Sing Out!

  1. Practice the new pages of note exercises for guitar.
  2. Practice singing as loud as you can along with your note exercises for guitar. Make sure to get plenty of pressure from your diaphragm for support and to push a lot of air.
  3. Remember to practice in chunks (one or two measures) using the Rule of Five to be sure you progress to the next chunk or exercise when you're ready.
  4. Work on the same things from the previous post (Barre chords, etc...).

Breaking Free From the Capo

  1. Practice your 6th string (Low E) barre chords, both major and minor, on your electric guitar for now (diagram below).
  2. Remember that especially with the major variant, your pointer (finger #1) only really needs to hold down a few spots, namely the low E, and the high B and E strings in that case.
  3. Practice the reading exercise for your high E string. Practice to a metronome at 60 BPM in two measure chunks at a time, building up as you go.
  4. Practice these chunks using the Rule of Five. This means you'll need to be able to play any chunk five times in a row without making a mistake before you move on to another section or add anything on. So if you make a mistake at rep #4, you have to go back to zero and try to work your way up to five clean reps in a row. This helps ensure you definitely can play whatever you're working on consistently before you move on to something else.
  5. Here's a link to the strings I recommend you get for your acoustic to try out (I listed them on your dad's page as well):

D'Addario NB1047 Nickel Bronze Acoustic Guitar Strings, Extra Light

 

6th string barre chord shapes.jpg

Learning the Notes on the Neck

  1. Practice going up the neck calling out the names of the notes as you go, holding down each subsequent finger as you progress. You should end on the same note you began on at the 12th fret.
  2. While doing this exercise, make sure your thumb is burning a hole through to between your fingers 1 and 2, your pointer and middle finger. Your thumb should be flat on the apex of the back of the neck.
  3. Practice/think about intervals, both whole and half steps, as well as 2nds, 3rds, 4ths, etc...
  4. Work on memorizing the names of the strings, EADGBE.
A chart of major scale intervals. The top-most numbers with plusses preceding them show how far away the intervals are from the root note (pink box number 1) in terms of half steps.

A chart of major scale intervals. The top-most numbers with plusses preceding them show how far away the intervals are from the root note (pink box number 1) in terms of half steps.

A Chart of the notes on the piano keyboard. Note that the black keys come in either sets of two or sets of three, which should be your primary landmarks.

A Chart of the notes on the piano keyboard. Note that the black keys come in either sets of two or sets of three, which should be your primary landmarks.