Lesson 1 1. You should know the names of all of the parts of the guitar. 2. Be able to point to any note on the fretboard and quickly know the name of it (if you haven't quite mastered the names of the notes that's O.K., you can still go to the next lesson as long as you keep working on it). 3. Know what's sharp and flats are. 4. What does staccato mean? How about Legato? 5. You should feel comfortable with the three picking technique: up, down and alternate picking. 6. You should understand how to read tablature and to be able to play along with me on exercises 3 and 4. Lesson 2 1. Learn to tune your guitar to itself without having to refer to the manual. 2. Learn to play fifths well enough to move them up and down the neck smoothly and change strings easily. 3. Play the pentatonic using the three different picking techniques I talked about in the first lesson. Memorize it so you don't have to look at the tablature. 4. Learn to play the short lead in Exercise 10. Memorize it so you don't have to look at the tablature. 5. Learn to play the riff in G minor at normal speed. Lesson 3 1. Learn to play the barre up and down the neck with all six strings sounding. 2. Practice the riff in exercise 12 until it sounds professional. 3. You shouldn't have any problem with the chord Progression in Exercise 13. Use it to practice playing the lead in this lesson and compose your own lead using the A pentatonic scale. 4. Learn exercise 14 but don't get frustrated if you're not able to play it fast. It's much more important to play it clean. Speed will come with practice. 5. Learn to play the lead in Exercise 15 as smoothly as you can, it doesn't have to be perfect to move to the next lesson. Just keep practicing it while you're working on other lessons. Lesson 4 1. Learn how to play these eight chord inversions smoothly and be able to change between them without hesitation. Don't really expect to master this lesson in a week. If it takes you a month that's OK because this is probably the most difficult lesson of the course. Once you've mastered these chords, it's down hill the rest the way. 2. Learn to play the chord progression in Exercise 21. Once you've got this lesson mastered you'll know enough chords to start checking out the tablature in guitar magazines. Good luck with this one and don't become discouraged - you're right on the edge of becoming an intermediate guitarist. Lesson 5
1. Play the new lead techniques until you're comfortable with them. Exercise 23 is difficult for a beginner so you may not master it this week, but. continue working on it as you move through the other lessons 2. Try out some of the chords on the chord chart, but use it as a reference tool instead of something you have to memorize right now. You should set a goal to learn a couple of new chords each week. Start with the easiest ones first. 3. Review the previous lessons to make sure you're not forgetting any of the techniques you've learned so far. 4. This lesson shouldn't take as long as some of the previous ones. Lesson 6 1. Learn to play the fingering exercises in exercise 27 fast and smooth. 2. Memorize exercises 28 and 29 and practice them until all of the chord changes are professional sounding 3. Become comfortable playing the songs in 30 and 31. 4. Last, memorize the licks in exercise 32. Lesson 7 1. Memorize all five patterns of the pentatonic scale and learn to move them up and down the neck in all keys. 2. Memorize where the root note is in all of the patterns. 3. Learn the pattern of movement used in exercises 12 and 13. 4. Spend as much time as possible playing leads over the rhythm patterns at the end of this lesson. Lesson 8 1. Your main goal for this lesson is to practice bending notes to pitch. Practice bends up and down the neck until you're able to quickly bend notes to pitch. Record your playing and listen to see if the bends sound in pitch when you're playing leads. Keep working on them until they sound good. 2. Practice the licks at the end of this lesson until you're able to play them effortlessly over chord changes. Remember, repetition is the key. After completing this video you're ready for the intermediate Levels. Lesson 9 1. Practice the slow, medium and fast vibrato until it sounds professional. 2. Memorize the lead in exercise 18 and try to understand the composition of the lead. 3. Learn to play exercise 19 up to the twelfth fret and back again. Lesson 10 1. Play the two handed licks until you've mastered the technique. 2. Begin working on the diagonal exercises in 23 but you don't have to play it perfectly before moving to the next lesson. You should at least be able to play them slow, clean and in time without looking at the tablature. You should use this one as a warm up before practicing every day.
Lesson 11 1. Since there was only one playing exercise, I'll let you off easy, nothing to memorize for this one. 2. Practice muting strings and chords. You don't have to perfect this technique to move on to the next lesson, but you should at least start feeling comfortable with it. 3. Practice playing natural harmonics and pick harmonics. Pick harmonics will make your leads sound much more professional once you're able to do them consistently. And last, regardless of how bad you are at copying songs at first, try it. Spend some time copying songs every day. It won't be long until you're good at it. Start off by copying songs that sound easy like old Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, or early Judas Priest. If it sounds easy, it probably is. Don't try anything too challenging at first. Lesson 12 1. Learn the pedal tone technique in 25. 2. Practice the chord progressions in 28 to 31. Teach them to a friend so you can practice jamming on them. Try improvising some leads over them. Let's see what you've learned so far. 3. Continue copying songs from records. I've always found copying songs to be an excellent lesson. While learning to play guitar, why not learn from the best? And that's what copying songs is all about. Even after you know everything on these tapes, it's still a good idea to review them from time to time. For instance, you may forget some of the tips that I've given you about copying songs from records. But when you review this tape a year or two from now, those tips might make a big difference to you. Don't get into a rut by practicing these lessons so much that they become boring. Continue to learn new things and guitar playing will always be enjoyable. Even after playing guitar as long as I have been I still find that when I learn something new, the guitar becomes new again. Lesson 13 1. Memorize all five patterns and learn to play them comfortably, moving them up and down the neck in all keys. You should have memorized where the root notes are in all of these patterns in the Beginner Series, if not, you should do it now. Paying attention to the root note makes it easy to change keys. 2. Learn how to play the lead techniques taught at the beginning of the lesson. Practice playing leads over chord progressions until you're comfortable with each of these tricks. Lesson 14 1. Become familiar with the playing techniques at the beginning of this lesson. Memorize them so you're able to play them without looking at the tablature. 2. Learn to play C major in the five patterns you've learned so far. Practice the patterns you know, playing them from C to C then play a C major chord. Try working out some major licks, start them in C and then play a C major scale. Notice how the sound of the licks have changed even though you're using the same notes. I'll explain why in the next lesson. After you fully understand intervals, and the lead techniques. Move on to lesson 15.
Lesson 15 1. Master the techniques explained in exercises nineteen through 22. Practice doing artificial harmonics. Try to work them into your improvised leads. 2. Study the five Natural minor patterns you've memorized and try to work out ostinato sequences from them. Lesson 16 1. Be able to use all of the lead techniques in this lesson while improvising leads. That includes pedal point, hammer pull slide, Half step runs, and all of the vibrato bar techniques. 2. Find all of the flat fives within the five patterns you've memorized and identify the 4 half steps around each flat five. Practice using them in different patterns as explained exercise 28. Lesson 17 1. Learn the position power chords. The best way to do this is put them in some of the songs you already know. That way you'll never forget them. 2. Practice exercises 31 through 36 until you've got the arpeggio technique mastered. Don't stop with just the examples that I've got in the booklet. Replace some of the chords in songs you're now using with arpeggios or at least work them into a lead. Just take the chord apart and find an interesting way to spread out the notes. Lesson 18 Your goal for this lesson is to understand modal Theory completely. Until you do, there's no need to continue because everything in the next lesson will either be meaningless or confusing. Spend enough time practicing the mode, then the chord so you really learn the melody of these seven modes. It's not as difficult as it sounds. You probably can sing the melody to more than a hundred songs, I'm just asking you to learn seven more. Also practice identifying intervals. It's good practice to play intervals with another musician and take turns identifying them. That's the end of lesson 18. As soon as you've got this one mastered you've got 75% of the course behind you. It's important that you spend some time reviewing the lessons to make sure you haven't forgotten any of what's been covered so far. Lesson 19 Your goal for this lesson is to understand how chords are built from modes and scales. Just start working on the possibilities, start the natural minor mode with some bizarre A minor type of chord that wasn't covered in this lesson. Build on the chord by going up the scale, on each string, one note at a time to compose the chord scales. Record a progression from the chords and practice playing leads. If a chord's too difficult, and many will be, substitute a fifth type chord. Or maybe use a three tone chord instead. Use notes from the impossible chord as an arpeggio over the fifth chord and you'll learn some interesting sounds. The best way to learn this stuff is to just start working with it. Lesson 20
1. Figure out intervals of chord progressions from some of your favorite songs. I, IV, V or whatever. 2. Pass the quiz in this lesson and don't cheat. Either you understand what I've explained or not. If not, review the previous lessons. 3. Practice playing leads over the arpeggios in exercise 3. 4. And last, memorize the licks in exercises 4 and 5 and learn to use them when improvising. Lesson 21 Your goals for this lesson are to learn the seven new patterns and become comfortable changing positions using the slide technique. Also practice playing triplets. Lesson 22 1. Patterns and sequences like exercise 11 and continue mastering the three notes to a string technique. 2. Practice and memorize the lead in exercises 12 through 15. Tablature to the rhythm part of this lead can be found at the end of Level 3 in Exercise 31. Play it over the chorus. Lesson 23 Your goal for this lesson is to practice and memorize the lead in this lesson. That should keep you busy for at least a week. That's the end of lesson 23. On to the final lesson of the series. Lesson 24 1. Learn the Harmonic minor, Melodic minor, Diminished Scales 2. Master sweep arpeggios 3. Learn Exercise 24 and apply the same technique to other single string scales. You should be able to create all kinds of interesting patterns.