Lesson 1 Materials

 

Remember, these materials are designed to support learning from the book. Click here to get the book for complete lesson plans. 

Intro: Tuning Your Guitar

Lesson 1.1: 1,2,3 Wave

A few things to remember:

• Sit on the edge of your chair
• Keep your feet flat on the floor (or stool, if you use one under your right leg)
• The guitar touches three places:
  • The right thigh
  • The right side of your chest
  • The upper part of your right arm
• The left-hand does not hold the guitar
• Sit up straight
• When you put your right arm on the guitar, the top of the headstock of the guitar (where the tuners are) will angle slightly away from your body

Lesson 1.2: Walk the Dogs

Things to watch for in this unit.

• Thumb is anchored on the top string

• The fingers are passing across the tops of the strings, not snapping them from underneath

Lesson 1.3 : Pep-per-o-ni Piz-za

Things to watch for:

• The thumb is anchored on the top string
• The fingers sound the string by passing over the top, not by snapping the string from the bottom
• Alternating between pointer and middle finger
• After the finger has plucked the string, it rests on the next string up

1.4 Pep-per-o-ni Piz-za on the B string

Things to watch for:

• The thumb is anchored on the top string
• The fingers sound the string by passing over the top, not by snapping the string from the bottom
• Alternating between pointer and middle finger
• After the finger has plucked the string, it rests on the next string up

Once you can play comfortably on the G string and the B string you can make a melody by switching between the two strings.

G    G   G   G   G      G       B    B   B   B   B     B  

pep – per –  o  –  ni     piz    –    za         pep  – per –  o –   ni   piz    –    za

Try playing the G and the B string along with this recording

Lesson 1.5 The Other Hand

The three key points for the left hand:

• The thumb is on the other side of the neck behind the middle finger with space between the bottom of the neck and the palm of the hand
• The finger is pressing down close to the right-hand side of the fret (if you are too far back to the left in the fret you will hear a buzzing sound)
• The string is contacted with the center of the tip of the finger

Lesson 1.6: The note A

Note: It is common when playing a fretted note for beginning students to forget some of what they learned about right-hand technique. Be sure to keep encouraging them to pass over the tops of the strings and to rest their finger on the string above the G.

Lesson 1.7: Jelly (downloadable chart)

Lesson 1.7 Jelly

Here is an audio recording of Jelly played three times with an accompaniment

This is a recording of just the accompaniment