Overview
I have been teaching guitar lessons and bass lessons for 15+ years. I have taught students of all ages from 5 to 65 and all abilities. Over the years of teaching I have found that every student is unique in the ways that they assimilate course related material. Being able to view a subject from different angles and being able to communicate that subject from different viewpoints, is one of the many ways that I find out how a particular student learns best.
Expertise
Being an alumni of both Berklee College of Music and Musicians Institute, I have come to develop my own curriculum, drawing heavily from both colleges and also a few other very good resources. Students will get the best of both of those curricula and then some. I will listen to what your expectations and goals are and will support and encourage you so you can hit your goals and push you to the next level.
Teaching Style
I tailor my teaching techniques towards both the students interests and needs. I like to think of my teaching style as being fluid and I find how the student learns best. Then I build from there. I have found that the best way to keep students engaged and excited about practicing is to learn music and songs they enjoy, and I try to incorporate the necessary technical and theoretical instruction within that framework. Oh, and lets not forget to have FUN!!!
LESSONS ARE AVAILABLE IN OCALA, LOCATED RIGHT OFF OF SW 49TH AVE, OR OVER ZOOM OR SKYPE.
SOME TOPICS YOU WILL LEARN
Chord Tones, Scale Tones, Tensions
Learning how to play bass guitar for beginners requires dedication and practice, but it’s not a difficult instrument to learn how to play. As a beginner, constructing and learning bass lines can be tricky. Unfortunately, bass guitar is often taught the same way as other instruments causing needless confusion for the beginner. In our bass lessons we will cover which notes to use and when to use them, while learning songs that provide practical applications of the methods and techniques you will learn.
Mechanical Techniques
Mechanical techniques is a topic (in my experience) that a lot of guitar teachers overlook or are unsure of how to teach. Its is extremely important to get these basics down at an early stage. If not, you could end up having to relearn months or even years of practice, because you were practicing the wrong techniques. I tend to put a lot of emphasis on this because I was once in this situation. Months of practice out the window due to inadequate instruction from uninformed teachers.
Metronome / Drum Machine
The importance of using a metronome or a drum machine when practicing guitar is paramount. And that goes for any type of guitar or instrument practice. Always use a time keeper. The benefits are immense and improve your ability to:
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Play at a steady tempo
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Keep in time
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Strengthen your inner sense of rhythm
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Stay on the beat
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Increase your sensitivity to tempo changes
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Improve coordination with other players
Now as we all know, sometimes musicians perform without a drummer. In theses cases tempo fluctuations are harder to detect by the audience and a musician can get away with a lot more without anyone noticing. But if you are performing with a drummer or backing tracks or any type of time keeper, you will need to be able to play in time, all the time. Any tempo fluctuations large enough for your audience to detect, and you will sound like you are playing out of time, and the audience will hear that as you making mistakes. This is not to say that a song can’t have tempo changes, but you will have to be able to follow those tempo changes.
Extremely small tempo fluctuations are not necessarily a bad thing if the tempo fluctuations are in fact extremely small. This is where you can play with the timing of your guitar playing a little to make something sound more “laid back” or you could rush the timing slightly to make the music sound “more tense”. Extremely small timing fluctuations are what makes a human musician sound “human”. It is in fact a good thing and is part of why no two musicians sound alike. If your timing was absolutely perfect all the time, you would sound like a robot. But, if you are a beginner, I suggest practicing as if you are trying to be a robot with your timing. The more perfect (like a robot) you try to be, the faster your timing and overall playing will improve. Don’t worry about the nuances just yet. That stuff will come with lots of practice and experience.
If you are a beginner START SLOW. Practice at slow tempos. It doesn’t matter how slow you need to set the tempo. Set the tempo so that you are performing your chord changes on the beat and in time. After you master changing chords at a slow tempo, you can bump up the tempo slightly and start to master your chord changes at that new tempo. But, never set the tempo too fast. You want to give yourself a challenge but at the same time you DO NOT want to be practicing mistakes. A lot of guitarist including myself will use different methods to practice getting faster and improving our timing.
Method 1.
First set the tempo to where you can play something comfortably. What does that mean? Id say that if you can play something for 3 minutes without making a mistake you are definitely in the comfortable zone.
Next, bump up the tempo slightly. What does slightly mean? Well, that will depend on you and the tempo you are practicing at. Generally speaking you will need to make a larger tempo increase at slower tempos just to feel the increase in tempo. Conversely you will need smaller tempo increases at faster tempos to feel a change in tempo.
When you are practicing at your new increased tempo you should be able to get through what you are practicing at least a few times before you make a mistake. When you make a mistake STOP. Then start over at the beginning and try to perform without making a mistake for a little longer each time. Continue this for a set amount of time, say 5 minutes. Then go back to your comfort zone tempo, say for another 5 minutes. Rotate back and forth between these two tempos at 5 minutes each, for your allowed practice time.
There are many methods of using a metronome to achieve speed or a better sense of timing. I go over these in our lessons.
Harmony and Theory
Have you ever felt like music is magical? And that because you don’t possess the knowledge of that magic, you can’t understand whats going on? This is where we demystify the musical language and systems. Knowledge like this gives you the power to write better music and to communicate your ideas with other musicians that possess this knowledge as well. The three basic elements of music are: rhythm, melody, harmony. Lets take a closer look…
Ear Training
Training the ear is one of the most important things a musician can practice. Ear Training exercises will improve your musical ability by developing a more intuitive understanding of what you hear. You will develop the aural skills by which musicians learn to identify, solely by hearing, pitches, intervals, melody, chords, rhythms, and other basic elements of music. This is a key part in being able to learn songs by ear and to be able to play what you hear in your head.
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