Green Belt: Level 4 Guitar Lessons

Ongoing Growth: Horizontally and Vertically

Assuming that you have firmly committed to become a great player (of course you are), and you are making time to practice and perform (check!)... here are some more ideas to help you chart your course to being a well-rounded, and seasoned player, and a player who always keeps things fresh and interesting.

Horizontal Growth

Growing horizontally means adding to the list of songs that you are able to play, even though you may play all the songs in basically the same way. Think Broader and Wider. You want to acquire or write more songs all the time, and learning or writing new songs should be a regular part of every practice session.

Genre Cross-Over

Another way that artists try to expand is to learn songs from different genres. This makes you an eclectic player, who might be able to mix some blues, with rock, or jazz with classical, for example. This is also a great excuse for owning several guitars, each of which might be particularly well suited to one genre or another.

Vertical Growth

So let's say you can play a thousand songs, but you play them all the same way... Here are some ideas to help you keep your repertoire fresh and original sounding. Think Higher and Deeper.

Vertical growth is the deepening or heightening of old, familiar songs or techniques. Rough edges are polished off, holes and gaps are filled, voicings and melodies are altered for effect, and a creative spirit identifies itself.

Genre Substitution

One well-known example of genre substitution is neo-classical. Think of Bach played through a tall stack of amps with full volume and distortion, and in double-time. This is a way to make very complex, technical music more accessible and popular with an untrained audience.

Variations on a Theme

Try playing a well-known standard tune like Jingle Bells, Happy Birthday or the theme to Gilligan's Island in the style of metal, grunge, country, bluegrass, jazz, or classical. This way you can have a lot of fun practicing, and fitting an old familiar tune to any occasion.

Melodic Variations

Try changing major melodies to minor and other scalar modes. Also, experiment with substituting direct, overt melody with indirect, implied melody played through licks.

Harmonic Variations

While comping, and trying to find the best sounding voicing, try playing the melody on top and bottom of harmonic intervals or triads. Play the theme using open chords, straight bar chords, or substitute Jazz chords.

Tempo Variations

Practice to a drum machine as much as you can when alone, but try switching between different drum patterns or tempos. It's amazing to hear the difference a shuffle, a bossanova or reggae rhythm can do to pull you out of a 4/4 rut.

Technical Variations

The same old tired song can be spiced up by decisions on how to execute particular sections of a song... whether to strum or finger pick, use chords or arpeggios, employ bends or slides, hammer-on or pick, or mute or let ring, etc.

Build a Medley

Are there certain songs that sound great bolted together? Any two songs written with similar chord progressions and rhythm patterns make great candidates, and they are typically great crowd-pleasers.

Tonal Variations

Another excuse to spend money on guitar equipment is this one. Try playing your favorite tunes through different settings on your amp and effects chain. For example: fuzz vs. clean, acoustic vs. electric, with and without reverb and chorus, etc. Take a heavy metal song, and go unplugged with it.

Experiment with all your equipment settings, but boil them down so that you audience hears only what you think will really do the job, then mark the settings on your equipment. These settings are now yours.