FluentGuitar Blog
How to learn music, foundational techniques, and tips to help you become an awesome musician and guitarist fluent in any style.
Playing in Keys – Chord Families
Playing in Keys: aka Chord Families You might be familiar with the idea of a key area or you might have noticed the same group of chords occurring in many different songs (IE C, F, G, and Am). This is no coincidence. Most music is built on what we call...
Mindfulness and Music – Enhance Your Practice with Visualization
The various pedagogies, methods and traditions used to teach music all have some things in common. Underlying the ideas and instruction in these methods is the notion of mindful intention. What is deciding how to hold and instrument, place your fingers, move your...
Guitar Mastery: Hard and Soft Skills
Most tasks can be categorized into either a hard skill or soft skill. An example of a hard skill includes being able to precisely play a G chord to C chord perfectly every time or being able to play the G major scale perfectly at a specific speed. A soft skill might...
Guitar Mastery: How To Time Your Practice
Tip 14: Take off your watch We will continue with the idea from the last post about how to time your practice. Basically, do not. Remember, I stated that 5 minutes was all you need, but that is assuming that you are deliberately practicing and focusing for that...
Guitar Mastery: Deliberate Practice
This is the 4th post in the series Guitar Mastery, where we explore the tips from The Little Book of Talent by Dan Coyle. To start at the beginning, visit posts 1, 2 and 3. Up to this point, we have been looking at the tips that show what the path to mastery looks...
Guitar Mastery: Tip #4 – Buy a Notebook
The next tip in the series based on Dan Coyle's book, The Little Book of Talent, starts to get into the ideas of how to practice, and sets you up to start your regular practice schedule. If you missed the first 2 articles to start the series, please go and read those...
Guitar Mastery: Tip #3: Steal Without Apology
We continue with the series focused on the tips laid out on the path to mastery by Dan Coyle in his book, "The Little Book of Talent." If you are interested in learning more about the research and how these ideas were formulated, then please check out Coyle's books on...
Guitar Mastery: Intro and Tips 1 & 2
What is mastery? What is talent? Do you need to have talent to reach mastery? Are you born with talent or can it be cultivated? These are all questions answered by Dan Coyle's book, The Talent Code, and the follow up, The Little Book of Talent. Coyle shows...
Guitar & Mandolin Group Lessons
Benefits of Group Music Lessons Guitar and mandolin group lessons are a great way to learn music. There are many advantages to taking group lessons. It can be a fun introduction to new students and a way to get your feet wet. It can also be a fun and challenging...
The First 4 Chords & Basic Left Hand Position
Many classical guitarists find invaluable guidance from Scott Tennant's book Pumping Nylon. In the introduction of the book, Scott describes the left hand finger placement and accuracy and he address much of the same principles as I will describe here. However, I have...
You Are Playing Guitar Wrong! Finding Your Optimal Guitar Position
We have all seen it before - the guitar slung so low it could kill ants or the laid back singer-songwriter leaning so close to the guitar you think she just might kiss it. You might even be guilty of it yourself. What you might not know is your playing position...
Why Every Guitarist Should Learn Classical Guitar
Classical guitarists are some of the most, if not, the most technically and musically accomplished guitarists out there. Though, they are almost always relegated to a dark, mysterious corner of the guitar world. Guitarists in the know might revere these...