Free Resources
I. 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
Monthly Student Jams
Once a month we host a free student jam session. It’s a great opportunity for students and their friends to jam on favorite tunes, put things they’ve practiced into a real-life music-making setting, stretch out on their improvisation, improve their chord vocabulary and rhythm guitar skills, and more!
The jam session is free and 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?
II. 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.
Instructional Articles:
The Truth About Trying to Get Better at Guitar Without a Good Teacher * Benefits of Playing Music * How You Can Cut the High Cost of Cheap Guitar Lessons * Building Speed * Am I too Old to Play Guitar? * 5 Easy Ways to Improve Your Practice Routine * 4 Common Mistakes You Should Avoid When Recording Guitar Tracks * 5 Easy & Effective Vocal Warm-Ups * Working with Live Audio Engineers * Three Easy Ways You Can Speed Up Your Progress On Guitar * How to Be An Asset In Any Musical Situation * Why You Need to Cut your Fingernails to Play Guitar * Resolving Confusion about 3 Notes-Per-String Scales * What to Do When You Are Forming Your First Band * Revisiting the ‘Too Hard’ Basket * Use this tapping lick to sound like a killer on the guitar! * Why NOT take your favorite players’ advice that learning guitar is better for you? * Why You Must Get Out of that Box to be a Great Guitarist * 3 Reasons Why Most People Quit Learning How To Play Guitar *