Guitar Lesson

Guitar Lesson – July 15th, 2008

After a week off I’m now back into the swing of things with my guitar lessons. Today’s lesson was in two parts.

The first part was reinforcing what I had learnt from the previous lesson and secondly I was introduced to the concept of shifting lead melodies from one scale type to another.

I tell you, I’m finding all of this lead guitar work a bit daunting at times.

When I started teaching myself guitar I never set out to be a lead guitarist, just to become really good at chords and strumming different rhythms.

I wanted my guitar playing to be focused on writing songs and being able to jam with others at any level. However, by focusing more on my lead playing I’m finding that it’s helping me with harnessing melodic ideas.

The way I see it, is that a song is made of three distinct parts

1. Lyric – What is sung
2. Melody – How it’s sung
3. Arrangement – The rest of it

Over the years of playing guitar I’ve spent most of my time working on the skills needed to produce great arrangements for songs but not enough of that time was spent gaining skills in coming up with good lyrical and melodic ideas.

For a long time I was under the assumption that you have to have a good chord progression for a melody to present itself.

While at the end of day there are no rules to writing a song, one of the things that needs to be avoided at all costs is thinking of your songwriting in terms of “absolutes”.

There is no one way to write a song.

Sure, there are some ways that work for a particular individual more than others but no one way to do it.

My guitar lessons are an exercise in unlearning some bad habits I’ve picked up along the way. This is what happens when you start knowing what it is you don’t know about your craft.

How can you do your process differently? What facets of your songwriting can you unlearn?

Those are the questions you need to ask yourself. Sometimes what you unlearn is just as beneficial as what you do learn.

Until next time, happy writing,

Corey Stewart
Singer/Songwriter/Musician

Keywords: guitar lesson, songwriting, songwriter, writing, songwriting zen, songwriting tip, songwriting idea, songwriting help, songwriting blog, corey stewart

Tags: Corey Stewart, Creativity, lyrics, music, song, Songwriter, Songwriting, songwriting blog, songwriting tip, Songwriting Zen, writing, zen

Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 Guitar Lesson, Songwriting Zen No Comments

Guitar Lesson – July 1st, 2008

As I mentioned last week in “My First Guitar Lesson – An Introduction” I’m getting lessons with my good friend and very talented guitarist and songwriter Cal Williams Jr.

Last weeks lesson was a chance for Cal to discover what I knew and what I didn’t know.

We covered a lot of groundwork and by the end of the lesson my brain was starting to hurt however, I was surprised by how much information my hurting brain was retaining.

Cal asked me what I wanted from the lessons and then we got onto scales. The limit of my lead guitar playing at this stage consisted of three things:

A major scale
A fractured version of a pentatonic scale
An assortment of licks and riffs

In one lesson I learnt a G major pentatonic scale, a G minor pentatonic scale and something called a “Major pentatonic third finger ascending slide in G Major”.

Whew! What a mouthful.

This week we got really stuck into scales. By the end of the lesson I was able to play a G Major pentatonic scale in five different positions (albeit very badly) which will eventually enable me to play all over the fretboard.

Now, if this sounds confusing well, join the club. I’m still coming to terms with all this information as well but it’s interesting what I’ve been able to pick up along the way.

With this new found knowledge I now know what to practise, what I want to achieve in my practise and how to go about achieving what I want to achieve.

This was something that, as a self taught guitarist, I was never able to do effectively.

How does this help me with my songwriting I hear you say…

Well, a better understanding of the relationship between notes, chords and the guitar fetboard itself will help me find melody and structure in my guitar playing which in turn enables a more efficiant translation of songwriting ideas from my head to paper.

I love the way that Cal explains things and backs them up with practical examples. He is a teacher who is still in love with his instrument. A very rare breed indeed.

I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

Until next time, happy writing,

Corey Stewart
Singer/Songwriter/Musician

Keywords: guitar lesson, songwriting, songwriter, songwriting tip, songwriting help, songwriting idea, songwriting resource, songwriting blog, corey stewart

Tags: Corey Stewart, Creativity, guitar, lyrics, music, song, Songwriter, Songwriting, songwriting blog, songwriting tip, Songwriting Zen, writing, zen

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 Guitar Lesson 1 Comment

My First Guitar Lesson – An Introduction

After 22 years of playing guitar I had my first guitar lesson today and I really, really enjoyed it.

I’ve wanted to get guitar lessons for a long time. There are a number of reasons for this:

I want to know what I don’t know about playing the guitar
I want to be more purposeful, strategic and disciplined in my guitar practise
I want to play better lead guitar
I want to sharpen up and test out my theoretical knowledge
I’m ready to go the next step with my guitar playing
I want to be challenged and inspired

However, wanting to learn guitar and doing it seemed to be a very challenging proposition. As soon as I made the decision to get lessons all of these questions and seeds of doubt started creeping into my head.

How am I going to find the time?

Did I really need to get lessons?

Was it worth me getting lessons?

Will guitar lessons destroy my creativity?

It was exhausting just trying to keep up with all of this chatter but as soon as I realised that it was coming from my inner critic and not from any sense of reality, I strengthened my resolve and went ahead anyway.

My lessons are every Tuesday morning at 10am. My tutor is a very good friend of mine and gifted guitarist and writer Cal Williams Jr.

For me, making the time for lessons used the same concept as making the time to write songs. If you want to do something badly enough you’ll move Heaven and Earth to accommodate your desire.

I made the time by not going to the office until midday which means I also get to sleep-in which is a bonus.

I generally rehearse on Tuesday nights so I stay at the office to compensate the late start and go to rehearsal from there rather than from home.

Simple really.

When I mentioned my desire to get guitar lessons to my friends they all said “Why?” I just said “Why not?”

What I’m saying here is that as soon as you start thinking that you’ve learnt all you need to learn about your craft whether it be songwriting, guitar playing or whatever, you stop progressing and start dying.

Knowledge is like a muscle. It starts to wither if you don’t use it.

I was starting to think that what I was playing on guitar was starting to sound the same and I didn’t want that for my self, my audience and for my songs.

Getting lessons is only going to enhance my songwriting and my ability to collaborate with others.

I’m going to start a guitar lesson journal as part of Songwriting Zen mainly so I can internalise what I’ve learnt and to also share some of my new found knowledge with all of you.

You’re going to hear a lot more about Cal Williams Jr in future posts but I will save that for another time.

Until next time, happy writing,

Corey Stewart
Singer/Songwriter/Musician

Keywords: songwriting and the guitar, songwriting, songwriter, songwriting tip, songwriting help, songwriting idea, songwriting resource, songwriting blog, corey stewart

Tags: Corey Stewart, Creativity, lyrics, music, song, Songwriter, Songwriting, songwriting blog, songwriting tip, Songwriting Zen, writing, zen