Guitar for Beginners

Syllabus

Lesson 1: Guitar Basics, Part 1

• Guitar Basics: Parts, Posture, Pick
• Notes on the 6th String: Playing Bass Lines
• Rhythm Basics: Playing “in 4”
• Power Chords: Roots on the 6th String
• Assignment 1: Songs using Power Chords

Lesson 2: Guitar Basics, Part 2

• Pentatonic Scale: Pattern 1
• Improvising with Pattern 1 of the Pentatonic
• Notes on the 5th String: Playing Bass Lines
• Power chords: Roots on the 5th String
• Rhythmic Notation Basics
• Basic “Down-Strumming Patterns”
• Assignment 2: Rhythm and Melody

Lesson 3: Reading Basics

• Notes on the Neck
• Basic Standard Notation: Notes on the Staff
• Reading Standard Notation: Reading in First Position
• Reading Standard Notation: “Reading up”
• Reading TAB
• Assignment 3: Melody in 5th Position and TAB Writing

Lesson 4: Scale Theory (Major and Pentatonic) and Improvisation

• Basic Scale Theory: Major and Pentatonic
• Scale Patterns: Five Patterns of the Pentatonic Scale
• Improvising Strategies: Connecting Patterns of the Pentatonic
• Techniques for Tone: Parameters of Sound
• Musical Examples for Practice, Improvisation
• Assignment 4: Melody Creation

Lesson 5: Open Chords, Strumming Patterns

• Open Chords: First Group [C, F, G, Am, D]
• Open Chords: Second Group [A, E, Dm, Bm, F#m, C#m, B7]
• Strumming Patterns in 4/4 : Split Strum and Folk Strum
• Strumming in 4/4: Changing Chords (once and twice per bar)
• Strumming Patterns in 3 /4 and 6/8
• Changing Chords: 3 /4 and 6/8
• Assignment 5: Chord Chart Reading

Lesson 6: Common Chord Progressions

• Basic Key Theory: Building chords, “What is a Key?”
• Chord Theory: Determining the Key of a Song
• Common Chord Progressions
• Transposing a Chord Progression
• Musical Examples for Practice
• Assignment 6: Common Chord Progression and Transposition

Lesson 7: Modes of the Major Scale: Patterns, Improvising, Vamps

• Modes of the Major Scale
• Scale Patterns: 7 Patterns – Modes of the Major Scale
• Improvising over One-Chord Modal Vamps
• Fretting-Hand Phrasing Techniques (Basics): slides, hammer-ons, pull-offs
• Creating Riffs and Melodies with Three Common Modes
• Two- and Three-Chord Modal Chord Progressions: Mixolydian, Dorian, Aeolian
• Assignment 7: Short Song Creation

Lesson 8: Moveable Triad Chord Forms: Major and Minor

• Major Triad Shapes on String set 3, 2, 1
• Minor Triad Shapes on String set 3, 2, 1
• Moveable Triad Shapes: Playing Charts
• Arranging Rhythm Guitar Parts
• Assignment 8: Three Rhythm Guitar Parts

Lesson 9: Dominant 7 and Minor 7, Barre Chords

• Seventh Chords: Dominant and Minor
• Seventh Chords: Open Chord Shapes
• Barre chords: Shapes with Roots on the 6th strings
• Barre chords: Shapes with Roots on the 5th string
• Musical Examples with Seventh Chords, Using Open and Barre-Chord Shapes
• Assignment 9: Open Chord Progression

Lesson 10: Basics of the Blues in A

• 12-Bar Blues Form, and the “Shuffle” strumming pattern
• The Blues Scale
• Soloing on the 12-Bar form in A
• Strumming Blues in A: Using Open Chords, Barre Chords
• Assignment 10: Blues in A Song: “Baby, What You Want Me to Do”

Lesson 11: Chord theory – “the exceptions to the rules”

• Slash Chords
• “Sus” and “Add” Chords
• Borrowed Chords
• The Major 7 chord and Minor 7-- 4-note shapes (1 each)
• Assignment 11: Song Example Performance

Lesson 12: Finger-style Techniques

• Classical Right-Hand Position
• Three Common Picking Patterns
• Adding a Song melody to your Finger-Picking Pattern
• Adding an Alternating Bass line to your Finger-Picking Pattern
• Assignment 12: Song with Finger-Picking