GUITAR 

Instructor – Paige Garwood  

Guitar classes are offered at several times during the day.  Our classes are one hour in length and are limited in size.  In this way, we can group students according to age and ability and help them to develop musically at their own level.  Beginner guitar students should be at least 8 years of age.

Guitar is such a fabulous instrument to play.  Our classes are designed to give you the tools to do so.  You will learn the fret board, memorize a variety of different scales, and train your fingers to quickly move from one chord to another.  Along the way, you'll learn some musical pieces to play as a group, and work on individual pieces, too.   Your success is determined by your diligence and determination.   

There are three levels of guitar classes.

Level One:  Beginner Guitar

Beginner… you ask questions like… what does this knob do? These strings have names? And you make statements like… Look! I can drive my parents bonkers if I turn THIS knob like this and hit all the strings really hard!  We will be learning the basics - the names of the strings, the first five chords they need to know, basic strumming techniques as well as introducing them to reading music and tablature on the instrument. We will also be learning several worship tunes in the process… I mean, after all – we want to play real songs, right? 

Requirements:  Your own guitar (electric guitar preferred), pick, notebook with graph paper, pencil and music stand.  The books we will be using are:  Semester 1      "Volume 1 - Beginner to Play the Guitar", authored by Paige Garwood.  The book is available online at www.Lulu.com/ffog in downloadable or in print form.   Semester 2    "Volume 2 - "Beginning to Read Music on the Guitar", authored by Paige Garwood.  The book is available online at www.Lulu.com/ffog in downloadable or in print form. 

Level Two:   Intro to the CAGED System of fret board Navigation

This is more of an applied music theory for the soloing guitarist, so the student needs to already be familiar with playing his instrument. Students should know chords pretty well, and be fairly competent in strumming and switching between basic chords such as G, C and D, as we will be accompanying each other in class. They also need to know what a major scale is, even if they can't play one yet.   They will learn how to play it on the guitar.  This class will be concentrating on the Major Scale and will be introducing the Pentatonic Scale (a subset of the Major Scale). We will learn a fret board mapping system called the CAGED System, learning to place familiar melodies in ANY key using the CAGED system of Fret board navigation. We will discuss playing improvised solos using the CAGED system, learning a few signature "licks" contained in each form. We will be talking about the art of soloing – it's more than just notes.  

Requirements:  Your own guitar (electric guitar preferred), pick, notebook with graph paper, pencil and music stand.  The book we will be using is "Beginning to Understand the CAGED System" authored by Paige Garwood. The book will be available online at www.lulu.com/ffog in downloadable or print format.

Level Three:

This class is a year long class that builds on Level Two "Intro to the CAGED System of fret board Navigation". 

In this class we concentrate on applying the CAGED system to a more improvisational approach to playing the guitar. Using each of the five forms of the CAGED system, the student will explore writing their own licks, scale runs and arpeggios up and down the neck of the guitar. We will discuss and play different styles of popular music, and if time and scheduling permits, we may bring in other Christian artists to demonstrate what these skills look like at a professional level.

But this class is more than just a soloing class - we will also be discussing more advanced chordal music theory concepts that will help us understand those strange chord names like CMaj13 or F#11b5. And by understanding how chords are built, you will lessen your need for those Guitar Chord books that sell for 25 to 30 dollars.... because you will be able to figure out how to build these chords yourself.

Requirements:  Your own guitar (electric guitar preferred), pick, notebook with graph paper, pencil and music stand.  The book for this class will be available in July 2008 and will be downloadable e from www.lulu.com/ffog.