An Ethereal Guitarist's Path: Guitar lesson 1

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Guitar lesson 1

ok, i had my first lesson today. It was pretty interesting i suppose. My teacher said my left hand was pretty good which is expected, but my right hand of course was lacking. The position for classical guitar feels a bit awkward for me, but im sure ill get used to that. My teacher gave me a list of about 5 or 6 exercises to work on, which are basically the basics. I should be able to excel at these by the next time i take lessons. The key is to be patient and start off very slow. Im not too crazy about classical guitar yet, but that'll probably change. When I have the time im going to type out each exercise im working on in detail. Other than that my first lesson went fine.

I will be starting jazz lessons on friday which will be

As far as the music classes I am taking, they are as follows:
Music literature- This class is not how it seems. Basically I thought this was gonna be about reading who knows what about music, or an english class in disguise. When I arrived to the class we started sharing live performances we've been to and what we've been listening to. Basically this class seems like its about learning how to describe music and identifying the elements within music and how they relate to music now.

Elementary Musicianship- Basica theory class. Fast paced class which is what i need right now, since i have a basic understanding of theory, I just dont know it stone cold.

Finally I get to dive into the music world a bit more. Right now I like electric guitar way better than classical guitar, in sound and style and playability etc. Lets see how my outlook changes on that in the future.

On another note, im thinking about taking viola lessons since I do have a viola and figure why the hell not. Gonna speak to the teacher soon about that since I know nothing about viola

2 comments:

Mike Lunapiena said...: So what did you do in your lesson exactly??

Your Music Lit. class sounds pretty cool... most "Listening to Music" classes generally involve just talking about classical music and not about performances you've been too... that could be really cool depending on the mix of ppl you get...

I've been doing a lot of improv on piano the last few days & learning how to use reason/what all the diff. components are - it's so exciting!

Ask your teacher about cello/guitar duets at some pt... (maybe wait a bit, but just at some pt. throughout the semester); January 29, 2008 at 1:34 PM
Steve said...: well obviously he showed me how to hold it and position my right hand. Also how to pluck. One thing he said was to feel the string before i play it, because that is how i will be able to control how much i emphasis the note and stuff like that. Music literature is awesome. We listened to gregorian chants today. Some were pretty awesome honestly. I never thought id like em.

Umm after that he had me play the top string then the 4th 5th and 6th and then once those were played, i put my hand back in position. Its to give me awareness about where my hand is. After that he had me play one of the top strings and use my middle or index finger to free stroke the strings, which is when you pluck the string without resting your finger on the string above it.

Then after that he asked me to do the chromatic scale. Which i did pretty well. He told me to lead with my index finger and keep it half on the fret, which both suggestions help. Then he had me do hammer ons between each note up the fretboard, which was easy, then to do it pulloffs, but im having trouble with that. The technique there is to pull of towards the ground, rest your finger on the string below the string youre on, and then release. So im working on that and basic right hand technique pretty much.

ill make this an official post soon; January 30, 2008 at 7:01 PM