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Posted by: Vaialation1232 Jan 4 2009, 01:43 AM

Hey everyone, i just wanted this thread to be where we talk about what to teach...maybe GMC videos, techniques, exercises, whatever it happens to be...

Also, for people who may become "mentorees" post videos you like or techniques you'd like to learn as well if you want..

WHAT WE HAVE SO FAR

Ajmurrell-1) http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/solo-guit...iming-exercise/ (Muris)
2) http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/palm-m...workout-lesson/ (Dejan)

wrk-1) http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/legato-stamina/ (Ian)
2) http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/solo-guitar/right-hand-basic1/ (Danilo)
3) http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/solo-guitar/alternate-workout/ (Muris)
4) http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/solo-guitar/alternate-picking-thirds/ (Muris)
5) http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/solo-guitar/c-minor-picking-etude/ (Muris)

Velvet Roger-1) http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/solo-guitar/beginner-solo-in-d/ (Muris)

Posted by: enforcer Jan 4 2009, 01:59 AM

Great idea Vai

Posted by: Vaialation1232 Jan 4 2009, 02:25 AM

Thanks!

Posted by: wrk Jan 4 2009, 06:42 AM

Great for this topic .. will be helpful to get a good collection of ideas.
I will write down a list of lessons which i have in mind and post it later today.

If someone missed it, we started a small discussion in this thread http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/guitar_forum/index.php?showtopic=23037

Posted by: Vaialation1232 Jan 4 2009, 07:38 AM

Should i send a message about this to all 10 mentors?

Posted by: Velvet Roger Jan 4 2009, 08:22 AM

I think this thread can certainly help in developing ourselves as mentors. Would be great to exchange ideas, approaches etc.

However, it would also be very helpful when we receive the syllabus with exercises to start off with from Andrew/Smells as that should be the starting point for all of us (as far as I can understand from the guidelines thread in this subforum. I think after that, the discussion in this thread can be much more focussed?

@ Vai: Can't hurt to send everyone a PM, however I would expect that everybody is actually checking these forums regularly (especially now ).

Posted by: Vaialation1232 Jan 4 2009, 08:43 AM

True, i hope they send us that syllabus soon

Posted by: Velvet Roger Jan 4 2009, 11:43 AM

Yeah that would be great indeed, however it will take a bit of time to make such a thing I guess, so we just have to be a bit patient

Posted by: Ajmurrell Jan 4 2009, 01:33 PM

Cool thread idea yeah

I'm definitely looking forward to seeing the syllabus and even more excited about being paired up with someone - only a few more days to go!!

I'm probably going to hold back on thinking about what I'll recommend lesson wise untill I know who I'm paired up with. I think it's very important we get an understanding as to where our mentoree's are with their playing and what they want to accomplish so we can come up with individual lesson plans for them.

I have some in mind though all the same, Muris' timing lesson (where he makes a short solo using most note durations) is a fantastic lesson for getting to understand what different note durations feel/sound like to play.

http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/solo-guitar/timing-exercise/

I also think Dejan's palm mute workout is a fantastic lesson. It can be used as a great warmup exercise, palm muting exercise and alternate picking exercise. It's also a lot of fun to play!
For me this lesson was mainly about slowing down my alternate picking and making sure I was articulate in accents and accurate with timing.

http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/palm-mute-workout-lesson/


Have more idea's for individual techniques and styles, but like I said - it really depends on what our mentoree's want to learn.

Posted by: wrk Jan 4 2009, 04:51 PM

@Velvet Roger : true, it could be helpful to get this syllabus list. I guess it will be necessary to practice some of the lessons before a bit

@Ajmurrell: Nice choice, i like and have practiced both lessons a while back.
As you said, it depends so much of the level of the mentoree's. Dejan's palm muting lesson i find personally quite difficult as a whole lesson, but to use just a few bars is a good picking workout, which can be adapted to each level.

In fact this is what i think about a lot of workout lessons. To play them from beginning to the end is often quite a challenge, but to use a few shapes/bars are really useful to integrate in the daily practice routine.

Right and left hand workouts works better for me if i can concentrate on each hand separated. If i work on my picking for example, i don't want to think too much about what my left hand is doing and the other way around. Synchronization of both comes automatically if i reduces inconsistencies on both sides .. at least for me it works better that way.

Posted by: lcsdds Jan 4 2009, 05:42 PM

Wrk,
You are right about the lessons being a challenge!! I use the lessons as the core of my practicing though because they integrate so many techniques in them, especially Muris's lessons. Like right now, I am working on Muris's phrygian advanced. I have broken it up into 8 or so licks and it covers sweeping, legato, tapping (I changed one of his licks ) hybrid picking and even double stops. These kinds of lessons to me are the most useful.

Posted by: wrk Jan 4 2009, 06:52 PM

Yes, thats one reason why i love Muris's lessons so much as there are full of different technics ... i could spend a life-time on some of them . I cut them in little peaces as well and build exercises out of it to work on each technic separated. From time to time i put them together and check if i did progress .. mostly i go back practicing

But in general i think thats a good why to approach and work on lessons (solo/song lessons). It's a bit useless for me to play the whole lesson 100times from the beginning to the end and being sloppy at the same parts all the time.

What i mean in the previous post was more directed on workout lessons to learn basic technics like alt. picking and legato.

To concentrate on each hand separated. I like the approach on lessons like:
Ian - Legato Stamina : http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/legato-stamina/
Danilo - Right Hand Basics : http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/solo-guitar/right-hand-basic1/

These workouts i love as well (much slower of course). They sound great and are definitely a challenge, but both hands are dealing with so many things to be able to focus only on picking or accurate fretting. There are great for synchronization i think.
Muris - Alternate workout : http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/solo-guitar/alternate-workout/
Muris - Alternate Picking Thirds : http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/solo-guitar/alternate-picking-thirds/
Muris - C Minor Picking Etude : http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/solo-guitar/c-minor-picking-etude/

Maybe i'm to old to practice everything at the same time

Posted by: Velvet Roger Jan 4 2009, 07:14 PM

Yeah, I agree completely on this. The actual level of playing of our mentoree's will of course be making a large difference in the lesson plan, although everybody needs to go through some basics to see someones shortcomings.



These alternate picking workouts/lessons are excellent, as long as someone is continously practicing them as otherwise they are quite difficult to do


One of the lessons as well which is awesome and covers quite a few techniques in a simple way is http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/solo-guitar/beginner-solo-in-d/ (and the solo is really cool to play ).

Posted by: Ajmurrell Jan 4 2009, 11:09 PM

Yeah I agree with you on that for certain lessons. The muris timing one for example, I can't play the 32nd notes at full tempo (or near top tempo for that matter!) but that still leaves 80% of the lesson that really helped my knowledge.

A lot of the lessons are like that, so there's a vast resource for us to work with

It'll be impossible to know what style lessons and associated techniques we can recommend untill we're paired up, but general exercises and work outs I guess we can come together and share our recommendations for

The great thing about difficult lessons, and all lessons on GMC is that anyone can attempt them with the slower backing tracks.

I believe that even some of the real advanced lessons can still be of great use to begginers as there's a goal in sight as to where the practice will take them.

On the other hand it can also be seen as daunting and out of reach, so I guess I'll(we'll) have to be very careful using that strategy!

Still excited to be a part of this!

Posted by: Vaialation1232 Jan 4 2009, 11:45 PM

Thanks everyone...heres a pretty cool tool that may be helpful for people wanting to play a certain scale/mode, even if they don't know where it is on the guitar...certainly it shouldn't be used INSTEAD of learning them but it is a good backup to double check if you are right

http://tonyross.customer.netspace.net.au/fretboard1-71.html

Posted by: Ajmurrell Jan 5 2009, 02:54 AM

Thats an excellent little tool indeed. Really simple to use, thanks! Love seeing the flamenco scale in there - must give that a go!! (Hope's to turn into a flamenco genius over night )

Posted by: Velvet Roger Jan 5 2009, 09:18 AM

Thanks for that Vai, very handy

Posted by: Andrew Cockburn Jan 7 2009, 08:57 PM

This is great stuff guys, keep it going!

We will be giving you a suggested syllabus to sketch out what we believe the basics are that every guitarist should have, but of course everyone is different and a big part of this is what you as mentors bring to the table in terms of working with your students to find out what they need - so keep up the discussion and we will have your mentoree assignments and the syllabus soon (Bith Smells and I are victims of the post holiday work rushg at the moment but we will do our best to get things sorted quickly!)

Posted by: Velvet Roger Jan 7 2009, 09:06 PM

Looking forward to the moment

Posted by: enforcer Jan 7 2009, 09:46 PM

Well, I made some research about our MTP beginner candidates. They generally share the same problems, right-left hands syncronisation, bending, vibrato, legato, pretty much every basic technique at high speeds, and with that comes theory based flaws and not knowing how to practice also. I believe here, we may make a fair standardization of the lesson schedule...

Posted by: Ajmurrell Jan 8 2009, 11:08 PM

Just wondering what peoples thoughts were about the Syllabus guidelines and how that fits in with everyones ideas for lessons?

I've decided to give Bondy two activities a week (plus a warm up routine that I will create soon...) which include the recommended lessons from Smells' post, and more personal specific lessons that are linked to requested skills where he wants improvement. I'm going to make a few SI type, lessons because it will be fun , and find some GMC lessons as well from the archive as this is the way I think we're supposed to go from what I've read in the guidelines.

It's all getting started now! Good luck guys It's going to be a blast.

Posted by: Vaialation1232 Jan 9 2009, 12:29 AM

I think thats about what I am planning as well...give some exercises (maybe 1-2 new a week) i like that he should just do on a daily basis, and then the syllabus lesson as well as something else (GMC lesson, my own personal lesson, etc.)...however, i am wondering about how the workload will be because learning two lessons and posting videos of them may be a little much depending on how difficult the lessons are.. i'll just have to get his input and see what he thinks after the first week

Posted by: enforcer Jan 9 2009, 01:03 AM

Well I am seriously thinking of dividing the lesson to two parts, like part 1 a la syllabus and part 2: my suggestions. As recommended lessons for first and second weeks are quite easy for our mentorees, there is no harm in adding some more work to do. I'll get feedback about that from Jer in a few days I believe. Then, it final decision can be made.

Posted by: Velvet Roger Jan 9 2009, 07:57 AM

Well, I have discussed with Ben about the workload and because he has limited time available (which is definitely not a problem ), we will work on one lesson at the time (which will follow the syllabus more or less, but not exact due to the fact that Ben already did all those lessons in the MTP pilot program), supplemented with some theory/small exercises over the coming weeks.

Posted by: wrk Jan 9 2009, 09:31 AM

Hm, honestly, i expected the Syllabus more as a list of example lessons to cover basic technics and not to be a structure. The pilot program of Smells and Kris were having quite different approaches to each other and i took more Smells Agenda as an example.

At first i was not sure how to read this Syllabus. Maybe my english is not good enough to read the guidelines right. In one way it sound kind of strict to me but there is space of modification ... so i'm not sure (?)

Basically i have had the same topics (rhythm, timing, solo, workouts) in mind. I have had prepared my structure a bit before, to change everything in the last minute would not lead to something good, so i hope i'm not completely wrong the way i started.

Posted by: Smells Jan 9 2009, 12:53 PM

See if I can shed some light on this for you

Perhaps worrying about it a little too much, the guide is what it is, a guide, but it has areas that you should look to cover

For a "beginners" MTP we discussed what factors are important for someone in the early stages of playing to concentrate on to have a reasonable grounding on in order to progress in their playing career.

In order to get an effective program running we needed a syllabus for the program as a starting off point so that beginners are given the same basic grounding, (we used Kris`s MTP pilot as the basis because mine was directed at a more intermediate level player), similar to main stream education, there is a syllabus for teachers to follow throughout the year, obviously different teachers have different approaches, but the topics are covered.

The syllabus here is more of an example (although can be used as it is), I think it is perhaps more useful in the case where you have more members to mentor as they will be of varying levels to a degree and you need to keep everyone on a level playing field, at the moment you only have one for a 4 week period and yes, this way it is much easier to tailor lessons etc to suit that one persons level of playing ability, if you had 5 or more then you would be creating far too much work for yourself to create lesson plans for each individual member, they would all need to do the same exercises etc at the same time.

From what I`ve read in the MTP posts so far they all look fine, adding extra small homeworks that maybe cover something that your current mentoree would like to begin looking at or improve upon is perfect (but to begin with they shouldnt be the focal point), again this wont be so easy to do with more students, and you need to keep that in mind.
With more mentorees this is something that you will probably need to approach more collectivly than individually.

Lastly (as I`m rambling on now ) remember this is the second phase of the mentor selecting process and not the full blown MTP, so this is more of an assignment for yourselves at the moment to help us choose the 5 who will be mentored by Muris, so use the syllabus as a guide only and just do your best

hope that helped a bit, sorry for rambling on

Posted by: Velvet Roger Jan 9 2009, 01:31 PM

This makes all sense, thanks for the clarifications Chris.

Posted by: wrk Jan 9 2009, 02:23 PM

Thanks Chris, i see what you mean ...

Obviously everybody tries now to create the best program for his specific mentoree by now. If you have a group of 5 with different levels, these programs are maybe not suitable for everybody, too difficult for some or too easy for others.

A development i see at this early stage of the 2nd phase is that we will have a few different program approaches/examples which could be followed after each other instead of running parallel. It's maybe an interesting result at the end. There are so many topics around the guitar, hard to define a beginner level or to find the right order to start with.

Anyway, this MTP well worth it to put some energy in and at this phase everybody does .. good luck by doing a selection at the end

Thanks again to clarify a few points

Posted by: David Wallimann Jan 9 2009, 02:26 PM

Great thread, also a great way to know what you guys are interested in. It helps to prepare new material!

Posted by: Smells Jan 9 2009, 02:46 PM

Absolutly! and if theres things we spot as great potential to help this run smoothly then they will certainly be accomodated/integrated

As a new concept theres certainly room to build on, we just needed a starting point to kick us off with

Posted by: Ajmurrell Jan 12 2009, 02:01 AM

Personally I think the syllabus really helps in terms of having a structured plan for each area to improve. So, for example, knowing that Rhythm/timing are things to focus on for weeks 1 and 2 makes it easy to manage different GMC lessons if the mentoree's ability is above the playing standard in the suggested video.

What might be a good way to approach a future syllabus is to have "key areas", for different weeks, that we should aim to focus our lesson recommendations around.

So if it works out that a mentor, mentors a certain individual for lets say 2 months the syllabus would guide you through the key areas to work on each week - making sure by the end of the mentor period, everythings been covered!

Posted by: Boson Jan 13 2009, 11:52 PM

In "education speak" we call this differentiation.

Everyone is working within the same topic but each has different desired learning outcomes based on their starting knowledge/ability. The idea is that each starts from a different starting line but all progress. The end point will not be the same for every student.

At the end of the topic

All of you should be able to ........
Most of you should be able to .......
Some of you should be able to .......

The topic areas of the suggested syllabus provides a good structure. Within this the job of the mentor is basically to identify the starting level of their mentoree for each of the key skill areas outlined in the syllabus and communicate to them a desired learning outcome and how they might achieve this. In GMC terms this might be directing them to a particular lesson which is appropriate to their ability and which will allow them to progress in a partiucular skill area.Of course an element of challenge is desireable in this respect. Even though different mentorees are working under the same topic or skill area, each will have individual goals and individual learning experiences depenndant upon their starting point. My personal view is that the current mentors are almost trying too hard and being too personal. A more detached, focussed and analytical view is needed. However I do recognise the tremendous enthusiasm and commitment they have brought to the role. The beginner mentorees should consider themselves very fortunate.

Good job guys!


Hope this helps

Posted by: Ajmurrell Jan 14 2009, 12:47 AM

Thanks for that Very interesting to read. Am I correct in presuming you teach?

I personally find it quite hard to be a bit detached at the moment, its quite exciting and very fun! Rewarding too! Am I trying to hard? Maybe

Posted by: lcsdds Jan 14 2009, 02:31 AM

I've been following everybody's MTP threads and I personally think that everybody is doing a good job. Everybody's mentoree is at a different stage in their development and you have to give a good balance between what they NEED to know and what they WANT to learn. I wish I had a mentor when I started. If I did I would be miles ahead of where I am. I had to learn the hard way like many on this board. Keep up the good work everybody, nobody loses in this competition.

Monte

Posted by: enforcer Jan 14 2009, 02:44 AM

Yeah same here, I wish I had a mentor... Someone like... YOU perhaps, you are doing a great job man you know this to the book

Posted by: lcsdds Jan 14 2009, 03:00 AM

Thanks for the kind words Can. It really is true that alot of times the teacher ends up learning more than the student!! This MTP gig has made me totally revamp my practice routine and really commit to trying to fill some serious holes in my playing and knowledge base. BTW Can, really enjoyed your take on Emir collaboration!! I like the long hair as well!! I keep telling my wife that I am gonna grow back my mullet from the 80's. She doesn't think it is very funny.

Posted by: enforcer Jan 14 2009, 03:18 AM

Yeah MTP improved my knowledge too and I am glad...

so you may buy a fake long hair, and you can wear it in secret after she goes to bed

Posted by: lcsdds Jan 14 2009, 04:05 AM

She's already wondering where some of here dresses and underwear have gone.

Posted by: Boson Jan 14 2009, 06:10 PM

I too have been following the MTP threads and have learned an awful lot from them. I think the mentors are doing a fantastic job. I was disappointed not the be chosen as a beginner mentoree, hopefully I will be in the next batch.

Please do not misunderstand my post I was not critisising any of them in any way, far from it I waould be really pleased were any of them to be my mentor.

Posted by: enforcer Jan 14 2009, 06:15 PM

Man, I laughed really loud here everybody around me stared at me like I was a weirdo

you are da man!

Posted by: Boson Jan 14 2009, 06:17 PM

I too have been following the MTP threads and have learned an awful lot from them. I think the mentors are doing a fantastic job. I was disappointed not the be chosen as a beginner mentoree, hopefully I will be in the next batch.

Please do not misunderstand my post I was not critisising any of them in any way, far from it I waould be really pleased were any of them to be my mentor. I also feel that they will have a lot to feedback about their experiences so that it can inform and help shape future developments of the MTP to make it a sustainable development. Sustainable being very important. If this works out as I think it is hoped then GMC will become even better than it already is and truely influential in the guitar world.

Posted by: Smells Jan 14 2009, 07:56 PM

this is just a temporary 4 weeks there will be a lot more places when we get started

and I didnt read your post earlier as critisism of the mentors, I found it a good read it was excellent and valid input, thanks

Posted by: Mandos Jan 14 2009, 10:22 PM

I totally agree with Boson. I really enjoy following all the MTP threads and I follow the syllabus as well.

Posted by: enforcer Jan 14 2009, 10:54 PM

And as one of the mentors, I can say that I am doing my best to help my mentoree, but we have a lot the learn, also we are eager to learn too, so dont hesitate to warn me (through pm for example) if you think that we are doing mistakes etc. I dont think any of the other mentors will disagree this.

Cheers

Can

Posted by: Velvet Roger Jan 14 2009, 11:22 PM

I can only copy that. Any comments are always very welcome to improve!

Posted by: Ajmurrell Jan 15 2009, 01:40 AM

Ditto!