Lesson 4a Memorise a song, 2 notes per beat, melody and chords-

Consolidation exercises 

As mentioned, every week I add one more exercise to your daily 20 minute guitar practice session.

The new guitar exercise builds on the previous. Do not practice only the new exercise because you will not learn and you will feel very frustrated and give up.

You must consolidate all the previous musical examples on a daily basis. The better you know them the easier it will be to learn new musical material. It will take you 10 weeks to consolidate all.

I have designed every exercise to help you improve your aural rhythmic and performance skills gradually. You need to work and build on these three skills on a daily basis. Please practice the program in order so as you may achieve the learning goals that I established.

Do not concentrate your practice on what you do not know, practice and have fun with what you know and then add new music new every week.

You must practice every exercise exactly the way you learnt it. If you cannot do such please go back to the video to refresh.

 

The song

This is the new song you will learn, where I combine the C, Am, Em, and G chords. It also has four eight bar melodies, that I created with the C scale.

What new vocabulary do you need to learn to master, play this song and learn how to play a melody:

  • The C scale with open strings.
  • 4 melodies of 8 bars duration.

How are you going to learn?

(Step by step + LISP routine + aural comprehension + repetition ) x 4 = Happiness

How to play a melody step by step

Step by step, applying the LISP routine with a lot of aural comprehension, then you add quite a few repetitions and you will end playing fluently the song.

Step one 

In Step one you will learn the C scale, with open strings, the alphabet, with which all these melodies are constructed. In other words, you will practice the pathway, where to find all the melodies. This the first step for how to play a melody.

Step two

In Step two you will learn to play slowly each of the individual 4 melodies using the L.I.S.P routine.

Step three

In Step 3 you will consolidate with: On your own routine.

Step four

In Step four you will combine all the 8 melodies.

 


Step 1 – The C scale

I will start on the 6th string and play it from E. Play along with me and sing the sound.  I will now play it descending from the G note.

C scale first position How to play a melody

Let’s play now two notes per beat. How do you count two notes per beat ? You add the word and, in between. In order to play each note two times per beat you will need to alternate your index and middle fingers as in the video.

  • Play along with me.
  • Play along with me descending from G.
  • Rewind and repeat.

Assignments

Please complete the assignments for this lesson.

Practice session day 1 

  • Practice all previous consolidation exercises.
  • Then with the free time you have left:  Practice the C scale very slowly with a metronome playing two notes per beat. 
  • Make sure you are singing the notes.

Practice session day 2 

  • Practice all previous consolidation exercises.
  • Then with the free time you have left:  Practice the C scale very slowly with a metronome playing two notes per beat. 
  • Make sure you are singing the notes.
  • Record yourself playing the exercise Step 1 and upload. You will need my approval before you have access to the next exercise.

Check questions

  • Are you singing the notes in exact relation to the beat?
  • Are you tapping your foot non stop while singing and playing?
  • Have you counted the tempo and subdivision in before playing?
  • If your answer is no to any of the these questions practice more?