to increasing your sweep picking, now you have your pick in the right position. The next thing we’re going to talk about is how you should properly ascend and descend across the strings. For ascending have your pick as close as possible to the top string, but don’t have it actually touch the string. The reason why you don’t have the pick touch the string is because when you go to ascend your pick will grab the string and it won’t slice through the strings as easy as if you were as close as you can be but not touching the strings. Now having your pick in the position where it should be, now push your pick across the strings with your elbow and shoulder, your wrist shouldn’t move at all when sweeping across. Next when you descend make sure the pick again is as close to the bottom string as possible but not touching the string. Now during the descending part pull the pick towards you with your elbow, make sure to keep your wrist in the same position like it was in when you were ascending.

Third thing, make sure for your left hand when you’re ascending, your guitar doesn’t support your hand. Your arms and shoulders should support your hand. So now during the ascending motion with the little amount of tension play one note per string and as you play that note relax that finger after the note has been played this will help get rid of what’s called bleeding. Also when you’re ascending don’t pull your left hand down. Now for the descending part, when you descend it’s the same when you ascend.

Fourth Thing, one more thing that we’re going to talk about today is a problem that most people struggle with is called finger rolling.

Notice how on strings four, three and two you’re playing on the same fret. The first thing you need to do to play this correctly is to put the pad of your middle finger on the four string, then as you ascend you need to rock your finger forward playing the next string right above the joint. Then rocking onto playing the next note below the joint. That is how you ascend with one of these arpeggios. Now on to how to descending, to descend this arpeggio you just have to reverse the process of ascending and rock your middle finger backwards.

So to conclude this article if you take just these four things that we talked about today I guarantee your sweep picking will feel allot easier and you will start see things fall into place. If you want more information on how to sweep pick come visit my website at www.guitarlessonsinlewistonid.com

Why Doesn’t My Vibratos Sound Awesome?

If you are asking yourself this question, then I’ve got a few answers for you to help.
Lots of guitar players when they hear their favourite guitar players do phrasing, wonder how they make it sound so great. And besides the obvious answer of practise. There are a few core fundamentals you can practise on to make sure your vibratos consistently sound great. And you can use these fundamentals to adapt vibratos to create your own style and use it in your soloing.

This article is for you if you already know how to do a vibrato and can do it with the right technique pretty easily. This applies both for vibratos that you do bending the string and also for slide vibratos too.

1.      Pitch

One of the most important things about the vibrato is the pitch variance going back and forth.

You want to be check that each time your vibrato goes up to a certain pitch. Whether you’ve picked half a tone or a full tone. That it is consistently hitting that higher note.

Same goes for when you are moving your string back down to the original pitch, it needs to be consistent every time.

2.      Speed

Another thing that’s very important is the speed of your vibrato. Whether you want to keep the same speed through out, have it slow down or speed up. You want to at least make sure whatever it is. It makes sense. If some of the bends are slow and some are fast, then it can sound very inconsistent.

Another aspect of speed is whether your vibrato speed works with the music that you are playing in. You want to make sure it’s congruent and works melodically. Vibratos are here to help you express the emotion of the piece. So try to think about how the melody part would sound if you sang it, and then practise mimicking that in your guitar playing too.

3.      Volume

Your vibratos should have a good tone that lasts. You don’t want it to dye out or go quiet too early, and if it does, you can repick the string. But you want to practise this so it sounds good when you do it.

4.      Sound

How does the overall vibrato sound to you. Maybe it doesn’t quite sound like your favourite guitar player yet. But with practise, soon you will be able to apply these fundamentals and structure of your vibratos to actual solos. And when you are replicating your favourite guitar players vibratos. Think about how they are altering their vibratos based on the categories we’ve listed above too.

With all vibratos and bends, you want to practise this slowly, 5 minutes a day for a period of 3 months minimum to see your vibratos transform and no longer be out of tune and inconsistent.

About author:

Guitar Tuition East London offers London guitar lessons for beginner guitar players all the way to advanced professional guitar lessons. Including many singer song writers and professional musicians. Their focus is on students having fun and enjoying the process of learning, so that they get lots of progress on the guitar for years to come.

How To Become a Better Guitar Player Without Learning New Stuff

By Byron Marks

When I was first learning to play guitar, I thought that to get better I had to learn new things all the time. It never occurred to me to take the skills I already had and improve those first. The common thought was "If I want to get better, I need more stuff to learn". This isn't true at all.

In this article I am going to show you how being an information junkie can slow your improvement. I'm not saying that wanting to learn more is a bad thing in itself. Improving your guitar playing doesn't mean that you should learn new things all the time. If all you do is learn new things, you don't give yourself a chance to improve the flaws in your guitar playing. You are increasing the odds that you are going to become frustrated with your guitar playing.

Lets look at this a different way. Imagine that you aren't able to keep a steady rhythm. Playing rhythm guitar in time is a big challenge for you. What would happen if you learned a new song everyday for a month and didn't practice anything else? The thought most people have is "Awesome, I've learned 30 new songs". Knowing 30 songs is cool, what isn't cool is not being able to keep a steady rhythm for any of those 30 songs.

The reason the problem still exists after learning those songs is that you haven't gotten to the root of the issue. That issue is, what does it take to be able to keep a steady rhythm? You thought that learning a new song everyday would be the fix but it wasn't. Until you fix the actual issue it won't be.

Instead of learning a new song everyday for a month, spend those 30 days improving your ability to play in time. You can do this with one song and then once the skill improves, learning more songs if you want. Your improved rhythm guitar playing will transfer over to those other songs. You don't even have to learn a song to do it, you could spend the 30 days working on improving the skill. It is more fun to use a song as a benchmark — being able to play along with a recording from start to finish is awesome.

Here are some ways to improve your guitar playing (Rhythm and Lead):

1. Practice with a metronome or drum machine

    - Playing along with either of these benefits you because the timing is always going to be right on. You have a compass to guide you.

2. Practice at slow tempos

    -Practicing at a slow tempo gives your brain a chance to focus on what you are doing. It allows you to play relaxed. Playing relaxed is key to becoming a better guitar player. The best guitar players are always the most relaxed ones.

3. Pick a specific rhythm to play

  -Start with something like quarter notes, playing on each click of the metronome. If playing along with a drum machine using a standard rock drum beat-play along with the bass drum and snare drum. Strum along with each beat.

4. Speed up the metronome (or drum machine)

  -Once you feel comfortable at your starting speed, resist the urge to play a different rhythm. Speed up the metronome (or drum machine) by 5 or 10 beats pre minute (BPM) and do this again. Keep increasing the speed until you can only get through a measure (4 beats/strums) before everything falls apart.

5. Take a video of yourself playing

  -When you watch the video you will be able to see things like your picking motion, the level of your shoulders, excess tension, how far away your fingers move from the fretboard... If you see that  you are doing any of these things wrong, you can then set about correcting them. This alone will improve your guitar playing immensely. The changes may not happen overnight but they will happen. Stick with it

6. Record yourself playing (audio only) with the metronome or drum machine

  -There is an old saying that the "Tape doesn't lie" and its true. When you listen back to a recording of your playing you will hear if you are keeping solid time or not. You can also use a loop pedal if you have one to record yourself. Once you have created your loop, play along with it and see if you can keep time.

Once you have gone through some or all these steps, pick a different rhythm. Repeat the steps with the new rhythm. Once you have a more solid base you can experiment by mixing your rhythms and seeing how solid those are.

This approach to your guitar practicing and playing will have a massive benefit for you. As your skills start improving go back and play along with a song or songs that you want to learn. Ask yourself how much easier does it feel?

You have improved your skill level. Now, when you learn more songs the skills that you have worked on will transfer over to those songs. You improved your guitar playing but you didn't learn anything new to do it. This is the way to go about mastering your guitar playing. It is fun to learn and play new stuff. What is even cooler is knowing that no matter what it is that you learn, you will be able to play it well. Your confidence in your guitar playing will skyrocket.

These skills will also help you to be a more creative guitar player if that is what you want to do. Think of how much easier it will be to create your own songs, riffs, licks or solos when you have control of your playing.

About The Author: Byron Marks teaches guitar lessons for beginners in Manchester, New Hampshire.

How To Create Interesting Chord Progressions

By Matthew Chanway

This article is targeted towards intermediate level players who have some experience with songwriting, and specifically writing chord progressions. If you've been a student of mine or any reputable teacher, likely you've learned about the diatonic chord formula for major and minor keys – in other words, being familar with the 'I' chord being major in a major key, the 'ii' chord being minor, such and so forth. When you first learn this formula, it can be quite liberating as it can show how a lot of really popular songs use chord progressions derived from it. So much of the magic in songs we know and love come from selecting a few numbers, and then playing those chords on a guitar.

If you're strictly interested in composing pop music, you may find that the original diatonic chord formula may be enough for your songwriting purposes. However, for most other styles, and even in certain sub-genres of pop music, you may want more chords to play with, and that is what we will explore today.

Let's say we begin writing a song in the key of C Major. The seven chords of C Major are Cmaj7, Dmin7, Emin7, Fmaj7, G7, Amin7 and Bmin7b5. Here are three approaches we could take to expand our available chords to work with:

Option 1: Modulate To Another Key Using The Circle of 5ths

This article assumes you are aware of the circle of 5ths and what it represents. The key signature next to C Major is G Major. You're likely aware already that adjacent keys on the circle of 5ths have only a one note difference in their key signature. So, the notes of G Major are G, A, B, C, D, E, F# - only F# is different from C Major. However, if we carry out our diatonic formula in G Major, we end up with the chords Gmaj7, Amin7, Bmin7, Cmaj7, D7, Emin7, F#min7b5. Even if we ignore the min7b5, we still have three new chord possibilities – Gmaj7, D7, and Bmin7. These chords may work well to complement your existing chord choices in C Major.

Option 2: Modulate To The Key Of Any Chord in C Major

Another possible smooth transition would be to modulate to the key signature of any diatonic chord in C Major, for example, modulating to F Major. This would yield us the chords Fmaj7, Gmin7, Amin7, Bbmaj7, C7, Dmin7, Emin7b5. Lots of potentially interesting chords come up from using this technique. We would generally avoid the vii or min7b5 chord when picking a key to modulate to.

Option 3: Modulate To The Parallel Minor Key of C Major

A parallel minor key is the minor key of the same root note as your original major key. For example, C Minor is the parallel minor key of C Major. If we take this approach, remember that the diatonic chord formula for minor keys is the same as major keys, we can just consider it as starting on the 'vi' chord of the major key. There are a couple of steps here, but the chords of C Minor will be Cmin7/Dmin7b5/Ebmaj7/Fmin7/Gmin7/Abmaj7/Bb7.

Regardless of the approach you chose to adopt, make sure you have a strategy in place of how you plan to shift between keys. Do you want to just borrow one chord from one of these other keys? Or, do you want to do one or two chords from your original key, and then modulate to your new key for the rest of the progression? There are many possibilities, but by expanding your chord awareness, you can ensure that you are never stuck for effective chords to use in your songwriting process.

Matt Chanway is a professional guitarist and teaches guitar lessons in Surrey, British Columbia.

The Importance of Goal Setting

Music Goal Setting

In this article I would like to talk about setting ‘SMART Music Playing Goals’. If you have not heard of “SMART” goals before, this is your time to find out about them! And if you have, this is your time to revise them.

Why Set SMART Music Playing Goals?

‘’Goals. There’s no telling what you can do when you get inspired by them. There’s no telling what you can do when you believe in them. And there’s no telling what will happen when you act upon them’’ Jim Rohn, Motivational Speaker

Goals when written down can be powerful compasses to keep us on track and motivate us to achieve the results we want for ourselves. Each time we set, work towards and achieve our own goals we not only benefit from the feeling of success, but we will develop more self-belief, persistence, patience, resilience and self-accountability along the way.

Goal setting is an under taught but valuable skill that can be used in so many areas of our lives.

You set your own music playing goals and choose things that you are genuinely interested in and want to achieve. Deciding goals might be a bit hard at first, but if you have a teacher, they are there to help and like any new skill goal setting gets easier with repetition!

The best way to set goals is using the SMART format:

S= specific
M= measurable
A= attainable
R= relevant
T= time-based

Sometimes goals will be achieved as planned - be proud when that happens! Other times a part of the SMART goal might need adjusting - so rather than being disappointed in yourself, be patient. Just adjust the plan and keep persisting. And remember what Bruce Lee said:

“A goal is not always meant to be reached; it often serves simply as something to aim at”

At Ultimate School of Music, we teach our students how to set and reach goals for themselves. Contact us for the best guitar lessons in Dublin

How Do I Know Whether I Should Send My Child To Guitar Lessons?

So you’ve been thinking about your child going to guitar lessons? Are you wondering if that’s the right instrument for them? Are you wondering whether it will be worth them learning an instrument at all?

This article will give you a few things to think about whether guitar lessons will be right for your child and also for you too.

Does your child want to play the guitar?

The most important thing is does your child want to play the guitar. You may be the most supportive parent in the whole world. But if your child wants nothing but to play football all day. Then it may be difficult to encourage them to sit down and play. However, if they have shown an interest in it themselves. Whether something has inspired them or someone they know plays the guitar. Then that is a great start.

What age is your child?

We normally recommend children to learn how to play the guitar is around seven or eight. This is because by then they have reasonable dexterity and concentration. They can have a tonne of progress in a short space of time.

The guitar is a little harder than some other instruments and requires good two hand coordination. Every child is different, so it’s worth taking your child to a guitar teacher. When they are below that age, they can start playing very simple things on the guitar. However, many parents prefer to save their money and have their child make tonnes of progress when they are a little older.

Beyond that age, anyone can learn how to play the guitar! Even adults in their 60s. So if you want to learn how to play too, there’s no reason why you can’t.

Does your child have time to learn?

Occasionally, we meet a child that has about 10 different hobbies, and they have a schedule that most adults would be afraid of. Learning guitar does take commitment, we recommend your child to have at least 10 minutes a day to practice. More if they are older. If they have a lot of other commitments, then trying to fit something else in might overwhelm them.

Guitar Vs other instruments

Guitar itself has many benefits compared to learning other instruments.

The guitar is the most popular instrument for adults to play in the UK. This means that if your child learns how to play the guitar that they are a lot more likely to carry on playing when they are adults. This is because the guitar is present in a lot of popular music. It is also very portable and can be kept even in small apartments. You can also pick it up at a reasonably small amount of money compared to many other instruments.

Lots of children learn classical instruments and encouraged to do grades. But end up never playing the instrument when they are older. Guitar definitely has a “cool” perception that may attract your child to enjoy playing it more.

And that’s the most important thing. If your child enjoys playing the guitar and has fun in the lessons. They are a lot more likely to carry on playing it as they get older. So that they can enjoy the benefits of learning music and playing the guitar.

I hope this short article has given you a few ideas on whether you want to send your child to have guitar lessons. It is a commitment, and it takes hard work and effort for your child to master the guitar. But it is a lot of fun and can bring your child a lot of enjoyment and improve their confidence.

About Darryl Powis:

He is a dedicated guitar teacher and guitar school owner of Guitar Tuition East London providing children’s guitar lessons from London, England. Experienced in helping both children, teenagers and adults with learning the guitar and giving them results while having a lot of fun learning the guitar.