ESTUDIO for Ukulele

This guitar study is about 200 years old and harbors several great lessons that will help us with preparing for the next level of technical mastery. While the original key is A-minor, I have arranged it for ukulele in the key of D-minor as the fingering will be very similar to the guitar original and as it will offer most of the same rewards such as getting the fingers to get really fast at ‘getting out of the way’ - meaning, to fret a note and acquire the skill of using the very tip of the fingers tip in order to not be too shallow in angle where the finger touches the adjacent string and, therefore, keeps it for sounding.

Another one of these great lessons is the realization of how much better the pice sounds if we aim to letting each of the notes sustain equally long. About that, when switching from one chord to the next, listen for how it sounds so much better when the last note of a chord sounds just as long as the notes right before it.

Enjoy and please share!

Student Recording Sessions

Today was ‘student recording-session day’! It’s just like working up your current pieces and performing them for friends and family in a recital setting: Same nerves wrecked and sweaty palms. But the students will get polished masters of their work at the end of the day.

The day was quiet at the studio and it sure was fun to set up a high quality pair of microphones… everyone’s been practicing two or three pieces for at least a month (after learning the pieces over anywhere from two to six months for each piece). Having a deadline to work up to is a great way to fully internalize the material. They all made such progress by having to be more focused… but on less material than on usual months.
And this is also the time when I encourage to memorize the material and to not bring any written charts or scores to the session
Great jobs!

Solo Guitar Arrangement of Joni Mitchell's BOTH SIDES NOW

I’ve always loved the lyrical depth of Joni’s songwriting. And BOTH SIDES NOW has been my number one pick from all her great pieces.

Over the course of about six weeks, I’ve worked out each phrase of the song in the context of lessons with one of my long time students. It’s been a fun process and, in fact, was fluid in that I had to tab everything out in order to keep myself from playing it differently each week. But that process gave me a lot of different ways to figure out one riddle after another - and to experiment with combining her vocal lines with a mostly authentic harmonization. Well, almost that.

New Guitar and Ukulele Music 2022 into 2023

It’s been so much fun to have great reasons to work on new arrangements and transcriptions of guitar and ukulele music: With an ever growing pool of hard-working and curious students, I’ve been very occupied with music for which I’ve always wanted to have a reason to learn myself… Santana’s SMOOTH acoustic style… The White Stripes’ WE’RE GONNA BE FRIENDS… Joni Mitchell’s BOTH SIDES NOW… Journey’s LIGHTS… Domingo Semenzato’s CHORO DIVAGANDO… Ben Platt’s GROW AS WE GO… The New Basement Tape’s KANSAS CITY… Smash Mouth’s ALL STAR… Vance Joy’s RIPTIDE… The Eagles’ BEST OF MY LOVE… Bing Crosby’s SWEET LEILANI… Avenged Sevenfold’s UNHOLY CONFESSIONS… Isaac Albeniz’s ASTURIAS… Prince’s SOMETIMES IT SNOWS IN APRIL…

Spanish Melody for ukulele

This is a beginning to intermediate lesson for ukulele finger style studies. This short study is a real fun coordination practice for the picking hand. Only the thumb (p) and pointer finger (i) are used for this and you will really enjoy working this up to lightning speed. The fretting hand really only has to play five different notes from the D-minor scale and the pointer of the picking hand has to filling each hole between scale steps with the open first, the A, string. Enjoy and please share!

Diatonic 7th Chords with roots on 4th string

Here now the third system of chord scales using diatonic seventh chords in the key of C-major with all the roots on the fourth string. This workout should be added to the previous two systems of roots on 6th and 5th strings.
If you actually have spent a few weeks on these workouts and have been consistent and thorough, this third system of learning diatonic chord scales will be comparatively quick. Master this set just like the other two, in a 5 to 10 minute daily workout routine, and you'll be off to study how to combine all three systems effectively in single positions on the fretboard of the guitar.

"Happy Birthday" - beginning study for guitar

This is a fun melody that we all have in our head, or ears. It will take no more than five minutes to learn how to play this ditty just on one string, maybe with one finger. This video, however, will have you learn to play it more efficiently - in another five minutes - by having you copy a couple of fingerings in a couple of positions. You'll still be playing the melody of "Happy Birthday" on one string but sectioned into a couple of fingering positions. And you will be getting really good and fast at using all your fingers of your fretting hand; and you will very quickly appreciate what that does to your playing enjoyment. And before you know it, you will be able to add a few bass notes to the arrangement which effectively gets you into what's called 'fingerstyle playing'. Give this ten minutes per day for one week and this will feel like riding a bike! And on to the next piece.

"Happy Birthday" - from easy to tricked out ukulele arrangement

A melody can be harmonized many different ways. And I like to teach HAPPY BIRTHDAY as one of the first melodies for beginning students - on the first string, for both guitar and ukulele. In this lesson video, I present this melody in similar fashion to then add chord voicings once the melody is learned thoroughly. You'll learn the one string melodic approach first and will see that the melodic positions don't change at all even when turning this chord melody arrangement into a swinging, groovy ditty.

Strumming Technique Vol. 4 for Guitar: Ghost Strokes & String Slap

This is a really fun, groovy way to create a 'beat' in your strumming style. You'll learn to combine ghost strokes with a percussive string slap, much like a cajon snare drum played with brushes is used in creating a certain feel. Do get down the ghost stroke skills to be studied in the previous videos of this lesson series (especially videos 2 and 3) before attempting this. You'll be grabbing this skill much faster that way!

Watch this video lesson on Youtube: https://youtu.be/Hmp1plDlMpQ

Ukulele Strumming Techniques Vol.4: Old-School Strums

It takes a very different coordination to get the sound of this old school style of ukulele strumming. At first, it really felt counterintuitive to be strumming in this sequence of down and upstrokes - especially when going in slow motion. But once I got to speed this up, I really started to enjoy the elegance and gentle groove of this feel. I love this feel so much, in fact, that I will be working this into all the songs I know on ukulele. Enjoy and please share the video!

Prelude in A-minor by Carcassi: Developing great right hand technique

Matteo Carcassi is one of the classics when it comes to committing yourself to a solid study in guitar technique. This study in A-minor will have you master three different arpeggio patterns and is a great complimentary piece to Aguado's Estudio. Both are quite short but have a very sweet sound and will let you focus on developing an efficient and very precise right hand technique. In this video, I really try to rub in the importance of monitoring your right hand alignment in order to develop an efficient and relaxed picking technique. My preperatory tempo exercises will speed up this process even more as it lets the student focus on just the right hand by itself to let this alignment concept sink in solidly before adding the extra dimension of the left hand fingerings. Enjoy and please share!

Etude No. 6 by Leo Brouwer - lesson

A very unique arpeggio picking pattern to be mastered first. We focus on the right hand by itself first by going through targeted strategies for the first pattern. Second, we proceed to do the same for the second arpeggio pattern which happens to change the meter from a 3/4 waltz to a 2/4 pace.

The chords range from mysterious to dramatic to tranquil. Just a beautiful piece to work up to speed over the course of several weeks. I've enjoyed playing this piece for the last 25+ years and keep coming back to it. It will be an inspiration for any intermediate to advanced player to add this to their bag of tricks.

Enjoy and please share!

Strumming Technique Vol. 3 for Guitar: Trickier Ghost Strum Pattern

Once you get the concept of using 'ghost strums' from the previous video in this series on guitar strumming, try this somewhat trickier pattern. This is a very common strumming pattern that you will find used on many songs. I take you through three different tempos after taking it apart and back together. This happens first on just one chord so you can focus on the strumming hand. Back to the same chord progression from the previous strumming lesson videos, we will exercise this new skill from slow to fast.

Strumming Technique Vol. 2, for guitar: First Ghost Strum Pattern

For a lot of new players, one of the more difficult challenges of learning how to play the guitar is to strum along with songs using a steady, uninterrupted down-up-down-up strumming movement in the strumming/picking hand. This lesson progressively introduces the learner to GHOST STRUMS, or also called ghost strokes, to then offer play-along strumming workouts from slow to fast. Understand and learn this trick in a playful manner on one of the most common chord progressions that you will find on countless favorites. Master these first two basic ghost strum patterns and then move on to the next video in this STRUMMING TECHNIQUES series. Enjoy and please share!

"ESTUDIO" by D. Aguado - Study in A-minor - Lesson

I just can't shake this infatuation with classical fingerstyle technique! There are so many beautiful pieces to learn - and they are all so very rewarding. That's no different with this fairly easy etude by Dionisio Aguado. It's simple yet effective as it sticks to the same strings for the right hand's index and middle fingers in its arpeggio style. Only the thumb has to adjust to what the left hand changes and the colors are simply beautiful. Enjoy and please share!

Ukulele Strumming Techniques Vol.3: Trickier Ghost Strums

Once you get the concept of ghost strokes by working out with video 2 in this series, try this somewhat advanced variation of the basic strumming pattern. This is the next logical step to take in this strumming skills odyssey as it ups the ante and also the fun of mastering different strumming patterns and ways of delivering a varied song accompaniment style.
Enjoy and please share!

"Beginning Guitar Lesson, Strumming Technique Vol. 1: First Strumming Pattern"

Here is a first in a progressive video lesson series on guitar strumming skills. In this first installment, you’ll combine down and upstrokes in an easy to execute strumming pattern. You will lay the foundation to a consistent down-up-down-up strumming hand motion that looks so easy but almost always stumps the beginning strummer. Learn and burn on this simple pattern to then move on to the next video in this strumming technique series. Enjoy and please share!

Ukulele Strumming Techniques Vol. 2: Ghost Strums

For a lot of new players, one of the more difficult challenges of learning how to play the ukulele is to strum along with songs using a steady, uninterrupted down-up-down-up strumming movement in the strumming/picking hand. This lesson progressively introduces the learner to GHOST STRUMS, or also called ghost strokes, to then offer play-along strumming workouts from slow to fast. Understand and learn this trick in a playful manner on one of the most common chord progressions that you will find on countless favorites. Master these first two basic ghost strum patterns and then move on to the next video in this STRUMMING TECHNIQUES series. Enjoy and please share!

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