I have been practicing guitar for over 40 years and was a guitar instructor for 15 of those years.
We will showcase a great deal of materials in the lessons that we will present. Flatpicking Guitar style and Fingerstyle Guitar will be the two predominant styles of guitar performance that will be covered in these lessons.
Flatpicking Guitar Lessons:
Flatpicking is a style that is familiar for the most part to Bluegrass guitar players. It is also known as plectrum picking. We will cover subjects like right and left hand location, how to position the pick, how to play effectively and much more. Then we will discover the left hand and how to most beneficially position your fingers, play chords, perform chord transitions etc. Beginning with the basics is crucial and mastering them may well be the most significant thing you can possibly do. If you don't play with proper technique, your playing will suffer. Using the best proficiency and being very dedicatied to a practice regimen are keys to becoming a really outstanding guitar player.
Also, we will teach you how to read TAB or tablature in detail. TAB or tablature is the musician's shorthand for those of us who cannot read standard notation. You will discover how to execute hammer-ons, pull-offs, string bends, slides and harmonics. These are also known as ornamental licks. Some of these ornamental techniques get into the intermediate and advanced areas of the guitar, but it is important that you master them.
Last and certainly not least, we will consider some actual TAB's in real detail to teach you the same techniques that flatpicking artist's such as Tony Rice, Norman Blake, Doc Watson, and many others use. By learning a few of these breaks you will soon find yourself progressing from an average guitar player to a master flatpicker.
Acoustic Guitar Lessons - Fingerstyle Approach:
This guitar performance style has it's roots in the ragtime music era, whereby the guitar players of the period attempted to duplicate the sound of ragtime piano pieces. Most recently, this style of performance the guitar has been enhanced to an even higher degree by means of such artist's as Chet Atkins, Jerry Reed, Merle Travis and countless others. This style gives a enormous amount of gratification to the performer and listener alike, even though it proves to be somewhat challenging for the guitar player.
Knowing your way around the guitar using the flatpick is a good primer before you attempt to master fingerstyle guitar. by doing this you will encounter that you transition into the fingerstyle method much easier. This way we can get a great deal of the preliminaries out of the way, such as the left hand position, reading TAB, learning ornamental strategies, and getting you going on some reasonable speed playing. Learning scales, positions and notes of the fretboard will also benefit you greatly, prior to moving on to fingerstyle guitar.
We will begin this style with a number of simple exercises so you can profit from skill and ability, just to get your feet wet. There will be a real attention on the left hand, the right hand fingering styles, picking styles, chord patterns and chord forms. Then we will take a few actual songs and examine them, pull them apart to analyze how they are performed and give detailed practicing information which you can then go on to articulate your own style.
We will do this through taking sample breaks from such guitar greats as Chet Atkins, Merle Travis and Jerry Reed and many others. Since these artist's are a few of the best guitar players, we can benefit from their knowledge. You can then make adjustments to these arrangements, and produce your own unusual style. If you could faithfully play one of Chet Atkins riffs, you would sound very very impressive. But, if you make it uniquely your own arrangement, based on one of the masters licks - that's even better! Our lessons will cover how you can do that.
If you would like more material about guitar lessons for the acoustic guitar visit Acoustic Guitar Lessons. Additionaly, you can get acoustic guitar lesson data by going to Acoustic Guitar Lessons for Flatpick and Fingerstyle Guitar. You may also be interested in Free Fingerstyle Guitar Lessons.
