fresh ways to help your student develop
It's good practice to ensure that your student learns to play guitar with correct thumb positioning at the back of the neck. However, there are times when it's appropriate to reach the thumb over the neck to play certain chords. This challenge will teach your student how to play those chords as well as how to come up with similar chords using the thumb.
Most students first find out about tapping in the standard rapid fire style popularized by Eddie Van Halen. This challenge will teach your students to think about tapping in creative ways and apply the technique to come up with interesting chord progressions. The chords produced with this technique aren't possible without tapping.
The challenge will also test your student's understanding of the notes on the fretboard as well as their chord theory knowledge.
If your student plays on a guitar without a tremolo bar (aka whammy bar, vibrato bar), this challenge will teach them to simulate the sound produced by a tremolo dip using pre-bends. It's a challenge for students because they need to rethink how they're playing certain licks and solos and be creative with their use of bends.
Once your student learns to control the bends to simulate a tremolo bar dip, they will have a lot more freedom in how they articulate their notes.
When students learn scale patterns, they often become stuck playing those scales in the patterns they memorize. So for example if a student learns the 'box shape' for the minor Pentatonic Scale, when it comes to improvising, the student will stay within that box shape and randomly play up and down the scale sticking perfectly to that shape. This challenge will help your student break out of any set patterns they have learned and teach them to think differently when improvising.
If your student feels like they're playing the same things over and over when improvising, give this challenge a go.
It's important for a student to understand how the notes they use relate to the backing chords or rhythm parts. Each note in a scale will have it's own unique sound or 'color' that shapes the music. When a student accidentally plays a note outside of the scale they will most likely immediately feel that the note was wrong and sounded bad. This creative challenge will change the way your student views outside notes and will help them learn to use outside notes in creative ways.
After completing this challenge your student will be able to use their ears more while improvising and not simply rely on set scale patterns. The student may even be able to use outside notes to add different colors to their improvising and not be limited by a set scale.
Teaching your student how to improvise is a challenge is it's hard to come up with exercises and drills to get your student to think creatively. Even after your student learns the basics of improvising they may find that they regularly experience blocks where they can't seem to think of new ideas. Even advanced students can hit a wall and feel like they're playing the same things over and over.
This creative challenge will force your student to think differently about improvising. It will also give you valuable insight into how your student thinks about improvising and can uncover other weaknesses in the student's technique or understanding.