Guitar

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

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