Free Resources

Be a Part of Our Musical Community

Student Albums

At Guitar Lessons Ithaca, we always say, “it’s not what you know, it’s what you can do.”  Recording a piece of music is a permanent demonstration of what a musician can do.  Like performing, making a recording is a deep expression of who you are and what you believe in musically, and it hones many vital musicianship skills in a short period of time!  Students who participate in recording the albums learn skills such as composing, transcribing, arranging, playing to a metronome, getting a good tone, the recording process, and more!

Student Performances

This link has the pics and vids of the amazing 2023 Summer Student Concert:

This link has the pics and vids of the totally awesome 2022 Summer Student Concert:

Click the this link to see pics and vids of the rockin’ 2021 Summer Student Concert we had on the Ithaca Commons:

Monthly Student Jams

Once a month we host a free student jam which is also open to the public.  Would you like to come jam with us and see how you fare and get a sense of the fun & relaxed vibe the School has?

Student Parties

Here are pics and vids of our summer student party 2023, the summer student party 2022 as well as the summer student party 2021.  We had holiday parties in December of those years as well, but did not take photos or video.

Instructional Material

Complete Beginners:

If you are brand new to guitar, watch this video on playing songs with simple 3-string chords.

Rock Guitarists:

This video explains how “implementation” and “integration” are central to our teaching philosophy.  Implementation means how to use what you learn; integration is how to use what you learn in conjunction with all the other things you know.  Using hammer-ons and pull-offs as an example, rock guitarists can be show how to immediately start using this technique, as well as join it up with a technique such as double-stops.

Acoustic Guitarists:

This video uses the examples of acoustic guitar concepts of fingerstyle and barre chords to show that the process of breaking down what could be complicated and breaking them down into simple, doable steps.

Blues Guitarists:

A lot of people come to the school with “information overload.”  The job of a teacher shouldn’t just be delivering information.  A great guitar teacher should be not only a teacher, but also a coach, trainer, and mentor.  For blues guitarists, this video uses the example of a blues lick and applies it to different keys, tempos and grooves.

Jazz Guitarists:

For jazz guitarists, there are many ways to simplify your thinking so that you can really learn to be creative instead of getting bogged down with chords changes.  This video uses this “boiling down” concept as an example to explain the ‘integration’ and ‘implementation’ philosophy that is at the core of our teaching methods.

Funk Guitarists:

Funk is making a comeback among younger guitarists (or maybe its popularity never waned in the first place).  But strumming funky rhythms is a task that must be broken down into easy, doable steps.  Having a teacher makes the goal of strumming your favorite tunes like this one (“Get Lucky” by Daft Punk) way easier.