One of my favourite films of all time is Terminator 2: Judgment Day. I remember watching it as a kid with my dad on VHS – I was probably only 8 at the time (and the film had a 15 rating here in the UK, so he might be mortified if he knew I told you this!) It is a great film and in it, there is a scene that reminds me of how it feels to play guitar each day and is a great reminder of the importance of guitar warm-up exercises.
The other day I talked about my complete disdain for most technical exercises out there in the land of guitar.
Today, I want to give you a tip on how to play the most commonly taught one ever, but specifically…
How NOT to do it and how you should practise it instead.
There are a lot of technical exercises out there in the land of learning guitar.
Most are too complex and too intricate to be beneficial to most guitarists, beginners, and intermediates alike…
Especially when guitarists do them the way most people teach them.
I just came back from a great little 4-day holiday in Devon, in the south of England.
There was one thing that stood out to me while I was there, and it was something that reminds me of the journey of learning guitar.
This may be a familiar story to many of you.
One day, you tell yourself:
“Right I’m going to learn the notes on the fretboard once and for all”.
One thing I like to do when teaching students is to stack ideas together at the same time.
This is where instead of teaching them one thing in isolation on its own…
…I’ll combine it in a simple way with something else they have already learnt.
Recently, I posted a short five-part series of Facebook posts about all the things that bug me as a teacher in the world of guitar tuition.
It is not too serious, you may or may not agree with all of these, but either way, there are some useful pointers for things to watch out for, and some of these will give you a bit of insight into my mindset from a teaching perspective.
Back in about 2015, I was rather chubby.
Every now and then someone reminds me of this when they see an old YouTube video of mine.
It makes me laugh a little and horrifies me more when I look back…
…but I did have a few issues with my weight.
I just wanted to share with you a lovely video I watched the other day of Paul Simon playing, talking about, and clearly enjoying his guitar playing.
It is a gem of a video and one that shows his passion for music and songwriting.
