Hi Jesse,
I don't know if you read my MTP entry but let me just give you a little info about myself quickly. I am 38 years old and have been playing guitar for almost 20 years. I am a dentist of all things, but my biggest passion in life is guitar! I am a product of the 80's hair metal scene, I guess you could say this was the era when shred guitar was born. My favorite guitarists are Vai, Satch, Andy James and of course GMC's own Muris Varajic!! I think the thing that I want to teach you the most is how to practice effectively and how to be able to teach yourself. Learning guitar can be a daunting and overwhelming undertaking but with a little guidance and some commitment and hard work from you I promise we can get you to the level you want to be as far as your guitar playing. Now I have some questions for you.

-How long have you been playing?

-How old are you?

-Do you have a structured practice regimen currently or are you more of a "noodler" when it comes to practice?

-If you do have a structured Practice regimen could you tell me a little bit about it?

-What are your strengths as far as techniques?

-What are you weaknesses technique wise?

-What are you wanting the most from me as your mentor?

-How is your knowledge or scales and triads?

-If I were to sit down with you and look at a guitar pro tab would you know how to count out the rhythms and know how it should be played with respect to a metronome?

-Do you currently play with a metronome?

-What kind of guitar do you play?

-Do you have guitar pro?

If you could past those questions in your reply and answer them I would appreciate it. Feel free to ask me anything and I am looking forward to getting started. First thing we need to do is assess your current playing level and then find out where you want to go. Then we can come up with a plan to get you there. Look forward to working with you.


Monte

YEAH! I GOT PICKED:D -How long have you been playing? 3 Years!

-How old are you? 15!

-Do you have a structured practice regimen currently or are you more of a "noodler" when it comes to practice?
Em, Im looking for a structured practice regimen, But im working for real life guitar teaching mostly like songs we do with our band and some theory!

-What are your strengths as far as techniques?
My picking is good, not gigantic fast, but its good and steady. And my Vibrato is pretty good. Not to brag;)

-What are you weaknesses technique wise?
Shreddy picking, Sweeping, those are the hardest for me.

-What are you wanting the most from me as your mentor?
Ehm. Just to become a better overall player!

-How is your knowledge or scales and triads?
The only one that I REALLY know is the Minor Pentatonic. I know the basic Major scale,2212221 and Some of the modes. Currently I am working on The Harmonic minor scale and jazz soloing

-If I were to sit down with you and look at a guitar pro tab would you know how to count out the rhythms and know how it should be played with respect to a metronome?
Yeah, with guitar pro it says the BPM in the left corner:D Just kidding. I' m only familiar with the 4/4 Time signature. But I am not so good at complicated rythms. Most of the time, I just pick it up from listnening.

-Do you currently play with a metronome?
Only really when I practice songs. I do have one!

-What kind of guitar do you play?
Fender stratocaster

-Do you have guitar pro?
Yup. Version 5.

Some more about myself: I am from Holland^^ And I got excited about playing really after my mom showed me a super simple song on a 38 year old classical guitar. Then I got my own 3/4 classical about 4 year' s ago, then a starter pack and from there I went! From the beginning I was really into blues and hard rock, I listened alot to Chuck berry and ac/dc. Now my musical horizon is a bit broader! I like to play alot of styles. Blues the most, then Neo Classicall which I recently discoverd, hard rock, metal, country and jazz. Anything really, except fusion and funk maybe. I got some video' s from me from my latest performance which was in June I believe. It was still with my epiphone sg.
The band is still together, got practice tonight actually! The singer in the video was a replacement, ours was on vacation already! Sound quality is a bit lame but that' s because of the lame digital camera:D
A bluesy Improv!

Black Magic Woman!

The Trooper!


I' m thrilled to be in the MTP already! I was looking forward to this!

This post has been edited by Jesse: Jan 8 2009, 02:12 PM

Nice videos Jesse. Sounds like you have the basics pretty good. Can you tell me about how much time that you have daily to practice guitar? Be realistic so I don't overwhelm you with too much.

Here is the syllabus they want us to follow:

Syllabus Guide For the Beginners Mentored Training Program


The following is a guide syllabus for Mentors to follow at the start of their MTP program, the basis of this has been taken from the pilot MTP run by Kris, you can of course add and amend if you wish (by choosing different lessons etc) but the areas to begin working on should be followed as set out below.

(Kris`s MTP pilot can be viewed and used for reference if required HERE)

Objective/Goals:

The purpose of the Mentor Program is to provide beginner level members (mentoree`s) an opportunity to interact one on one with more experienced members (mentors).
During the program the "mentor" will provide his/her students with advice, on how to progress and improve their current level of playing ability with the use of lessons from the GMC archives.
In the initial stages of the MTP the student should be given a basic grounding on Timing & rhythm, Soloing and Finger exercises, after this period, the mentor can assess areas that require more work and take the program in the appropriate direction.

Homework:

Each week the student will be set an assignment to work on throughout the week and post his/her progress in video format during or at the end of the assignment period, to begin with the weekly plan set out below should be used as a guide before moving into more specific areas.

Weekly Plan


Week 1

Timing & rhythm (Part 1) -Chords to a backing track

Beginner- Strumming and Arpeggios

Goal - To play the whole lesson.

Purpose - practice timing and sense of rhythm. If this lesson gives problems - it will be a useful discovery. Dealing with the problem will help progress to the next level.

instructions - A Video showing progress should be provided playing with the backing provided (slower backings can of course be used)

Week 2

Timing & Rhythm (Part 2)

A choice of three lessons : Smoke on the Water - Deep Purple , Blues Groove Library - Part 1 , Alice in Chains style lesson

Goal - To choose one of the suggested lessons and be able to play at least half of the lesson to a backing track (slow or fast backing)

purpose - To build on and develop a solid rhythm and timing foundation.

Instruction - Video showing progress should be provided by the end of the deadline period.

Week 3

Soloing

A choice of three lessons : John Frusciante Style lesson , Slow Pentatonics Lesson , Tarantella Rock

Goal - To play a minimum of 20 seconds with backing of the chosen lesson.

Purpose - To introduce soloing, offering help and advice for the best way to overcome any difficulties that may arise for the student.

instruction - Video showing progress during or by the end of the deadline period.

Week 4

Finger Workouts/Exercise

Alternate Picking - thirds Lesson

Goal - To play a minimum of one pattern up and down accross all six strings to either a backing or metronome.

Purpose - Alternate picking Introduction and new fingering positions. (Please note that care should be taken with these kind of exercise lessons, they involve finger stretches that a beginner student may not be used to, therefore proper "warm up" should be advised before attempting)

Instruction - To upload a video showing progress by the agreed deadline.


As stated at the start, this is a "guide" syllabus and is not set in stone for what must be used, you can choose other lessons, but to begin with for the beginning weeks these areas should be focused on



I would like you to look at the week one guide lines and tell me where you think your playing is as far as being able to strum in time to a drum machine and playing arpeggios. Also, check out the lesson for week one an tell me what you think. If you feel these lessons are to easy then I would like you to post a short video of the lesson from week one that you choose so I can see that you can play it reasonably well. I am also going to give you a guitar pro file that has some triads and scales shapes that I want you to memorize as these will be the keys to building music and licks. Be sure to be realistic in the amount that you tell me you can practice please. Thanks Jesse and I am really looking forward to working with you. Let me know if you have any questions.

Monte

This post has been edited by lcsdds: Jan 8 2009, 03:02 PM

Hmm:D I coudl spend 2 hours a day.I can play to a drum machine fairly good, since we play in the band together.
Those arpeggio' s are not a problem. From the week 2 lessons the blues lesson would be the most interesting one. I haven' t tried that one yet, but I can play blues rythms, I' ll send you a video, so you can decide. Run low on battery, will record it today or tomorrow, I can perfectly play the week one lesson, I can already ecord an audio file, you want that?

This post has been edited by Jesse: Jan 8 2009, 03:22 PM

Hi Jesse,
Audio file is fine. Would it be too much to ask you for the next month to dedicate 45 min to an hour daily for this program?

Here is how I would like to structure our weeks. At the start of the week lets pick a lesson from the syllabus we want to work on. Since there is only one lesson this week and you say you can play it, I would like you to send me a quick audio file so I can see that you are proficient with the lesson for this week. Once we get that out of the way we can focus on other things. There are some things that I want you to have gained in our month together and they are as follows:

-Know the 7 diatonic boxes
-Know the 5 pentatonic boxes
-Know the basic triad shapes.
-Know some good excercises in tapping, sweeping, picking, and legato to start building your technique.

I will be uploading a guitar pro file at the start of every week and it will contain the diatonic boxes, pentatonic boxes and triad shapes I want you to learn for the week. I also want you to post a video of you playing them sometime during the week. I am not interested in technique at this point. All I am interested in is that you know the shapes and can refer to them with the names I give you. So at the end of the month I should be able to ask you to play the phrygian shape diatonic box and you should be able to do that without too much trouble. For simplicity sake, I am going to keep everything in the Key of A major.

The second thing I want to do with you is to start building you technique. Could you upload a video showing you doing some basic techniques. Do some tapping, legato, picking and sweeping for me. Just want to see where you baseline technique is and we will start building it from there.

At the end of the four weeks it is my goal for you to have some excercises in each of those four techniques to be able to start building your technique.

If you could play one lesson from the GMC library which one would it be? I want to see where your tastes are and what techniques we should be focusing on. That is it for now but I will be uploading your first guitar pro file with the triad shapes and scales shapes that I want you to learn for the week. Get me the audio for the first lesson and a quick video of you doing the four different techniques I want to focus on ASAP please.


Monte

This post has been edited by lcsdds: Jan 8 2009, 03:50 PM

Sorry for spamming guys, good work!!

Alright Jesse here is your first guitar pro file that I want you to learn. I have given you the following to learn this week:

-First two boxes of the diatonic scale in the key of A major. I call them the Ionian or 1st postion box and the Dorian or 2nd position box. These names will become important when we/you start learning about modes.

-First position of the pentatonic box in the key of F# minor, which is the relative minor of A major. If you don't know what that means don't worry about it for now, we'll cover it later.

-I have given you all the major and minor triad shapes. For our purposes I have given you the major triads as A major and the minor triads as C# minor. These shapes are moveable so really the names aren't important just yet.

THE ONLY THING I AM INTERESTED IN WITH THIS LESSON IS THAT YOU KNOW THE SHAPES. I DON'T CARE IF YOU CAN PLAY THEM FAST OR SLOW OR ACCURATE OR WHATEVER. JUST KNOW THE SHAPES AND THE CORRESPONDING NAMES.

With the triads I want you to play them in the boxes or stacked like I wrote them and I also want you to be able to play them along the different string sets. In other words, there are 3 shapes for A major that can be found on strings 1-3. 3 shapes can also be found on strings 2-4, strings 3-5 and also strings 4-6. Be able to play them on these string sets as well as the 3 box positions that I wrote them in.

When you get these memorized send me a quick video of you playing them so I know that you know the shapes and we will progress on to the next step.

Jesse, I know these can be boring but when you see Muris pull of an amazing sweep arpeggio or a killer alternate picked passage this is what he is doing. He is mostly just using simple triad and scalar shapes. He can just play them at super human speeds with amazing accuracy. If you get nothing else out of our time together I want you to at least know these shapes by the end of the month. As I see you progressing we can start working on licks using these various shapes we are learning and you will see why they are so important to know. If you want to build a house but don't have any bricks you aren't going to get very far. These scales and triads are the bricks you are going to use to build your guitar solos, riffs and music in general. Work hard and let me know if you need any help. We will move on when you get me a video of you playing these shapes.

You don't need to spend hours on these things as that would be boring. Just a few minutes daily on each shape will suffice. Just enough so that you are familiar with the SHAPES!!

Don't forget to tell me what GMC lesson you wish you could play so I can look at it.

Jesse how well do you know the names of the notes on the neck? Can you at least tell me the names on the low E and A string? If not I want you to learn them this week as well. If you need a resource for this let me know and I will find you one. If you already know these that is great!!

Monte

This post has been edited by lcsdds: Jan 8 2009, 05:11 PM

.. you rock!:D Good stuff man.! The lesson I'm interested in, now really is the ehm, Neoclassical etude #1. I learned the first part already , but it' s a good excersise for picking and left hand speed too! 45 minutes would be good! I can find all notes on the fretboard, because I know A2 B1 C2 D2 E1 F2 G2. So I can find all the notes. I will most likely record tomorrow. Hence, I have never really practiced sweep and legato so that would be good. For the picking I will try to record the first section of Marcus' neoclassicall etude #1 Lesson Close up. Those things are great to work on. I know that major scale goes, Ionian Dorian Phrygian Lydian mixolydian aeolian=minor and locrian. The pentatonic boxes would be great to know them because of my blues soloing. That would be it for all the questions, I will record the audio file right after I posted this.


1 Question) The triads, A major 1 position,2th and 3th position. What are they exactly? The triads , to the corresponding root notes of the major scale mode? I know the Ionian and Dorian pattern and the first pentatonic box already so I will try to record those tomorrow and the triads WITH video. Off to recording the week 1 lesson audio file now. Thank' s for willing to teach me stuff!

Here is the audio part, the lesson first and then I played the chord progression with a strumming pattern.

Jesse,
Since we only have a month together at this point, my goal for the month is to be able to take you through the basic lessons that GMC has on the syllabus AND I want to make sure that at the end of the month you can play ALL of the pentatonic boxes and All of the diatonic boxes. I also want to make sure that you know the triad shapes as those are important for your metal rhythm playing and also this is where alot of you sweep arpeggios come from. Triads are just 3 note chords. Every Major scale contains 7 notes and off of every note a 3 note triad can be built by stacking thirds. So every Major scale contains 3 major triads, corresponding to the Ionian, Lydian and Mixolydian mode, and they also contain 3 minor triads that correspond to the Dorian, Phrygian and Aeolian mode. The locrian mode corresponds to a diminished triad. With regards to the positions of the triad I will elaborate on that a little more soon. For now just learn the shapes. when you get me the video of you doing the shapes I gave you I will send you another GP file with the next scale boxes I want you to know.

Do you have any experience with sweep picking? You said you don't do legato either? I will start by giving you one lick in each of the 4 different techniques that I would like you to work on. That way we can get your technique going.
A month isn't very long so I really want to focus on getting you the TOOLS you need i.e. scales and triads, so you can start coming up with your own licks and music.

Let me know about the legato and sweeping. How is your tapping?

Monte

Hi Jesse,
I think we both know that a month is really not very long. I am probably going to be the meanest mentor on the board, LOL!! I want you to be very clear that my goal for this month is NOT to teach you a bunch of licks!! There are tons of licks on the GMC site for that and you can do that on your own time, LOL!! For now you have commited an hour a day to me and I want to start from the ground up and build you a good foundation. The first thing you need to know is your scales and triad shapes. That will be my goal for this month.

Now having said that, I want to give you the opportunity to progress this month as fast as you want so here is the deal. I have made a guitar pro file that contains all 7 positions/boxes of the diatonic or major/minor scale and all 5 boxes of the of the pentatonic scale. I am going to let you work through that at your own pace. I would however like to see a video at the end of the week that shows that you at least know the first 4 postions of the diatonic scale and the first 2 positions of the pentatonic scale. You said you already know the first two of the diatonic and the first position of the pentatonic. If you can make me a video showing that you know all the positions of all the scales then we will move onto the next thing and that is starting to build your technique. You are going to be building your technique by using the scales and triads that you are learning. For the video the only thing I want to see is that you know the shapes. Not worried about technique at this point.

At the start of every week I would like a video from you that shows you at least know the boxes for the week. This week it is Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian and Lydian for the diatonic scale (You said you know Ionian and Dorian already) and the first two positions of the pentatonic box (You said you know the first one already). I also want you to know at least the first position of the major and minor triad shapes and the triad shapes on strings 1-3 across the neck. Then you need to know the lesson for the week. Once we get those things out of the way the rest of the week is yours. You can ask me to help you with anything you would like. If you can’t think of anything I promise you I can, LOL!! So in the short amount of time we have that is how I would like the basic layout of the weeks go. If you get me a video in at the start of the week then you will have the rest of the week to start learning what you WANT to learn. It is my job to teach you what you NEED to learn.


You asked earlier what the positions of the triads meant. If you take and A major triad for example and spell it out we have A-C#-E. So if you notice on the first position of the triads I gave you to study, the note on the low E string is an A or the root of the triad. Second position, the lowest note is a C# or the major third of the triad. The third position has E, the fifth of the triad, as it’s lowest note. The position reference is really just to make it easier for you and I to communicate. If I tell you that I want you to come up with a sweep arpeggio shape using the first position of the A major triad shape you will know what shape I am talking about. That is the reason I named the positions. For now just learn them on the 4 string sets across the neck and in the 3 box positions as well. If you have any question about fingering or any of that let me know and I will help you out with that.

The next thing I want to work on is technique but I want you to know the shapes first before we dive into that. We need to be realistic on what we can accomplish in a month and in my mind if at the end of the month you know all your scale shapes and triad shapes I will consider this a huge success!! Then when you are playing Muris’s Lydian lesson and play through some of the runs you can say to yourself “ahh, he is ripping through the dorian shape in this lick”. I know this kind of stuff is boring but once we get this stuff out of the way we can move on to much more fun stuff I promise.

Which lesson did you want to work on for week 2? Can you send me some audio of you playing the lesson for this week with a drum track or something so that I know you are playing in time? Kind of a small detail but if you can’t play simple rhythms in time to a drumbeat then you are going to have a huge hole in your playing. Work hard my friend and let me know if you have any questions!!

Monte





This post has been edited by lcsdds: Jan 9 2009, 03:36 AM

I have little experience with sweeping and tapping. Nothing too complicated. I got reaper, so I' m not sure if I' ll be able to use a drum track in there. And for legato, I can play thunderstruck! It' ll be great if we get the scales and triads down this month!

This post has been edited by Jesse: Jan 9 2009, 07:20 AM

Jesse,
Can you just record a video of you playing this weeks lesson with the drum track or metronome going in the background? I have some GMC lessons in mind to get you going on your sweeping, tapping and legato. As soon as I see that you have accomplish the MUST DO's for the week we will start going over technique lessons. So here is gonna be the Must Do's for this week:


Week 1:
REQUIRED VIDEO UPLOADS:
1) Video of you playing week 1 lesson in time with metronome or drum track.
I am not worried about tempo here as long as you can PLAY IN TIME!! Tempo will come with practice!!

2) Video of you playing through Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian and Lydian positions of the A major scale.
Again tempo and technique is not important. I just want to see that you KNOW THE SHAPES of the scale.

3) Video of you playing through the first 2 positions of the F# minor pentatonic scale.
As before I am just wanting to know that you KNOW THE SHAPES.

4) Video of you playing the first positions each of the Major and Minor triad shapes.

5) Video of you playing the 3 different major and minor triad shapes found on strings 1-3.


I will upload a video today of me playing what is required in 2-5. You can refer to Muris's for number 1. Once I have seen the required video uploads for week 1 and I am satisfied that you have accomplished what I want you to then I will make a suggestion for a GMC lesson to start working on your technique and we can break these lessons down together and I will break the tabs down into some excercises that I would like you to do daily. What you will start recognizing is that all these lessons and excercises are going to be using the scale and triad shapes that you are learning. This means that at the end of the month you should be able to take for instance a tapping shape from one of the licks from a GMC lesson and apply it to any scale shape in any key. This is where you can start coming up with your own ideas etc. Get to work on the Videos and I am going to start looking for some good GMC lessons to get your technique going. Work hard Jesse!! Once you get these shapes memorized it will open up a whole new world as far as playing YOUR music. That is my goal for the month!!! Let me know if you have any questions.

Monte

Let's do this!

Sorry for jumping in, just want to say you guys are doing great job !
Great structure Monte

Only the triads left!

Good job Jesse!! Keep working and post a video when you are ready.

Monte

Oh im ready, my battery' s aren't. My cam only uses re-chargable and all batteries I got don't have any power ATM, so i'm charging them while I learn the triads!

Cool Jesse!! I'm looking forward to you video.

Monte

Heres the lesson one, I played the whole part once, the backing goes on, couldnt cut it for some reason.

The reason why it might be mixed bad, is because to record with the meters low, I have to put the pod volume so low, so low that I can't hear myself playing, except acousticly. Wow, that was way harder than I expected...seems I miss a last note on the arpeggio's. Think I got a muting problem

This post has been edited by Jesse: Jan 10 2009, 05:05 PM

Sounds good Jesse. A little off timing wise, but could be because you were having a hard time hearing the backing. I am going to give you some more scale shapes to learn. These shapes are what I like to call "sliding scales". The cool thing about these is that you only have to memorize a two string pattern and then it repeats on all the string sets. These are really useful when you are wanting to improvise. Especially using modes. So now I am going to double the amount of scale shapes you are going to learn for the month. Don't you love me. Don't worry though, you already know the shapes because you are learning them by learning the different diatonic and pentatonic positions. I am going to upload a video tomorrow of how I want you to practice these shapes. What I want you to do is this:

-For this week you are responsible for knowing the Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian and Lydian Diatonic boxes as well as the first two pentatonic boxes.

-I have given you the Diatonic boxes all in the Key of A major. So the Ionian box starts on A, the Dorian starts on B, the Phrygian starts on C# and the Lydian starts on D.

-Right now when you play these boxes as I have tabbed them out for you they all sound like A major, but I want you to hear the sound of the different modes. So once you have these shapes memorized I want you to start playing the different boxes/shapes all starting from A. By doing this you can hear the characteristic sound of each mode.

-So for this week I want you to practice the first 4 diatonic boxes like I have them written and also the first 4 diatonic shapes all starting from A.

-For the pentatonic shapes do the same thing as these can be used for modal playing as well. It is a good excerise to.

Good work on this weeks lesson. I can tell you have a pretty good sense of rhythm and are pretty comfortable playing with drums. Let me know if you have any questions about anything I have said.

Monte