My methods are customized and drawn from an enormous background of teaching and performing experience.

Contact me at ChuckAnderson202@comcast.net for more information.

http://www.chaplinsmusiccafe.com/

Ticket Link
http://www.chaplinsmusiccafe.com/apps/webstore/products/show/1821146

Make sure you get your tickets early. The venue is very cool but small. Also, there’s a discount for advance purchase.

Unlocking the Guitar: Notes on the Neck
One of the biggest problems for guitar players – Guitar players historically do not know the names of the notes on the neck. I don’t mean the ability to figure out the notes. I mean stone cold knowing the notes – having a perfect mental picture of all of the notes and their names all over the instrument,  This is a great 10 step approach to mastering the neck.

Monster Guitar Chops Volume One
The first in a 6 volume series of books dealing with the physical guitar – Strength, speed and endurance are goals here.

The Six Secrets of Guitar Fingering
My approach to fingering – a 6 principle approach that will help you master the note connections on the instrument. It’s valuable for the improviser, the reader and anyone who plays single notes.

Pathways of the Guitar
The workbook for The Six Secrets – it deals with critical scales, arpeggios, intervals and sequences that ultimately become the tools that every improviser needs.

Master Picking
My approach to picking – the study of the four picking pairs and how to use them. Picking is divided up into Articulate and Legato picking

Mastering the Modes
Ever since Miles Davis, modality has been important to contemporary musicians. Few subjects have been as poorly taught as modes. This book covers the details of modal playing in great depth.

Modular Phonetic Rhythm
My system of rhythm – using concepts from language. It helps make the transition from the math of rhythm to the sonic language of rhythm. Critical for chord comping, solos, composition and reading.

The Private Music Teachers Guide
For those who would like to make a serious career out of teaching. This approach is not a marginal part time job. I’m talking about enough income to buy the house, buy the car and put the kids through school.

Unlocking the Guitar: Strums
A good solid training in contemporary strum techniques. Often called “feel” by drummers, it’s great to improve your communications with other musicians especially drummers and bass players.

Unlocking the Guitar: 25 Open Tunings and How to Use Them
More geared to singer-songwriters who are looking for new sounds to inspire new songs.

Each book takes a topic and develops it from the beginning. Topics not covered yet are chord development, improvisation, theory and melody and chords. These are either completed and waiting for release or they are in progress as we speak.

Since teaching is very personal, the best way to guide someone is to find out where they are and what they’re trying to accomplish. In this way, I can guide someone towards the most effective way to use the material.

This material is a set of resources to be used not a step by step method. I train people all over the world through Skype and correspondence if anyone needs a more personalized approach.

I will also be releasing video clips to demonstrate this material. Look for that feature soon!

This ten track CD will be called “Images for Two Jazz Guitars” Our process is to create the themes, then the structure, then the instrumentation and finally, the arrangements. The themes will provide the foundation of each piece and then Jimmy and I will do what we have done for so many years – we’ll improvise.

The music will be an amalgam of our experiences and the music we love. We’re having a great time working on this project. Jimmy is a fantastic musical partner and a great collaborator. I’ve never heard two guitars work so well together.

Recently, we sat down and started to play. We had no theme, no charts, no idea of a direction. What happened was magical. Luckily, we captured it on “tape” and you can download it now for free! Just enter your email and we’ll send you details (plus other free goodies if you’re new to our email list!)

The guitar is a very physical instrument. Becoming a great player requires knowledge, creativity and technique. Understanding how to do something doesn’t mean a lot if you can’t execute the riffs and the chords.

Hand strength isn’t something you’re born with – you have to develop it. Just like a sport that takes specific skills but still requires physical training. I’m sure you realize that it takes a lot of physical training. So does the guitar! But how do you develop your hands?

After many years of teaching and research, I’ve organized a series of exercises that will not only develop speed but will also develop coordination and endurance.

The six volumes of this series are based on a set of six motion principles. These moves are indispensable if you really want to bring your playing to a new level.

This first volume will get you started in the right direction. Download it today or grab the hard copy! Or you might want to check out my Institute of Guitar, where you can access the Guitar Aerobics series in addition to ALL of my training material – learn more here!

No matter what age, guitar remains the symbol of cool, hip – whatever new adjective strikes you.

It’s musical potential is virtually unlimited since it’s capable of playing chords, notes and everything in between. It also dominates country, bluegrass, rock, pop, folk, blues etc. Even in the jazz and classical field, guitar continues to make inroads into territory formerly controlled by more traditional instruments.

The guitar is the instrument of choice for song writers and performers in all musical idioms. It can be strummed, finger picked or played with a combination of all of these techniques and more.

From very simple beginnings, the guitar can grow into an instrument of tremendous subtlety, sophistication and complexity. But only if you want it to. Like a faithful pet, it never complains and lets you decide how far you want to go with it. For many. the relationship they have with their guitar is longer lasting and deeper than any relationship they’ve ever had with a person.

There is always a new place to go with the guitar. The jazz guitar often offers the next plateau for players that have been involved with rock, pop, blues for many years but are looking for something more. That something more could be more advanced chords, scales and techniques than are typically available in contemporary music. Certainly, it was the instrument’s unlimited potential that drew me to it and kept me involved in it and with it for my entire career.

The guitar spans a huge range of musical styles from rock to country to flamenco music. Though each of these musical idioms use the it prominently, they all use the same instrument to create wildly different sounds. Though the guitar has been around since the 1500s, it has undergone several big transformations during its history. The development of the electric guitar is an obvious mutation and has had a huge effect on its popularity.

Guitar sales have doubled in the last four years and some research has shown that more children under the age of 11 are playing the guitar than any other instrument. In fact, in Britain, it may be the instrument of choice for more than 50% of all males that play an instrument (and 17% of all females).

Here are a just a few of the reasons that guitar playing is so popular all over the world.

• Guitar playing is typically relaxing for the player.
• Guitar music is equally relaxing and enjoyable for the listener.
• Many people begin to play in order to join a band. This is an ideal way to make friends and expand one’s social circle.
• Guitar playing is ideal for campouts, singalongs or for entertainment at a wide variety of functions.
• Guitar playing improves hand-eye coordination and motor skills in general.
• Guitar playing can also help you gain other skills such as reading music and listening skills. Most people don’t realize how many skills can be learned by playing the guitar – you would be surprised.

­MIA chief executive Paul McManus said: “The popularity of the guitar in the UK is clearly going from strength to strength.” The MIA figures are based on government statistics for UK guitar for UK guitar imports. The MIA is the UK trade association for the musical products industry.

Guitar Center, MTV Games (Rock Band) and Activision (Guitar Hero) have collaborated on a national survey of 7,000 respondents to see how the players of Rock Band and Guitar Hero felt about playing an actual guitar.

Here are some of the interesting findings in the study:

• 67% of Guitar Hero and Rock Band users who do not currently play an instrument say they are likely to start playing one in the next two years
• 72% of musicians that play Guitar Hero or Rock Band report using their own instruments more frequently
• 80% of Guitar Hero and Rock Band users would like to receive an instrument as a holiday gift this year

The last one might have been a bit of a loaded question from Guitar Center in the survey, but nonetheless this is definitely encouraging news for Guitar Center and other music retailers. Guitar Center reported spikes in sales of entry-level guitars in the last quarter of 2007 by 20.7% and in the first quarter of 2008 by 26.9%.

Many think games like Guitar Hero are making us lazy, giving us the instant satisfaction of a fake guitar rather then actually learning how to play it ourselves, but it seems quite the opposite is true, and more people are playing guitar more now then ever. Do you play the guitar? If so, what drew you to playing? And if you haven’t, is there any particular reason why?

While the seminal group Grateful Dead were originally categorized as psychedelic rock, by the 1990s the term “jam band” was used for groups playing a variety of genres, including those outside of rock such as funk, progressive bluegrass, and jazz fusion.

Stylistic origins: Folk, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Bluegrass, Country

Virtually, all American forms of popular music are fair game for a jam band.

Cultural origins: United States 1960s with The Grateful Dead

Continuing into the 1990s and beyond with bands like Phish, Umphrey’s McGee, Bela Fleck, Modeski, Martin and Wood among many others. Each group has unique inflections, stylistic influences and performing styles that help to create a loyal fan base, merchandise and an identifiable brand.

Instrumentation: Guitar, Bass, Drums, Keyboards – Guitar Dominant

Characteristics of Jam Bands:

1. Jam bands may be vocal , instrumental or a combination of both. The “jam” part is instrumental and improvisational. It is typically dominated by guitar.

2. Taping, collecting and trading was pioneered by the Grateful Dead. This culture contributed to the popularity of the Dead and led the way for the jam bands of the future. This was so encouraged that direct feeds from the sound board were provided for “tapers” who wanted to archive the shows.

3. Medleys, that is the stringing of songs together as a continuous song was typical.

4. Song Quotation is the use of a small section of a famous song in the beginning, middle or end of another song.

5. Theme – Extended Improvisation – Theme is not only the format of jam bands but as I’ll point out, characteristic of all types of musical styles and contemporary performing groups.

6. Jam bands can exhibit one particular style or a fusion of different styles. This explains in part why there is such diversity among jam bands.

Each characteristic of a jam band is shared with a jazz group like my own. Jazz itself along with Blues is the original “jam band” music. An early example was jazz saxophonist Coleman Hawkins and his “All Star Jam Band”. In a very real way, the word “jam” is a synonym for extended improvisational jazz.

What often differentiates one “jam band” style from another is the sophistication of the chord progressions, melodies and improvisational excursions used in live shows. Virtuosity of soloists is typical though not essential.

Jazz, particularly guitar jazz, mirrors the approach of the jam band. Long extended improvisation is the rule not the exception. Perhaps the connection between jazz and jam bands has been blurred because so much of traditional jazz has been dominated by horns and piano.

I’m constantly discussing about my own belief in the jazz guitar as a market in and of itself. It’s not necessarily a subset of jazz. The guitar has its own market and legion of followers.

I hope that jam band followers will take a listen to guitar jazz a little closer then they would in the past – they just might hear the same spirit of freedom that they hear and feel in the jam band.

“When you play music you discover a part of yourself that you never knew existed.”

“Actually, I’m not interested in Zen that much, as a philosophy, nor in joining any movements. I don’t pretend to understand it. I just find it comforting. And very similar to jazz. Like jazz, you can’t explain it to anyone without losing the experience. It’s got to be experienced, because it’s feeling, not words.”

“Words are the children of reason and, therefore, can’t explain it. They really can’t translate feeling because they’re not part of it. That’s why it bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It’s not. It’s feeling.”

“Sometimes it can happen that you see everything in terms of music. It’s like a fixation. You can’t help it. I get that way every time I’m trying to work something out. But it’s bad if you can’t pull out of it. Nothing should be that dominating. If it is, it is perverted.”

“I want to play as good as I can, not necessarily as different. I am not interested in consciously changing the essence of my music. I would rather have it reveal itself progressively as I play. Ultimately, what counts is its essential quality, anyway, and differences vanish in a short time.”

Bill Evans has always been my favorite jazz musician. Despite the fact that I play guitar, there has always been something about Bill Evans the man and the artist that fascinates me. His harmonic sense was legendary. His ability to swing – unparalleled. But the depth of this jazz artist and how he thought was to me, his most distinguishing and most valuable attribute.

Here are some of my favorite Bill Evans quotes. I find them realistic and inspiring. They have been a source of comfort to me throughout the development of my career in the creative world of jazz.

“In the long run, we must consider that what we do is an art.”

“I hope, through my music, to contribute to creating a better world.”

”I had to work harder at music than most cats, because you see, I don’t have much talent.”

“Everybody talks about my harmonic conception. I worked very hard at that because I don’t have very good ears.”

“Now in retrospect, I think it was a good thing I didn’t have a great aptitude for mimicry though it made it very difficult for me at the time because I had to work very hard to take things apart. I had to build my whole music style. I’d abstract principles from people I dug, and I’d take their feeling or technique to apply to things the way I’d built them. But because I had to build them so meticulously, I think, worked out better in the end, because it gave me a complete understanding of everything I was doing.”

“Jazz is not a what, it’s a how. If it were a what, it would be static, never growing. The how is that music comes from the moment, it is spontaneous, it exists at the time it is created. And anyone who makes music according to this method conveys to me an element that makes his music jazz.”

“Intuition has to lead knowledge, but it can’t be out there alone.”

“I went through a lot of mental pains and anguish about choosing between jazz and classical. I realized that where I functioned was where I should be, and where I functioned was in jazz, so that was it.”

“I think some young people want a deeper experience. Some people just wanna be hit over the head and, you know, if then they [get] hit hard enough maybe they’ll feel something. You know? But some people want to get inside of something and discover, maybe, more richness. And I think it will always be the same; they’re not going to be the great percentage of the people. A great percentage of the people don’t want a challenge. They want something to be done to them — they don’t want to participate. But there’ll always be maybe 15% maybe, 15%, that desire something more, and they’ll search it out — and maybe that’s where art is, I think.”

“To the person who uses music as a medium for the expression of ideas, feelings, images, or what have you; anything which facilitates this expression is properly his instrument.”

“Perhaps it is a peculiarity of mine that despite the fact that I am a professional performer, it is true that I have always preferred playing without an audience.”

“First of all, I never strive for identity. That’s something that just has happened automatically as a result, I think, of just putting things together, tearing things apart and putting it together my own way, and somehow I guess the individual comes through eventually.”

“My creed for art in general is that it should enrich the soul; it should teach spirituality by showing a person a portion of himself that he would not discover otherwise…a part of yourself you never knew existed.”

“I believe in things that are developed through hard work. I always like people who have developed long and hard, especially through introspection and a lot of dedication. I think what they arrive at is usually a much deeper and more beautiful thing than the person who seems to have that ability and fluidity from the beginning. I say this because it’s a good message to give to young talents who feel as I used to.”

“A guy is influenced by hundreds of people and things,” he said, “and all show up in his work.” To fasten on any one or two is ridiculous. I will say one thing, though. Lennie Tristano’s early records impressed me tremendously. Tunes like ‘Tautology,’ ‘Marshmallow,’ and ‘Fishin’ Around.’ I heard the fellows in his group building their lines with a design and general structure that was different from anything I’d ever heard in jazz.”

“Technique is the ability to translate your ideas into sound through your instrument. This is a comprehensive technique…a feeling for the keyboard that will allow you to transfer any emotional utterance into it. What has to happen is that you develop a comprehensive technique and then say, Forget that. I’m just going to be expressive through the piano.”

“When you begin to teach jazz, the most dangerous thing is that you tend to teach style…I had eleven piano students, and I would say eight of them didn’t even want to know about chords or anything – they didn’t’ even want to do anything that anybody had ever done, because they didn’t want to be imitators.

Well, of course, this is pretty naive, but nevertheless it does bring to light the fact that if you’re going to try to teach jazz…you must abstract the principles of music which have nothing to do with style, and this is exceedingly difficult. So there, the teaching of jazz is a very touchy point. It ends up where the jazz player, ultimately, if he’s going to be a serious jazz player, teaches himself.”

“It’s performing without any really set basis for the lines and the content as such emotionally or, specifically, musically. And if you sit down and contemplate what you’re going to do, and take five hours to write five minutes of music, then it’s composed music. Therefore I would put it in the classical or serious, whatever you want to call it, written-music category. So there’s composed music and there’s jazz. And to me anybody that makes music using the process that we are using in Jazz, is playing Jazz.”

“I’m using the insides of sounds to move around in a very subtle way which, I think, ends up being inevitable. I feel its the only solution to that particular problem that I presented myself.”

“Especially, I want my work – and the trios if possible – to sing.”

“It bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It’s not. It’s feeling.”

“Im…a rather simple person with a limited talent and perhaps a limited perspective.”

Regardless of the resources you use to learn to play the guitar, it’s important to know what there is to learn and how that affects what you want to do. Whether it’s playing in a band, singing and playing or being a singer-songwriter. there are specific things to learn and specific skills to develop. Here’s an overview of the ten most fundamental things to learn.

1. Chords

The first thing that almost all guitar players learn is chords. A chord is played by holding down multiple notes simultaneously on the fingering hand. The opposite hand makes a chord sound by strumming it or finger picking it. There is nothing more fundamental than playing basic chords.

The first 14 chords are E, A, D, G ,C, Em, Am, Dm, E7, A7, D7, G7, B7. C7. Typically, barre chords are learned next. Barres have an advantage because they can be moved to different keys. Their disadvantage is that they’re harder to play, at least initially.

The ability to play chords and switch them smoothly is the first requirement for playing alone or with a group. It immediately qualifies you for a band in the role of rhythm guitar. This job is an accompaniment job and does not have the attention given to the Lead guitar player but it is your quickest route to playing in a band!

Resources:

chordfind.com

Guitar Room

2. Technique

Technique is the ability to control your hands individually and in combination. It is primarily a physical skill not a musical skill. The training and development of your hands is a prerequisite and necessary to develop musical skills.

Sports offers a good parallel. Football has physical skills and football skills. Passing, receiving, blocking, running and tackling are football skills. Running through tires, road work, weight lifting, wind sprints and stretching are physical skills. You need both to be successful.

There are many exercises designed to get your hands in shape. Finger independence drills, barres and stretches are just three good ways to develop your hands.

Resources:

Technique Building Exercises

Guitar Technique Secrets

Guitar Player Techniques

3. Notes on the Neck

It’s unbelievable how weak guitar players are on knowing the notes on their own instrument!
No other instrument suffers from this same fate. Imagine a piano player not knowing the note names of the keys…or a trumpet player not knowing what notes come out if they push specific valve combinations. Yet, an amazingly high percentage of guitar players don’t know the notes on the neck.

This problem has certainly been created by the guitar world’s penchant for tablature and chord picture diagrams. Despite this, there is no excuse for the failure on the part of guitar players to learn what is absolutely rudimentary on any other instrument. The notes on the neck must be not only learned but mastered!

Resources:

Brendan Burns

Notes on the guitar neck

4. Strums

This skill is part of the rhythm guitar role. All songs, besides having chords, have a strum that is responsible for the “feel” of the song. If you play the wrong strum with a song, something will sound off.

The strum helps keep the tempo steady and propels the music forward.

Strumming captures the most primitive element of music – rhythm. That tendency to tap our feet when we hear music can often be traced to the strumming pattern of the guitar.

Resources:

Strumming 101 – A Beginner Guitar Strumming Tutorial

Easy Guitar Strumming Patterns for Beginners

5. Finger Picking

Finger picking is an alternative to strumming. Like strumming, finger picking uses the non-fingering hand and produces sound from chords. Fingerpicking was most common in Folk music but it has certainly made its way into main stream contemporary music through singer-songwriters and country artists. James Taylor is an outstanding finger pick artist who has fused Folk, Country, Rock and Pop music into a seamless original form. His influence has been significant ever since the beginning of the Folk-Rock movement.

Resources:

Acoustic Fingerstyle Guitar

History of Fingerstyle Guitar

Ultimate Guitar Lessons

6. Scales

Scales are organized streams of notes that can be used to generate melody or improvisation. There are many kinds of scales to learn depending on the musical style you choose. The two most common contemporary scales are the Blues Scale and the Pentatonic Scale. The Blues Scale is used in the darker forms of Blues and in heavier Rock Music. The Pentatonic Scale is used in all things Southern: Southern Rock, brighter Blues, Country music and even Motown.

Beyond these scales, there are many more to learn if the music you play needs them. Santana used the Dorian Scale to great effect while Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits made a living from the Aeolian Scale.

Resources:

Guitar Scales

Guitar Scales @ Wikibooks

Guitarists.net Guitar Scale Finder

7. Lead Guitar Techniques

The lead guitar embellishments are physical moves that impact the sound of the guitar in a very significant way. Bends, slides, glisses, vibrato and harmonics are just some of the techniques employed. These are “guitaristic” effects, not external effects such as reverb, chorus and distortion. As in all cases, the style of music dictates which embellishments are applicable. Traditional Jazz guitar uses few bends while Blues music lives on bends as well as the other embellishments.

Resources:

Lead Guitar Techniques

8. Rhythm

Rhythm is one of the three primary components of music, It encompasses several aspects. On the one hand, rhythm is the duration of a note or a chord. It also includes tempo ie beats per second as measured by a metronome  and the stability of the beat. Rhythm, as in tempo, can vary during a song. Some songs maintain a steady tempo from beginning to end. Other songs vary the tempo. Slowing down is called Ritardando and speeding up is called Acclerando. These are intentional musical effects and not the result of a guitar player not being able to keep steady time or rhythm. The ability to “keep time” is one of the most important skills a guitar player can develop.

Resources:

Rhythm & Rhythm Guitar @ Wikipedia

9. Ear

The development of the ear brings your musical insides – out. Music is the only hearing art. As such, the ear acts as the intermediary between your musical ideas and the execution of these ideas. Solfeggio, the Italian art of sight singing has been used for centuries to develop musicianship. Ear training contributes to the ability to play what you hear. There are virtually unlimited applications of ear training from working songs out by ear to improvising to writing. The European tradition of ear training has been far more stringent than that of the United States.

Resources:

Good Ear

Ear Training

Ear Trainer

10. Songs

This area is your song list, your repertoire, what you can play from beginning to end. Without a repertoire, you have nothing to play. An audience is certainly not interested in listening to scales, arpeggios or exercises of any kind. They respond to songs no matter what style of music you play. It could original or cover but one way or another, you need to learn songs.

What does it mean to learn a song? The singer songwriter’s version of learning a song would be to memorize the chords, the strum or finger pick, the melody, the form, the chords and the lyrics. The jazz guitarist version is to learn the single note melody, the chord changes, the form, the melody and chord version (combining single note melody and chords) and the improvisational structure. Unless you use the lyrics as inspiration for the mood and feel of a song, lyrics are not part of the instrumental process.

Resources:

Top 100 Guitar Sites

Top 100 Tab Sites

Guitar Tabs

Conclusion

Now that you have a sense of what there is to learn, you can focus on how you’re going to learn it. Whether it’s formal lessons with a good teacher, self teaching, books, DVDs or on line resources, get started! The rewards will far outweigh the effort.