Guitar Strumming Technique

Today, I gave a  free one hour introductory Guitar Strumming Technique class in Walnut Creek.  I started out demonstrating a right handed funk chicken picking technique. The best example of this is the “Theme From Shaft” sound track which was recorded with my 40 piece electric guitar rock ensemble that included numerous students of mine in Bay Area as well as some professional musicians I brought in for the recording session.

Before you start working on the pattern, try using a real cry baby wah wah pedal from Jim Dunlop guitars in Benicia California, and then take your left hand and cover all 6 strings and strum a 16th note rhythm pattern which you count as  “1–ee-and-ah, 2-ee-and-ah, 3–ee-and-ah and 4-ee-and-ah (each syllable representing a sixteenth note). Now you accent with your right hand the first 16th note of each beat at a slow tempo of 50 b.p.m. working up to 120 b.p.m. Then, practice displacing the accent only on beat 3 to 2^nd 16^th note. On beats 1,2 and 4 keep it normal accenting first 16^th note of each beat.

Once you have this down you apply the wah-wah effect with your right foot on the wah wah pedal. Start with the pedal fully open and gradually push down to the floor to full closed position on beat 4. When you get the hang of it then try making the foot pedal be fully down on beats 2 and 4.  

A good example of this is demonstrated on my recording of Shaft with my 40 piece guitar ensemble.

Guitar & Banjo Lessons
Walnut Creek – Concord CA
(925) 695-7060

Father & Son Guitar Lessons

Today I traveled from Dublin to Walnut Creek to teach a free introductory lesson to a 10-year old beginner guitar student, Thomas. His father is a self-taught guitarist.

 I’m one of the few teachers in the East Bay Area of California that will travel to multiple cities around the area to give guitar lessons at the  student’s home – whether Dublin, Walnut Creek or anywhere else in the East Bay.  I also allow more than one student in a family to share lessons.

The son has a Fender electric Stratocaster guitar while dad plays an acoustic guitar. The dad wanted most of the lesson to focus on his son, so I asked Thomas to name the notes of the open strings and tell me the names of all parts of his electric guitar. He was a little confused so I went over all parts of the guitar with him. 

After that I showed both of them what kind of guitar strap to use and how the guitar should be held high up on chest for proper hand position and to always practice with the strap on guitar while sitting or standing which develops a consistent posture and positioning of the hand on the guitar (especially the thumb on the back of the neck).

Then, I showed them a basic left hand finger stretch in 1^st position (Frets 1 through 4 ) and how to hold the left thumb behind the middle of the neck. After that, both father and mother commented that they were very happy that I had the ability to motivate their son and the way he was responding to the lesson.

I then proceeded to go over open chords and had him start out picking each string of a chord from the lowest to highest strings and then strumming all strings together and saying the chord names out loud. Next we explored a pentatonic scale in the 1^st, 5^th and 9th positions and how to properly hold the pick.

I finished the lesson by creating a worksheet assignment for them from my laptop computer and emailed it to them right there on the spot (isn’t technology grand!).  I told dad to print it out and leave it on the music stand so both of them will see it and be motivated to practice 30 to 60 minutes every day. They were so excited and appreciative they helped me carry all my music gear to car and thanked me for a great guitar lesson.

I told them that in the next lesson we would be learning to read real music notation and reminded dad that if he purchased one month of guitar lessons, I would give a second month of free guitar lesson at no charge. I am the only professional guitar instructor that I know of in the Bay Area that does this.

Guitar & Banjo Lessons
Walnut Creek, Dublin CA
(925) 695-7060