Why This Program?

Mostly I’m working on getting you to play guitar in lots of different ways so you’re prepared to play anything. Mostly I don’t teach you popular songs from the 50 years ago that old people thought were cool when they were young people. Mostly I use traditional music to develop your skills quickly for solo and ensemble play. Here’s the highlights.

• Books 1, 2, and 3: Please start here even if you already know how to play!
• Classical Guitar: You can play all the metal you want, but until you can pull off some classical, you’re not the complete package. Email me for the password.
• Ensemble Sheet Music: Unless you’re playing with other people, you’re gonna turn into a weirdo and ultimately quit playing. Here’s what you need to start a guitar orchestra:
• Modern Songs: People love crummy music. Here’s some.
• Christmas Music: You work on this from Halloween to New Years and then you put it back in the can so it’s sectioned off to keep the other music safe.
• Certification: Sometimes it’s nice to have a scaffold so you can test your way through each of the levels. Send me an email if you’re interested in becoming certified.
• Classes: Live online meetings are posted on the schedule.
• Video Archive: Recordings of our online meetings.

Interested in why this method is the right one? Here’s a short-ish essay.

You wanna play cool songs? You have two choices:

• You can go through YouTube by yourself and copy how some dude shows you the intro to your favorite heavy metal song. You won’t worry about fundamentals or techniques, you’ll just get the notes right. Then, when you’re ready to tackle the next famous anthem, it will be more of the same hunt and peck playing. This is how teenage boys with electric guitars learn to play. It’ll have iffy results.
• Or, you can focus on proper technique and good fundamentals playing super boring songs. Suddenly, one day, you’ll be able to play everything musically. This is probably a better choice for most people because the songs you like today are maybe not the songs you’ll want to play a decade from now. In the end, the songs won’t matter, but owning solid guitar skills will build the competence you need to play all music on any instrument.

How to be successful:

• Practice time: You need to play everyday. Seriously. A warm-up, a little time on new material, and plenty of time to just enjoy playing at the end of your session.
• Willingness to show up: You need to play with other musicians. It gives you ownership, deadlines, and responsibility, and you’ll play songs you’d never pick on your own. Honestly, this is often more important than practicing.
• Getting quality instruction: Watching YouTube alone isn’t satisfactory. You need a teacher to look at what you’re doing. It’s expensive and time consuming and nerve wracking and it’ll do more good than just about anything else you can do to improve quickly.

Stupid things you’re likely to think:

• Standard notation is great, or standard notation is terrible.
  • Yes, you should know the basics of reading music.
  • No, you need to be an expert until you’re at the university.
  • Learning to read will not make you a worse musician.
  • Some teachers are way too eager to force reading standard notation on you.
  • For guitar, standard notation alone is cumbersome at best and there are alternatives.
• Tablature is great, or tablature is terrible.
  • Yes, we think you should know the basics of reading tab.
  • It takes 15 minutes to become an expert at it.
  • We use it in conjunction with standard notation to make reading faster.
  • It’s only used to speed placement of your fingers on the fretboard.
  • Some people are trying to make tabs as difficult as standard notation and that’s silly.
  • Tablature has its own set of weaknesses.
• Electric guitar vs. acoustic guitar.
  • Both are good. You should probably do both.
  • Electric is more fun. But you have to know about amps and pedals and if you like being a gear head then maybe it’s for you, but for me it’s a big yawn.
  • Acoustic is better for your neighbors. Do not be under the assumption people want to listen to you.
  • You can have lots of acoustic players in a room, so that’s our focus.
• Classical music is harder or more important than fingerstyle.
  • Technique is technique. Every style of guitar teaches you something.
  • We treat fingerstyle the same way as classical.
• Chords and singing.
  • If you LOVE to sing, you only need to learn your chords.
  • If you HATE to sing, you should stop hating to sing. It’s helpful.
  • If you don’t love singing, you’ll want to learn to play melodically on the guitar and you’re in the right place.

How Should You Proceed?

• Start with Book 1. Obviously. Play and read everything in the book.
• Play Book 2 focused on getting TuffAxe to be your friend and learning to switch chords effectively.
• Book 3 will give you a nice sounding repertoire quickly.
• Send me an email if there’s something that looks interesting on Contemporary music page. (It’s not really a book, just a collection of arrangements I’ve done over the years.)
• The Classical Program is designed to be the typical classical stuff you’d learn anywhere, but with tablature, because there’s no reason not to have both systems. If you’re going to go to college in guitar and you’re a teenager, then make yourself learn to read standard notation without tablature, but if you’re anybody else, you’ll be playing much more advanced material much sooner with tabs. Every song worth playing for the first four years in college has been tabbed out already. The best two old-school ways to learn to play classical guitar are Carulli Op. 241 and Sagreras Lecciones 1-7.