USER GUIDE
Welcome to THE GUITAR PRACTICE by Guy Pople of Lytham St Annes Guitar Shop.
This is an educational resource for practising guitarists.
The overall focus is to help you develop the skills and knowledge needed to become a confident creative player.
It’s free to subscribe and take a look around - Substack just needs an email address. We don’t store or use these for any purposes.
Many of the articles are also free to enjoy e.g. TECHNIQUE articles 1-30 and SCALES 1-5 are on the house to help everyone get started regardless of means.
To find the 500+ lessons, head to the ARCHIVE - here is the direct link: https://lsaguitarshop.substack.com/archive
There is a SEARCH function at the top right of the archive.
If you are a beginner then start by inputing these terms in turn into the Search field:
PRACTISING 1
CHORDS 1
TECHNIQUE 1
SCALES 1
ARPEGGIOS 1
THEORY 1
NOTATION 1
COOL PARTS 1
GEAR 1
MISC 1
MUSIC PRODUCTION 1
I recommend you make a note of which lessons which you need to return to regularly e.g. THEORY 1 has all the basics and THEORY 2 is about building out a Key - both have months of work to explore.
The lessons are meant to be mostly independent activities but there are themes and arcs e.g. type in CHORD SCALES and you’ll find many examples because these are excellent prep for both playing, understanding and creating song arrangements. Type in IMPROV and you’ll find a wide range of related articles.
I also routinely revisit earlier articles to update anything which I feel has evolved.
If you are local to Lytham St Annes Guitar Shop then I can be booked for hourly face-to-face sessions from 530-630 Mon to Sat.
If you are remote and want to book a similar session using Skype or similar then you can do so by contacting via the shop’s website www.lsaguitars.com.
PREP
I recommend you access the archive via a laptop, Tablet or Desktop because the videos and lesson detail will require too much zooming back & forth on a phone.
The basics of all instruments are hard because your hands and mind are not really prepared for the fine motor skills required to make refined musical sounds. It also takes months of patient disciplined daily graft to get to a level that you feel like you’ve made progress. This said, if you are enamoured with this amazing instrument and don’t set unrealistic expectations, then you will prevail.
Below is a diagram of the fretboard - print it out and leave it within eyesight where you practise. Look up from time to time to see what the notes are called that you are playing - become familiar saying both names of the # and b notes until you learn which to use based on the context. The shaded notes have the same pitch but on different strings.
The next time you listen to, or read something by an expert, simply find examples of the notes they mention on your board. This is how music theory starts to become practical.
Regards,
Guy Pople
Lytham St Annes Guitar Shop
PS: Originally this archive was largely text and images. It was destined to be published as a book and Carl Verheyen kindly wrote this as a forward. Over the course of this process the WWW opened up with the possibility of including video, so the book was shelved.
Introduction by Carl Verheyen
"Many of us picked up the guitar after being inspired by a band, an album or sometimes just a song. After a lot of listening to our favourite players and a lot of practising we found we could actually play with a certain degree of proficiency. The only problem with this self-taught approach is that eventually one hits a brick wall. Without a fundamental knowledge of harmony and chord scale theory, a player is only capable of the simplest form of improvising. Once the harmony gets a little more complex with key changes and modulations, the self-taught guitarist is stranded, unable to navigate through the 'keys of the moment.'
The songwriter, too, is at a great disadvantage without the tools needed to musically move between keys for the chorus or verses. A standard is a standard because its harmony works and stands the test of time. The great songwriters through the ages, from Lennon and McCartney to Brian Wilson, Paul Simon, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter and many others have possessed a deep understanding of harmony. Their songs have survived over the decades and are being performed somewhere in the world right now. It’s an amazing revelation when you find out where chords come from, how they relate to each other and how to create and play over harmonically rich progressions. It’s a long overdue book you hold in your hands.
Guy has made this important information available to guitarists in a simple format for guitarists of all levels to understand. I’m quite sure that at some point as you work through this book, the clouds will part, a beam of light will shine down upon you and you will shout A-HA! Now I get it! Good luck with your music"
Carl Verheyen
www.carlverheyen.com