This challenge will help your student learn to think about their note choices when playing over any chord. Soloing over an 'ugly' chord forces the student to really think about which notes are the best choices and which notes do/don't work well. It's a great way to test your student's understanding of chord theory and intervals. Your student will learn why certain chords sound appealing and why other chords don't.
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.
Phrasing is an incredibly important topic that many guitarists neglect. Phrasing involves thinking about how each note is played using stylistic techniques. This lesson plan will teach your student how they can use techniques such as hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides, bends and vibrato to change the phrasing of a lick. The lesson plan contains an example lick with basic phrasing as well as several examples on how to apply certain techniques to change the phrasing of the lick. The included lesson instructions provide advice on how to teach the lesson.
This guitar lesson plan will help your student:
Before teaching this lesson it's important the student has good control over techniques so they can focus on applying them.