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Mel Bay Study Group The Mel Bay Method For Guitar According To "The Principles" Beginning to Use the 2nd Book in the Curriculum "The Ultimate Folk Guitar Song Collection" Checkpoint 7, Pages #27-28 |
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After "The Principles",the metronome is the most important practice tool you can use. Used as shown in " The Principles", it will increase your rate of progress faster than anything else. Click below for further info:
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Ultimate Folk Guitar Song Collection It's time to add an additional resource to our curriculum in order to assimilate and integrate the skills covered so far, and make them usable in our playing. If you don't have the book shown above, order it from this link. The supplier ships world-wide, and you will have it in a few days. You can read my review of the book here........... In order to gain an understanding of where we are going, and why, and how we are going to get there, read this essay...........
GENERAL GUITAR DEVELOPMENT: STAGE TWO In my essay "What Should I Practice?
General Guitar Development Stage One", I outlined the goals that a
person pursuing development in what I call "General Guitar" should be aiming
for. These are the abilities that every guitarist should have, regardless of
what style they may specialize in, or plan to specialize in. If you know you
want to be a rock guitarist, there are still certain things you should know
and be able to do that don't necessarily have to do with rock guitar. The
same is true if you plan on being a classical guitarist or a specialist in
any other style. So, this means that there are certain common denominators in the learning
process for the first few years of guitar study. There are certain elements
that should be there that are common no matter if you walk in for your first
lesson and say " I want to be a rock guitarist", or "I want to be a jazz
guitarist", or "I want to be a classical guitarist". However, it does get a
little more nuanced than that, because depending on the style and individual
involved, there may be more or less of something, and things may be taken in
a different order from one student to another. In the above mentioned essay, I
1) Ability to Practice Correctly, 2) Beginning to Build the Correct Foundation (and the discovery of the proper physical sensations) with the Foundation Exercises from "The Principles". 3) Applying the developing abilities to music with simple chord changes and songs, until a few songs are well on the way to being mastered, and the student is not developing habits of tension in their playing. The means to develop these skills and reach these goals are found in "The GuitarPrinciples Path Level One: Chords & Rhythm.
1) beginning the study of music theory, with and/or without direct application to the instrument. This will include these things:
2) applying the increasing knowledge of music theory to the guitar in the form of more sophisticated song accompaniments.
3) continuing the technical development of hands, body and mind that will provide the means to use the musical understanding gained in goals 1 and 2 above.
It is because of all these necessary areas of study that I have recommended the use of the Mel Bay Guitar Method as a basic study text for the development of general guitar skills. With the addition of The Principles, and The Path to fill in all the vital missing elements, this course begins the accomplishment of all the above goals. Of course, along the way, other resources must be added, and many of these resources will be chosen according to the long term goals of the player. For instance, if a student knows they want to be a great rock guitarist, we would certainly be studying all the Pentatonic Scales, and mastering all the basic techniques, like bends, vibrato, etc, as well as studying the solos of the greats.
Studying a method book like the Mel Bay Method accomplishes the goal of learning to read music. Now, it must be acknowledged that reading music is not an absolute necessity in order to be a good guitarist, or a rich and famous guitarist! There are plenty of good, rich and famous guitarists who don't read music. In fact, there are plenty of great and famous songwriters who don't read music. Reading music will not make you a musician, and it will not give you "talent". You can spend 20 years studying music and never play a blues lick as good as B.B.King, or write a song as great as a Paul McCartney or Bob Dylan tune.
However, reading music will make anyone at the very least a "capable" musician, and can enable those with true musicality to get the absolute most from their ability. The bottom line is it sure isn't going to hurt anyone to learn to read music, and I have always tried to include that with all students where appropriate (it is not appropriate when teaching young children, unless specifically requested. It is more important to get them playing first, singing and strumming).
One of the additional resources I recommend, and am going to provide guidance on, is an excellent collection of Folk Songs by Jerry Silverman called "The Ultimate Folk Guitar Song Book". Whether or not you think all the songs are "excellent" as far as music goes, that is not really the point. What I like about the book is that it is a systematic presentation of more advanced accompaniment techniques, grouped together by key.
Chapters One and Two present Bass Runs in Major and Minor Keys. Those working with Mel Bay will learn to use bass notes in accompaniment patterns by the middle of the book, in the form of Alternate Basses and Bass runs. However, even though the student will learn to play a few examples of these techniques, they are restricted to the key of C. In addition, simply learning from the Mel Bay will not give the student a real understanding of what the techniques are, and the ability to use them in other songs in other keys.
Additional explanation and experience is needed, and I will use "The Ultimate Folk Guitar Song Collection" by Jerry Silverman for this purpose. You can read about the book, and order it here
Ultimate Folk Guitar Song Collection
As we continue to work through Mel Bay, the Mel Bay Study Group participants should get this book, and begin to master the material therein using the guidance I will give. We begin here Ultimate Folk 1: Bass Runs..........
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