Thanks to everyone for coming out on Saturday. It was great to see so many old friends and new faces as well. I think we got off to a good start.
As promised, here's our blog for the advanced guitar class. Be sure to bookmark it so that you can revisit it often. This is where I'll be posting material from each week's class.
Here's a summary of what we covered this week:
- Warm-ups: 5-note scale patterns through the circle of 5ths going across 5 pairs of strings and shifting up the neck every 5-keys. We started our majors on the 2nd finger (with the exception of the 3rd-2nd string pair which started on the 1st finger), and all of the minors starting on the 1st finger. These are good for warming up because they cover all the strings and pretty much the whole neck, while the repetitive nature of the fingerings gives you muscles a chance to wake up. (scroll down for the video)
- Augmented Triads: We discussed the symmetrical nature of the Augmented Triad and how it can be used as a "parental" form for creating all inversions of major and minor triads. Because any note in an Augmented triad may be considered the root, all 12 keys are contained within 4 Augmenteds. We practiced them through the circle of 5ths by cycling through 4 triads up the neck one fret at a time. These should be practiced on string sets 321, 432, 543 and 654. (scroll down for the video)
- Converting Augmented to Major - We saw how each Augmented can be converted to 3 different Major Triads (by lowering each note in turn) and then practiced Major Triads through the circle of 5ths based on the the same 4-fret areas we used for our Augmenteds. This should again be practiced on all string sets.
- Converting Augmented to Minor - We saw how these same principles can be applied by raising notes to create 3 different minor triads from each Augmented. We didn't do this much in class, but you should work these out and practice them in the same manner as the Majors.
- Open Voiced Triads - We created "open" triad voicings by moving the middle note of a triad up one octave. This can most easily be done starting with the 654 string set by moving the note on the 5th string to the 3rd string giving you a set of triads on strings 643 (a very practical set to learn since it blends so well with the 643 shell voicings).
- Voice-leading Open Voiced Triads - Demonstrated how open voiced triads could be used as a compositional device.
- Using Open Voiced Triads with Shell Voicings - I demonstrated using open voiced triads and shell voicings on "My Funny Valentine"
- Standard Tunes - We talked about the value of learning "holiday" music, playing familiar tunes by ear, transposing to different keys.
- "Winter Wonderland" - Went over "Winter Wonderland" in keys of G (low and high octaves) and C. Discussed some standard chord substitutions, use of #IVm7b5 cycle as a substitute for I. Try this at home! Play some familiar melodies by ear. Harmonize (or reharmonize) them by ear, without reference to a "fake" book. Find a few different recorded versions and learn the changes. Try transposing them to different keys.
- Addendum: A few people said they needed help with sight-reading, so I suggest starting with the following excerpt from Tommy Tedesco's long out-of-print book "For Guitar Players Only." You can download it here.
Here's a short video explaining the "warm-ups."
