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Tenor Guitar Lessons
Lessons Are offered at my Columbus, Ohio studio or online using Skype.
My Teaching Philosophy
-Left Hand-
Scales and arpeggios are the bedrock of music. They are the foundation of everything harmonically and melodically. We will begin with learning our major, minor and pentatonic scales and corresponding arpeggios. Once we have an understanding of those we will delve into our modes and more “exotic” scales. Through out your tenor guitar lessons we will use these scales and arpeggios to understand and create bass lines.
A focus on ease of movement and proper hand positioning will also be addressed. Every students hands are different, so we will look at multiple left hand techniques and approaches. Providing you with options to facilitate the best fingerings for any passage of music you might come across.
-Right Hand-
The right hand is our time machine. It gives us the ability to play in time and with groove and feel. We will work on rhythmic studies, string crossings and practicing with a metronome. Remembering music is harmony, melody and rhythm working as one.
For those who are new to playing music for some the hardest thing to master is rhythm/time keeping. It is the black and white right or wrong of the music world. Often times our want to progress quickly is hampered by skipping over the basic building blocks of rhythm and time keeping.
The first critical step is the concept of subdivision. Subdivision it the mind process used to keep accurate time. It is mentally filling in the gap between the major beats. In 4/4 time it simply begins as counting 1+2+3+4+. I will constantly be emphasizing the need for unrelenting subdivision. But one can work on subdividing while you listen to recorded music even as you walk down the street humming a tune.
-Music Reading-
When you first start taking tenor guitar lessons one of the first questions I will ask is can you read music notation. If you can great, if you can’t fear not! Most students will start out using Tablature or TAB which has a line that corresponds to each string and number that represent which fret on that string to play. Within the first couple of lessons we will start learning the letter names of the strings and frets. Eventually replacing the numbers with the corresponding letter. The reason I want my students to think in letter names is because that is how musicians talk with each other about music. The letter names will also aid in the understanding of music theory.
I highly encourage learning to read music notation though it is not a necessity it has the following benefits:
1.It will help you understanding of the mechanics of music theory.
2.Enables you to look at any piece of music and play it and have basic understanding of the song.
3.Gives a visual representation of an auditory art.
I have had quite a few students who were resistant to learning to read music notation. However once they switched wished they had done so years earlier. The reason being they were able to learn songs and grasp musical concepts at a much faster rate.
Which ever route you choose be it TAB or standard notation your lesson sheets will be tailored to your individual needs.
-Styles-
The tenor guitar first saw work in the Jazz Bands of the 1920's, but any style of music can be performed on it. Celtic and folk being the most popular. The tenor guitar is used as the backing instrument in Texas Contest Fiddle music. The tenor is also very well suited to playing the blues.
-Feel/Groove-
-Skype Tenor Guitar Lessons-
I now offer Tenor Guitar lessons online using Skype. You must have a Skype account, a webcam, and a high-speed internet connection.
Please contact me via the contact page of this website to set up times
Lessons should be paid for in advance. Simply use the Paypal buttons below to purchase lessons.