The building blocks of modern Rock/Pop guitar playing
What you'll learn
- Rapidly develop skills on the instrument
- Learn to play the most commonly used chord, scale and arpeggio patterns
- Develop a terminology that allows students to understand applied theory on the guitar.
- Learn about diatonic chords and how to use them in songwriting.
Requirements
- Ability to read TAB music and access to a guitar. Knowledge of basic 'open' chords is advised but not essential!
Description
This course is packed full of information on the fundamentals of guitar playing as seen in western rock and pop music. In the course there’s almost 4 hours’ worth of video content, with plenty of downloadable TABS, chord charts and reference materials.
Note that this course is aimed mostly at beginners who are looking to move from playing the basic open chord chapes to playing further up the guitar neck by learning barre chords, adding 7ths etc. We’ll learn to understand how these chords work individually and how they can be used together to create songs.
In this course we have scales, chords, arpeggios and lots of information on how they work. There’s a strong focus here on developing a terminology that can be used to understand what it is that we’re actually playing. This essentially allows us to learn a new language that can be used when communicating with other musicians. As well as improving your guitar skills, you’ll also improve your musician skills.
This course was created and designed as part of a Masters Degree university project, with the goal of being used as both a blended learning tool that can be used alongside 1-1 private tuition and as a course that can be worked through independent of instructor input. The content itself has been put together in a format that has been tried and tested by myself as an instructor through use in over teacher 10 years of 1-1 guitar tuition. When working as a professional musician, this is the kind of stuff that lays the groundwork what I tend to use most often.
Although there is a structure to the course, the way you use it doesn’t necessarily need to have a beginning or an end and it can be worked through in any order you like. It is to be used as bank of resources that can be accessed if and when needed.
If you like the course and/or have had lessons from me in the past, then please visit the page, where a positive review could really go a long way to help get this course out to more people. Any questions about anything then in the course, or for organising private 1-1 lessons, then please feel free to give me an email.
Who this course is for:
- Beginner guitarists looking to expand their applied theory knowledge on the instrument.
Instructor
John Cargill is a professional and experienced musician currently living between both Edinburgh Scotland and Hestra, Sweden.
Equipped with a Masters Degree in Music (online education) from Edinburgh Napier University, Honours Degree in popular music, Trinity Grade 8 with Distinction in Classical guitar and an Advanced diploma in Jazz from the University of St Andrews, John regularly tours globally as a live session player and has performed for sold out tours across the US/Canada and Europe, supporting acts such as Lewis Capaldi and Yungblud.
John also currently performs at over 100 weddings and corporate events throughout the year; both as part of the Music For Scotland band Sugar Honey, a modern upbeat covers band, and through solo classical guitar performances.
John has extensive studio experience, with highlights of recording at Rockfield (Queen/Oasis), Longwave Studios (FFAF, Bullet For My Valentine) and 45 a-side (Twin Atlantic, Fatherson) and as a result has performing and/or writing credits on releases by Alaina Castillo, Saint Phnx, Rebel Westerns, Copper Lungs, Carrie Mac and more.
Private tuition is currently offered to around 20 weekly students through Zoom, where lessons are tailored to suit each individual students needs. This can range from playing their favourite movie theme, to performing a complex jazz transcription, to learning to shred like Jimi Hendrix and Joe Satriani.
John is highly sought after, both as a teacher and a performer due to his diverse stylistic abilities and easy to work with approach to any given situation.