Guitar Instruction with Roger Keplinger

Home Beginners Course Introduction FAQ's Parts of the Guitar Get Your Guitar in Tune Posture Thoughts on How to hold the Guitar Pick Left hand finger numbers Understanding the Chord Diagram Forming Your First Chord Chords in the Key of G Major Why use a Metronome? Basic Rhythm Guitar Basic Rhythm Guitar - Tied Notes Chord Progressions Chord Progressions and Strum Patterns combined How To Read Tablature Tab Quiz! The G Major scale Note Duration Note Duration - adding notes The Pentatonic Scale The "Blue Note" Power Chords Power Chord examples 3-13-2010 Palm Muting Adding Accents The 12 Bar Blues The 12 Bar Blues - Expanding the Pattern Arpeggiating Basic Chord Forms Phrases Over Tracks Track 100 - E Minor - Slow and Moody - Tempo 70 bpm Track 101 - E Blues - Slow Blues - Tempo 72 Track 200 - G Major - Acoustic Pop - Tempo 80 bpm Track 201 - G Major - Medium Rock - Tempo 81 Track 202 - G Major - Smooth Jazz - Tempo 81 bpm Track 300 - E Minor - Jazzy - Tempo 100 Track 301 - E Blues - Medium Shuffle - Tempo 118 Track 400 - E Blues - Rock Shuffle - Tempo 130bpm Songs and Tab Rock and Pop "Cath" - by Deathcab for Cutie "Stairway to Heaven" (intro) part 1 - Led Zepplin "Stairway to Heaven" (intro) part 2 - Led Zepplin "Stairway to Heaven" - The Solo "Honky Tonk Woman" - from :07 to :17 intro fill "Honky Tonk Woman" - from :34 to :50 fill "I'm Yours" - Jason Mraz "Rock You Like A Hurricane" - The Scorpians "Come Monday" - Jimmy Buffet "Gunslinger" (intro) - Avenged Sevenfold "Hey there Delilah" - Plain White T's "Honky Tonk Woman" (easy version) - The Rolling Stones "Good Riddance" - Green Day "Iron Man"-intro "Go Your Own Way" - Fleetwood Mac "Age Six Racer" - Dashboard Confessional "Dust in the Wind" - Kansas-fingerstyle pattern "More Than Words" - Extreme - basic pattern "Rock n Roll" - Led Zeppelin - measure 1 "Beauty in the Breakdown" - intro - The Scene Aesthetic "Little Wing" - intro - played slowly "Welcome Home" the intro - by Coheed and Camria Sign up! Page Classical Guitar Pieces Bouree in E Minor Carcassi 3 Contact Me

Posture

Finding a position that is comfortable to be in for period of 20 or 30 minutes (or longer, depending on your level of motivation) is of the utmost importance. If you are feeling undo tension immediately upon starting to practice, chances are we need to modify something about your sitting or standing position. I believe since we are all built a little differently that there should be just some general guidelines and let the student sort of grow into his comfortable position. Be sure to take breaks every 20 or 30 minutes. Stand up, walk around, stretch out etc.........do some jumping jacks! But after a few minutes off get right back to another stretch of focused practicing.

Guitar Posture - Considerations

Acoustic and Electric

1. Sit in a straight back chair with no arms.

2. Thighs should be parallel with the floor so guitar does not want to slip down and off.

3. The guitar's waist should rest on the right leg if you are right handed.

4. Strumming hand sort of hangs over and hugs guitar body and keeps it stable. Do not hold the neck in postion with the left hand. You should be able to release the neck with left hand and the guitar should stay pretty much where it was.

5. The left hand should be able to approach the neck naturally and comfortablly. Thumb behind the neck, fingers nicely curved over the fretboard. No part of the palm touching the neck (for now). Fingertips up to the back of the fret.

6. The pick should fall over the sound hole whether strumming or picking. Not up by the neck or by the bridge.

7. You can build a "bridge" from strumming arm to top of guitar with a strumming hand finger for now, if it helps you feel a bit more connected while playing single notes only NOT while strumming. It will give the picking hand help with spacial awareness of the strings and distancing issues. It should seem obvious why it would not be a good idea to have the strumming hand connected to the guitar's top while trying to strum.

8. Do not tilt the guitar back to see what fret you are on. Use the fret indicators.

9. Make sure you have the right sized guitar. They do make 3/4 and 1/2 guitars for children and small adults.

10. When standing we use a strap to keep the guitar in place. As a general rule you should adjust your strap so that your guitar is at approximatly the same place as when you sit. I advise against using a strap when sitting. It serves no real purpose and is a general nusiance really.

11. Demonstrate the angle of the strumming are to the guitar. almost but not quite paralell to the strings. This creates an advantages angle for strumming and palm muting and is just a good attitude for the strumming/picking hand to have in general.