Guitar Domination

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A Fun Little Guitar Challenge to Measure Your Guitar Skills

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Here’s a little test I want you to do.

It’s something I like to do with new students and also with current students every now and then.

It has some great benefits in that it will show you where your strong and weak areas are and let’s face it, unlike science, foreign language or dare I say it, maths, a test on the guitar is fun!

Here we go…

Grab your guitar

  • Play the chord progression of G D Am C– strum each chord once, ensuring they are clean and tidy (put a capo on where you like if they are a struggle)
  • Now, choose an exact strumming pattern and play it for each chord ensuring the chord changes are smooth
  • Turn the above chords into their 7th versions– which are the chords GMaj7, D7, Am7 and Cmaj7
  • Choose a different strumming pattern you know and play the above
  • Play the chords G D Am C with a fingerpicking pattern


You get two points for completing each of the above as long as each item on the list sounds tidy.

 

 

Going for the A-star grade…

  • Play the G D Am C chords as barre chords
  • Record yourself playing the chords G D Am C (using one of the above strumming or fingerpicking patterns) and jam a melody or solo over the top using the G Major scale
  • Play the equivalent chords of G D Am C which are the I V II IV chords in the key of G Major, but this time, change the key and play them in the key of C Major

You get three points for completing any of the above.

You don’t have to nail each item the first time but give yourself no more than three attempts on each.

Add up your score.

How did you do?

Be honest and don’t cheat yourself.

Pass Mark

16/19 for a distinction
14/19 for a merit
12/19 for a pass

I want all of you to get a pass at least.

If you can’t do the above, don’t worry, there’s a lot going on, BUT once you can do the above, you will be a rounded player with some really good skills.

These skills will transfer to playing real songs, jamming with others, and you will get some nice rock-solid confidence from being able to do some very cool things on the guitar.

If you have never been tested on your skills, this may be hard, it may be a little bit of a shock to the system but it’s a great thing to do as it will help you spot what needs improving and then you can get to work on improving it.

 

Dan Thorpe
Guitar Domination

 

P.S. If you want to learn more about how to improve on the above exercise in a structured and methodical way, you can, in my Elite Guitarist Inner Circle.

Check out the In-Focus lesson, titled “The True Musicianship Exercise”.

Elite Guitarist Inner Circle


Good luck!

 

 

This post was originally taken from Dan Thorpe’s private email list. To get blog posts like this sent to you which are full of great tips to make fingerpicking, strumming and learning guitar more enjoyable, (especially if you are over 40) then join Dan’s list. It’s 100% free, HERE

5 Strumming Mistakes to Avoid

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I had a good lesson yesterday with a fingerpicking student of mine who previously HATED strumming.

Recently, we have made some big breakthroughs with strumming, and now she is starting to love it much more.

What we did over the past few months was to fix the important strumming errors that plagued her.

They may well be plaguing you too if you hate strumming. Let’s fix them!

 

1) Not knowing any set strumming patterns

Some guitarists just like to ‘wing it’ with their strumming patterns, but this just leads to lots of random ups and downs.

You need to know at least 3-4 strumming patterns I’d say as a bare minimum, but about 5-8 is better. Get seamless and natural with all the strum patterns you learn to the point that you can play them in your sleep. Strumming patterns are signature rhythms you can apply to anything – therefore they are super useful in a variety of ways.

 

2) Strumming the wrong strings

This is a fundamental error and one that can cause your guitar playing to sound messy. Strumming the wrong strings most commonly occurs on a D chord where the low E string is strummed.

This sounds terrible and really makes a guitarist sound like an amateur. Practice with the chords of C A G E D and strum them over and over, but only strumming from the root note.

 

3) Strumming all the strings all of the time

When you strum every available string within a chord all the time, it starts to grate on the listener’s ear – like Justin Bieber and his whiny pop tunes. It’s so grating on the ear!

Instead, alternate at various points which part of the chord you strum. Mix up hitting just the bass strings (low E, A, D), the treble strings, (G, B, high E) and all available strings at different points. This is done more on down strums and gives us a really cool sound.

 

4) ‘Harp Strumming’

This occurs when you drag the pick over the strings in a way that creates the sound of a harp.

You want a crisp, fluid strum through the strings. If you use a pick and struggle with this, grab a thin pick (go as thin as 0.4 for now if you need to) and grip it softly. Don’t twist and turn your wrist when strumming as this will make things worse.

 

5) Having a weak upstroke

Hmm, a common error and the biggest tip I can give you here is to try to focus on just hitting the G, B and high E strings for up strums and leaving the other strings in the chord for the down strums.

This creates a nice little bit of contrast with your down strums. Keep practising up strums over and over on one chord, ensuring you grip a soft pick lightly as stated before.

After systematically fixing the above (some are quicker to fix than others), Christine, my student, really started to enjoy strumming and creating some big, strong grooves that oozed class.

In the past, her strumming sounded stilted and although not terrible, anyone could tell it was a bit “off”. Yesterday, I actually enjoyed hearing it. I love those moments when I can sit back and just enjoy listening to a student play.

Those are nice moments.

 

For more help with your strumming, my strumming course goes into all of the above in more detail (but in a structured step-by-step way).

This course is NOT to be confused with my strumming book. It is shorter, but it is a video so that can be better for some. It was also one of my earlier sets of video recordings, so it is not as smooth as it could be in terms of production, but it has always had great feedback.

The most important thing is – it does what it needs to – it will teach you how to strum properly, in a step-by-step way, and you will have some fun while learning how.

Check it out below if you are interested. (By the way, if you have bought my Ultimate guide to Strumming book, you will get a discount on this course, more info below).

Strumming With Soul

Dan Thorpe
Guitar Domination

P.S. This post was originally taken from Dan Thorpe’s private email list. To get blog posts like this sent to you which are full of great tips to make fingerpicking, strumming and learning guitar more enjoyable, (especially if you are over 40) then join Dan’s list. It’s 100% free, HERE 

6 Easy Ways To Adapt Your Favourite Guitar Strumming Patterns

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One of the most boring things a guitarist can do when playing a strumming song is to strum the song in the exact same way using the exact same strum pattern throughout.

In this post, you`ll learn how simple it is to methodically adapt the strum pattern and how it will give your strumming songs a massive new lease of life.

[Read more…]

How to add excitement and interest to any song by combining multiple strumming patterns

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strum patterns

I’ve said it many times before, but I will say it again. I’m not a huge fan of when guitarists play a song and use just one strum pattern throughout the whole song. 

It’s okay when starting out or learning the song but as soon as you are comfortable, start adding more strum patterns, variations and strum fills for a much more powerful effect. Today, I’ll show you how to seamlessly combine different strum patterns to create a piece of music that is exciting and vibrant.

[Read more…]

Mastering Rhythm Basics – The Sub Division Game

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In this short lesson, I go through some very powerful techniques that will help you become a master of rhythm.

Rhythm is the most important part of music. It`s not the only part but it is so fundamental everything.

Whenever you do anything on the guitar you will be playing with rhythm. Whether it`s strumming, picking, solo-ing, it doesn`t matter, it ALL contains rhythm.

Without good and solid rhythm music sounds rubbish. If the rhythm is great, then the music is often great.

Not all of the great guitarists out there know how to play loads of chords, scales and arpeggios but all of them have a great handle of rhythm.

Soak up this lesson and apply the ideas regularly and you too will develop a stronger sense of rhythm which will take your guitar playing to the next level.

3 simple strum patterns on how to strum a guitar like a pro

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3 simple strum patterns on to how to strum a guitar like a pro

Most guitarists spend a huge amount of time on everything EXCEPT rhythm guitar. They spend way too much time on chords, scales and just noodling around. So much so that they don`t have the time to work on some of the things that really count – such as rhythm guitar.

If guitarists were more efficient, most would be much better players in a much shorter space of time. One area that lacks any efficiency whatsoever is their rhythm playing, and in particular – strumming. [Read more…]