
Explore the introduction to composition and form in acoustic fingerstyle guitar, focusing on classical guitar technique and how musical ideas are organized.
Explore how to combine motifs into a cohesive form by transforming and varying a single motif. Melodic transformation and the overall form come from ear training and one-thing-at-a-time practice.
Explore the miniature in classical guitar by composing a small ternary form with an A–B structure, building a solid motif and rhythm that repeats and develops across the piece.
The A section presents an ascending motif that establishes unity, while the B section shifts to a contrasting key and uses inversion and melodic development to sustain coherence and variety.
Dress the same motif in different clothes by transforming it, revealing unity of variety and guiding from small forms toward larger forms such as symphonies.
Explore how to structure a section through recapitulation, balancing unity and variety by transforming repeated material, avoiding monotony, and using cadences to end with a clear harmonic conclusion.
Develop a coherent classical guitar piece by crafting the A and B sections, ensuring a strong B-section continuation with motifs and theme to avoid repetition.
Explore how recapitulation restates the motif, creates contrast between sections, and culminates in a final cadence, including deceptive and perfect cadences anchored by tonic and dominant.
Learn to build a two-phrase period from a motif and theme, ending the first phrase on five for an imperfect cadence that suspends, then resolve to one in the second.
Craft a two-section guitar theme by establishing an A section that ends decisively on five, then develop a B section through melodic development while preserving rhythm and unity and variety.
Plan modulations by developing a multi-phrase motif, repeating themes in A, then craft an active B section using melodic development that preserves rhythm while changing notes to unite and vary.
Explore melodic development by rooting new ideas in a single motif, vary harmony and rhythm, and use form to guide b sections and cadences, and record ideas.
Learn the powerful technique of VARIATION, that makes you create new music by not creating much at all!
Develop your personal journey in acoustic fingerstyle by exploring the blueprint for chops, treating ideas as part of a creative voyage, and committing to daily practice to avoid discouragement.
Study music history to understand what musical talent truly is, acknowledge that talent exists yet develops through instruction, and pair analysis with practical songwriting and composition.
Train your ear to understand melody, phrases, harmonies, and chord progressions, not intervals. Sing everything you play to develop a practical ear, and beware courses that train only interval recognition.
Learn how a good melody fits a song's structure with unity, variety, and strong chord progressions, and train your ear by exploring music beyond the same familiar 20 songs.
Explore unity and variety in melody, focusing on repeating motifs to maintain coherence across verse, chorus, and the guitar solo.
Explore how to write coherent miniatures by building unity from a single motif across strong musical material, varied chord progressions, cadences, and substitutions.
Develop motifs into a musical melody by transforming them into more musical phrases, then use strong chord progressions and a perfect cadence to shape a quick, singable melody.
Develop the motif into another piece by using variations of the same motif to preserve unity, then craft a melody with a start and space that a singer can sing.
Write a melodic line a singer can sing without struggling for breath, and craft space and purpose through countermelodies and counterpoint when needed.
Learn practical strategies to stimulate creativity in composition, starting with a title, recording ideas in a folder, and saving musical fragments for future use.
Review the course material multiple times with a score in hand, practice daily, read music, and avoid memorization to reinforce guitar form, composition, and theory concepts.
Learn how to write solo pieces for classical and acoustic fingerstyle properly and effectively and unleash your potential.
Who needs bands? It’s time to learn how to write attractive solo pieces that you can perform on your own, as many composers have done for centuries, and knowing what you are really doing!
Do you want to learn how to write attractive, stand-alone pieces for solo guitar? Aren’t sure where to begin, or how to complete your piece? Ever find yourself noodling aimlessly for valuable chunks of time, and then finally giving up thinking: ‘I’ll try again some other times” ? Life is too short for noodling. Noodling is a HUGE waste of time.
Writing well for an instrument is much more than just buying a guitar and start ‘composing’. There are many things that you need to be aware in musical form and structure, and let me tell you, guitar teachers do not usually teach these secrets. But I do.
How do you ensure musical unity in a piece, and at the same time, avoid monotony? If you don’t really understand these things, your compositions will always sound unbalanced: maybe a great idea there, and insubstantial ones elsewhere. How do you invent (compose) a whole piece from one idea? This is what the classical masters have always done. They were masters at composing tons of music with a fragment of a few notes!
And the best thing of all is, you don’t have to be Beethoven or Bach to learn how to do this.
Composing attractive miniatures is an absolute requirement for any composers: you can’t call yourself a composer if you don’t know how to write an attractive little piece! Also, don’t let the ‘small’ lead you to think that it means ‘trivial’. Length of piece has NOTHING to do with the quality of it. Every major composer has taken seriously the writing of miniatures: Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Tarrega, Chopin, and a host of other brilliant but less known composers.
We will examine together one of my pieces in detail, and I will, step-by-step, tell you exactly how you too can (and should) learn this. I will reveal concepts and techniques that you will find only mentioned in music conservatories and music colleges. And, I already took the trouble to examine the maze in great detail, and figure out and use only the concepts that never fail. I have done all that work, and you will benefit from this by saving a lot of time, for I never teach what I myself have not mastered. Too often teachers have little to show for as for musical substance, and some of them can hardly play! Then again, you get occasionally a brilliant musician who are really sloppy and mediocre teachers. But in this course I will teach what I have myself done successfully every single time.
By the end of the course, you will understand many concepts that were previously either confusing or completely unknown to you, and use them in a powerful way in YOUR music. You will also be able to know how to get out of tight spots, how NOT to get stuck, and how to analyze other people’s works (which is different from just learning how to play other people’s music) and use what you learn in YOUR music. For this, again, is what every major composer has done in the course of music history!
Composing miniatures for an instrument is a powerful tool, an essential tool in the arsenal of today’s musician. Don’t limit yourself by playing only the work of others, but write your own and proudly perform it as well.
Let’s begin learning composition on guitar today, and you will surely be on the path of becoming a proficient and creative musician.