Solo Fingerstyle lesson plan - what should it include?

[tbeltrans]

Here is my basic arrangement from last night:



Notice that in the upper right corner, I wrote the scale I was coming from and below it, the scale I was going to. This gives me a very simple, uncluttered means of instantly transposing from Eb to D. Also, note that I play the melody an octave higher than written. I got used to that a long time ago, and it makes the notation easier to read since I have all those tick marks and chord symbols above the melody.

Then, notice that the arrangement itself is nothing more than a lead sheet in the transposed to key (D). Above the melody are the chords. Between the melody and the chords I put my little "tick" marks for every possible event in each measure. I have a single letter key for identifying each event:

c = chord + melody
m = melody note alone
b = bass note alone

According to Bill Munday's book, there are a couple of "rules" with which to start an arrangement. To me, these are an excellent way to quickly block in an arrangement as a starting point. Here are the rules:

1. The melody should fit on the top two or three strings of the guitar and always be the highest note among any notes being played. This may require transposing to another key. I typically aim for C, A, G, E, or D because these afford me the best shot at using open strings in standard tuning. I can play in any key, and will do so for straight chord melody, but not for fingerstyle.
2. If a melody note occurs on the beat play a CHORD + MELODY.
3. If a melody note occurs without a beat play MELODY NOTE ALONE.
4. If a beat occurs without a melody note play BASS NOTE ALONE.

Rules 2, 3, and 4 account for everything that can happen in a measure as far as arranging the melody is concerned. Very simple.

It only takes me about 20 minutes to get this "arrangement" done. For some reason, I always do this with paper and pencil rather than a notation package on the computer. It just seems much faster to me, and I can read my scribbling. I hope others can too.

First, I play the melody alone over and over, getting comfortable with it, and experimenting with how it fits in various places on the guitar.

I then play it strictly adhering to the markings to get a feel for how the tune flows. You really get a grasp on the timing and any syncopations. Here, I will again play with fitting the melody in various places on the guitar according to what chords I am using. This is ongoing, since I will be changing chords and playing with sound as I progress.

Once you are comfortable with the initial arrangement, I just continue playing the tune, playing with other chords, ways to get the whole thing to flow, etc.

I don't write anything else down because I want to forget much of what I previously did so that I can find something new in the tune. I do keep the original arrangement so that I have a starting point in the future if I get away from the tune and/or the guitar for some length of time.

From here, I am just playing the arrangement, always changing it and letting it mature.

In the Bill Munday book, once you have blocked in the arrangement, the rest of the book deals with how to make the arrangement flow, "breaking the rules for effect", as he says. This is pretty much what I do. I would say that several weeks down the road, my arrangement of "Over The Rainbow" in the video will have changed quite a bit. There will be variation from verse to verse. There will be textural change, so that I may just harmonize the melody in thirds or sixths in some sections. I may decide I don't like some of the chords I used, and change these.

This is the part of arranging that is fun. Really, arranging tunes yourself is FAR more fun than learning verbatim what somebody else arranged. In the Youtube video, I already went way off track from the lead sheet in several places, and the arrangement is really less than a day old.

Let's get a video and description of arranging process from other folks here. It would be really great to share ideas and "steal" from each other. My way isn't the best, but it works for me and I would love to incorporate what some others here are doing that works for them.

Tony

[SprintBob]

Ella,

I would suggest that if you started Art of Solo Fingerstyle and you like it, stick with it as your "core" work on fingerstyle. It's well regarded and proven as a good course to work through. I do Skype lessons with Mark and we follow this logic plus Mark gives me some arrangements of other songs he has done that are not in the book. I'm working on Windy and Warm and a solo fingerstyle arrangement of Sweet Baby James that are not in the course material. I'm just getting past White House Blues in the book and the next piece I'll be starting will be Etude'. I was not jazzed by Over the Waves so Mark told me to skip it. I'm a structure and goal oriented kind of person so I enjoy the exercises and woodshed work in addition to the songs.

In terms of theory, I set aside one night per week where I play double octave major scale patterns, pentatonic patterns, work on note naming on the fingerboard, and work through a few pages of The Skeptical Guitarist. Mark told me not to worry about getting too worked up on theory and take it in small chunks and that seems to work for me.

The one area where I think I am deficient is not using my ear enough even though what Pitar posted above I can relate too. I've been flatpicking Neil Young's Comes A Time and playing along to the original as well as a lesson play along from Peghead Nation's Scott Nygard but the other night I found a version on iTunes that I really liked and playing along with fingerstyle just fit really nicely. I found by just listening and letting my fingers play the notes in the chords, I found a pattern that worked very nicely. Fun stuff for sure and it's good that after 4 years of playing I'm starting to see some light on just doing it on my own.

Good luck in figuring out the right path for yourself but IME don't get stressed out that you are not doing enough of something that is not really in your "core mission" at the moment. Music learning really seems to benefit from a KISS approach.

[tbeltrans]

The other post was getting too long. What do I need to know to write an arrangement and then continue to play/modify it?

1. Be able to read a lead sheet. Al you need is to be able to read a melody line in treble clef. You need to be able to count rhythm too, which is really part of reading.
2. I think it is good to have a quick method of blocking in an arrangement, whether Bill Munday's approach or something else - just to get away from staring at a blank page.
3. Know where the notes on the fretboard are.
4. Have a basic vocabulary of chords. Despite what some folks say, I think the CAGED system is always a good starting point, as long as you are able to modify those chords to get what you need.
5. Know how to spell chords so you can start finding your own voicings instead of relying on any system. Start with CAGED if that helps, but at some point, the training wheels go away and you begin to "own" the fretboard.
6. Understand basic diatonic theory. I gave my 50,000 foot view in an earlier post here and in detail in posts here in the past. My way isn't the only way. Find what works for you.
7. The rest comes from experience of doing it over time.

If I were teaching somebody how to do this arranging, I would start by teaching a couple of things in parallel:

1. How to pick out a melody by ear so you don't always have to use a lead sheet. Sometimes, the tune you want is on Youtube but not non a lead sheet, so you have to listen and make your own lead sheet.
2. Learn the notes on the fretboard.
3. Learn to read treble clef and chord symbols.
4. Build a basic vocabulary of chords up and down the fretboard by chord type. I like Joe Pass' approach of only three chord types and everything else being derived from these. He tended to keep it simple.

Once these foundational things are in place (or at least getting there)...

5. I would teach Bill Munday's approach of blocking in an arrangement.
6. I would walk beside the student, helping him or her to explore ways to shape and mold the arrangement by exploring sounds, textures, etc.

In my posts here, I have left out a lot of details about music theory and all that stuff so that the intent of the post doesn't get lost - too much detail can cover the top level points. We can delve into that again if need be.

So, after a whole bunch of posts, I think I have answered the OP's question according to my view of the world.

Tony

[EllaMom]

Tony, I am in awe of the you and your willingness to sit down and give this tremendous detail and "how to" for what you did, step by step. It's a LOT to digest, for sure...at least for someone at my level.

Right off, the two huge take-aways for me to start on right away:

learn the notes on fretboard
learn to pick out melodies by ear...don't rely on lead sheets...create your own!

You are the best, Tony! I am so grateful.

C.

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by EllaMom

Tony, I am in awe of the you and your willingness to sit down and give this tremendous detail and "how to" for what you did, step by step. It's a LOT to digest, for sure...at least for someone at my level.

Right off, the two huge take-aways for me to start on right away:

learn the notes on fretboard
learn to pick out melodies by ear...don't rely on lead sheets...create your own!

You are the best, Tony! I am so grateful.

C.

Awwwwww shucks!

Thanks EllaMom. I figure that if somebody is asking such detailed questions, these deserve detailed answers. You wanted to know HOW to get started arranging, so hopefully I have helped in that regard. There is a lot more to the picture, and a lot of posts here have talked about that. To me, there problem is always this:

If I were to start at the beginning, where is that?

Hopefully, this thread has helped answer that. There is a lot of good information here, a number of good perspectives, and therefore a lot to consider.

Tony

[TBman]

One thing I wanted to add that I forget to yesterday is that no matter how far you are along with finger style, you should still practice your barre chords and other chord changes to maintain your dexterity and hand strength. If I don't I lose a bit in those areas.

[EllaMom]

Thanks Barry. I learned that very thing, about playing chords regularly, the hard way. I had a teacher for about a year who had me playing fingerstyle, but neglected to point out the underlying chords for the melodies I learned. Very little discussion of chords.

Consequently, after I quit studying with him, I had to go back and re-acquaint myself with all the chords I had originally learned...and then forgot for that year.

And not just playing the chords, but practicing changes from one to the other.

See? These are the things that are so important, but seem to be lacking in any one comprehensive source for learning what I am learning, i.e., the foundation needed for fingerstyle playing. Which is why I post my questions here.

Thanks!

[EllaMom]

Originally Posted by JonPR

No quarrel with any of the advice so far, but here's my $0.02 on your specific questions:
Owning a guitar? And ideally a full set of 10 fingers?
The latter.
Personally, I guess I did know a few chords when I started teaching myself fingerstyle, but really I did it all by copying records (taping them first to slow them down). That was the folk-blues stuff. A couple of years later I bought a book of classical pieces (notation, not tab).
All you need - for folk/blues/country style - is the basic cowboy outfit: C, G, D, A, E, Am, Em, maybe Dm, maybe a few easy 7ths. For classical you don't even need that. (For jazz chord melody, you do need more: all kinds of 7ths at least.)

It's all about the right hand, really (picking, that is, apologies if you're left handed). It's about taking whatever you know in the fret hand, and using individual fingers in the picking hand instead of pick or thumb alone.
Nope. Although a good sense of time is very handy. You could say the thumb takes over the role of keeping time, which used to be the role of the whole hand in strumming (downstrokes on the beat). The fingers, meanwhile, fill in upstrokes between the beats and sometimes in time with the thumb on the beat.
There certainly are instrumental pieces in that style - which is what I was describing above - and that would be common in blues/folk/country genres. (I'm thinking Doc Watson, Chet Atkins, Blind Blake, Tommy Emmanuel, etc.)
So it obviously helps to have the basics of that technique under your fingers - the "independent thumb" in particular. (Although that's really a myth - the thumb is not independent, it just feels that way once you've mastered it.)
But there are plenty of fingerstyle instrumentals using more classical styles, or jazz chord melody styles, where the travis technique is not relevant. (The thumb doesn't necessarily keep the beat, although it will play bass lines most of the time.)
Nope.
They fit in underneath all the melodies, chords and patterns you're learning. No need to even think about them. (You don't worry about the alphabet when you're learning to speak...)
Depends on the style.
For classical, there are various right hand exercises involving thumb and 3 fingers - on various chord shapes, or even just on open strings.
There are also countless studies designed to take you through the basics while also letting you play actual music (rather than boring exercises).
Plenty of books of either, or both, from a long tradition of classical guitar pedagogy.

For alternating bass/travis style, it's about taking a simple pattern (thumb and fingers together) and breaking it down into separate beats - slowing it right down, but keeping thumb and fingers co-ordinated from the start. The alternating thumb alone is easy - being able to do that is no guide as to how easy you can add fingers without disturbing its rhythm. So get those fingers involved from the start, while keeping the thumb on the beat.
You can (I understand ) get books on that too, but all you really need is a few common patterns (one page is plenty), and hours and hours (weeks?) of practice.
Good question. Personally I would say: learning a tune. Nothing else is necessary. Depending on your current skills, any tune can contain technical challenges, and you confront each of those as they arise.
Ideally you pick a tune which is just beyond what you can currently do - which contains some parts you can handle OK, and some which you'd need to work on. So you work on those parts (when you get to them).
Start at the beginning of the tune, and work your way through: bar by bar, beat by beat.
It's only if you really can't find any such tune - where you seem to get stuck on bar 1 of anything, and mastering it all seems years away - only then should you indulge in some basic technical exercises.
(Theory?? forget it!)
Ah.... OK....
"Just play songs" is the whole thing for me. I mean, I want to be able to hear the melody, supported by chords and/or bass line, and get it all flowing smoothy. I hear a tune I want to play, and I learn how to play it - any way I can. I have zero interest in technique and theory beyond that, for their own sake.
But what do you mean by "understand" what you're playing? Is it really the theory underneath it all that you're interested in?
Do you mean that you can't see a chord sequence or structure to the tune? (Tab often obscures that kind of thing.) Can you not hear structure and form when you play it? Or is it something else you're missing?

I can only speak for myself, but I learned to play many classical pieces (from notation) without really "understanding" them in any theoretical sense. I still enjoyed them immensely - the sound of them, the feel under my fingers. I couldn't have explained them to you, although I guess I did spot the occasional chord arpeggio and chord change. (Now, many years later, I have more theoretical insight, but it doesn't improve my appreciation of them, and doesn't make them easier to play.)

With the alternating bass pieces, it was a lot easier to see the chord sequences (because essentially they were there in the left hand!), but the challenges were 100% technical, not theoretical in the slightest.

Then again - I never worked from tab! I either worked from notation (classical pieces) or from records by ear (via slowed-down tape). And I would often write the latter out in notation, as a memory aid, although I'd usually be playing it enough to embed it in finger memory.

I've nothing against tab, but (from my perspective) I don't like not being able to "see" a tune before playing it. Standard notation is like a picture of how the tune will sound (a graphic analogue), while tab is just a bunch of lines and numbers. Even if I know the sound of the tune first, tab feels uncomfortable to me.

Sorry if this is not much help...

It may be that you're working too much from existing tabs, books, youtubes, maybe on tunes you're not that concerned about (perhaps because they're presented as good training exercises) - and you need to do more for yourself: find a tune or song you really want to play, and work out for yourself how to tackle it. That's obviously tough if it's (say) an old jazz standard and all you can find is various vocal versions, or jazz versions involving whole bands. Ideally you want to find something that's already a solo guitar piece - but which is not available as tab. Then do what you need to do to learn it! (Warning: you have to really love the tune to do this. But then you should anyway.)

JonPR, I'm a bit late in acknowledging your very thoughtful and detailed post. Thank you!! You asked me what I meant by not "understanding" pieces I've learned so far. OK, well, there are three songs I have learned from Mark Hanson's Beyond Basics: Fingerstyle Guitar https://smile.amazon.com/Beyond-Basi...g+guitar+books
I learned to play them purely by following the tab....EVEN THOUGH I now see that the book also includes standard notation and chord diagrams for each measure! I just looked, and did not realize that before. Why? Because the teacher I had at the time who had me working out of this book never said a word about the notation or chords underlying the songs. He had me focus purely on learning via the tab version. I was so intent on getting the fingering down, and learning the piece by heart, that I never "looked up" above the tab! How funny is that?! Now as I look at the first song, Canyon Canon, I see the names of the chords being arpeggiated, and other key bits of information such as the fact that a measure is a I, IV, V progression, for example. This book has a series of exercises leading up to the piece. The teacher I had skipped all the exercises. He went straight to the piece and had me follow the tab. How much I missed!!

Anyway, what this tells me is that I need to revisit all the work I've done and books I have worked from, look at all this with fresh eyes to see what I missed the first time through because I didn't know what I was looking at and/or had a teacher who didn't think those things were important. But they are...to me.

Again, truly appreciate your input, JonPR. Very helpful!

C.

[reeve21]

Carol,

I'm new to fingerpicking (but not the guitar), and also have both of Mark Hanson's introductory books.

Believe me, you are missing a lot if you skip the exercises! In fact many of the tunes incorporate the exercises in whole or part.

They exercises are well worth doing, I go back to them even after learning the tunes.

Best wishes on it!

[EllaMom]

Thanks, Bob, for affirming the idea of revisiting those exercises. Why in the world the teacher skipped over them...I don't understand. No shortcuts!

[reeve21]

Originally Posted by EllaMom

Thanks, Bob, for affirming the idea of revisiting those exercises. Why in the world the teacher skipped over them...I don't understand. No shortcuts!

Not sure I would have ever figured out the songs without doing the exercises first! So you are ahead of the game.

BTW, I see you don't have an interest in fingerstyle blues, but for anyone following along who does, I am impressed with John Hatcher's Blues Guitar Institute. He starts out real basic and goes real slow. Also Toby Walker's stuff looks real good, I hope to able to progress far enough to try some of his lessons in a little while. At this point my mechanics are lagging behind my understanding, I need to put in the time to develop the muscle memory. I just started down the fingerpicking road at the beginning of the year, it is a whole 'nother world, for sure.

Good luck!

[dkstott]

I readily admit that I am lazy and don't create my own fingerstyle arrangements from scratch. I search out several arrangements for a song I like and then merge them into one that I like.

It works for me, but some people like to do it all.

When I was trying to learn jazz. The standard mantra was that you need to learn to play scales in all 12 keys, learn all the modes, etc... then learn all the chord inversions, tri-tones, etc..... Rarely was there any discussion about playing actual songs or music

I was fortunate to find a smart teacher who said; "how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time"

Essentially, my teacher's thought process is to learn the bits of music theory as you need it or have questions about what is going on.

He had me to take 1 song that I liked & learn the chord progression so that it was imbedded in my head.

NOW, Learn the 1 position scale and all of the chords associated with the key of that song.

Step 2, figure out where the notes of that scale are in more places on the fretboard.

NOW, start working on finding the chords of that song in other locations on the fretboard. He forced me to learn how to play that song in a least 3 different locations on the fretboard.

(It's okay to look at chord books. Unless you are a professional, you don't have to know every chord inversion off the top of your head. But the more you work on it, the more you'll know)

NOTE---Remember, the notes of the melody are imbedded in those chords. Once you have the chords under your fingers, you can search out the melody for fingerstyle or chord melody on your own.

When you feel comfortable with that; learn another song in a different key.. repeat all the above steps for scales, chords, etc

I started with the key of C, then moved to G, then D, and so on.

Unless you are planning on playing with horn players, there are a ton of keys, scales, chords etc, that you will probably never play.

[EllaMom]

skstott,

Sounds to me like you find a great teacher who provided context. Unfortunately, they are rarer then I ever imagined, especially when it comes to teaching solo fingerstyle. The method your teacher used with you sounds like it would be both fun and effective. I'm jealous!

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by dkstott

I readily admit that I am lazy and don't create my own fingerstyle arrangements from scratch. I search out several arrangements for a song I like and then merge them into one that I like.

It works for me, but some people like to do it all.

When I was trying to learn jazz. The standard mantra was that you need to learn to play scales in all 12 keys, learn all the modes, etc... then learn all the chord inversions, tri-tones, etc..... Rarely was there any discussion about playing actual songs or music

I was fortunate to find a smart teacher who said; "how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time"

Essentially, my teacher's thought process is to learn the bits of music theory as you need it or have questions about what is going on.

He had me to take 1 song that I liked & learn the chord progression so that it was imbedded in my head.

NOW, Learn the 1 position scale and all of the chords associated with the key of that song.

Step 2, figure out where the notes of that scale are in more places on the fretboard.

NOW, start working on finding the chords of that song in other locations on the fretboard. He forced me to learn how to play that song in a least 3 different locations on the fretboard.

(It's okay to look at chord books. Unless you are a professional, you don't have to know every chord inversion off the top of your head. But the more you work on it, the more you'll know)

NOTE---Remember, the notes of the melody are imbedded in those chords. Once you have the chords under your fingers, you can search out the melody for fingerstyle or chord melody on your own.

When you feel comfortable with that; learn another song in a different key.. repeat all the above steps for scales, chords, etc

I started with the key of C, then moved to G, then D, and so on.

Unless you are planning on playing with horn players, there are a ton of keys, scales, chords etc, that you will probably never play.

This seems like a very well thought out approach. As EllaMom said, you are very fortunate to have found such a teacher.

To me, it seems that our approaches are similar in certain respects. We both seem to believe that learning new things beyond the basics to get you started, should be done as you need them (i.e. in the context of the song you are playing), rather than burying yourself under a big pile of theory and exercises right at the start before playing any tunes.

To me, the basics for playing tunes as instrumental solos on guitar include:

1. The ability to play the melody in several places on the fretboard.
2. Having a basic chord vocabulary that allows you to play the same chord in several places on the fretboard.
3. Having enough of an understanding of how those chords were built so you can modify or add to them what you need to include the melody on top. For example, you may know a C major chord as the notes C, E, G. If the melody is D, you have a C major 9th chord C, E, G, D putting the D on top. Some would argue that correct music theory says you need the major 7 in there to properly call it a major 9 chord (C, E, G, B, D). Here again, folks can differ on these kinds of things since it is how it all sounds in the end that matters.

These things are quite easy to learn and won't take long with proper guidance.

How a person learns these things and then approaches arranging and playing a tune can be the subject of endless discussion because there are many ways to achieve the same end.

Tony

[Grinning Boy]

Originally Posted by tbeltrans

If the melody is D, you have a C major 9th chord C, E, G, D putting the D on top. Some would argue that correct music theory says you need the major 7 in there to properly call it a major 9 chord (C, E, G, B, D). Here again, folks can differ on these kinds of things since it is how it all sounds in the end that matters.

Your point is really a good one!

When I read your first sentence I was ready to start typing...."what? Hey that's a C add 9 not a maj 9" .... but then I read the next sentence

One thing I realized not that long ago is that difficult sounding chord names above a melody line only happen because the author of the notation was trying to define the new chord name to include melody notes below not in the "regular" chord. It's not like the composer really said "gosh I think I'll throw in a G7#5b9 here"!! Music is sometimes made harder than it really needs to be.