Taught by David Lusterman

Wednesdays, 7:00 to 8:00 pm

Do you already know some chords and songs on the guitar, but feel like you’re speaking bits and pieces of a foreign language?

Do you marvel at guitarists who can easily change the key of a song to fit their vocal range or improvise a solo on the spot?

They’re not doing magic tricks. They’re just speaking a musical language they’ve taken time to learn from the ground up.

In this series of hour-long weekly classes, I’ll teach you the basics of that language — notes, intervals, scales, chords, and keys — as they apply to the guitar.

With our instruments in hand, we’ll use fretboard diagrams and simple exercises to learn the fundamentals of music. We won’t be reading music notation or tab. Instead, we’ll train our ears to show our hands what to do.

No matter how long you’ve been playing the guitar or how old you are, I can help you understand the vocabulary and grammar of music-making and hear the patterns common to pop, rock, folk, and classical music.

I can’t work wonders, so you’ll need to pay attention and apply what I show you to your guitar playing. But don’t worry, I’ll give you the tools you need with simple exercises and drills you can do at home.

You’ll start to understand how music actually works — the alphabet, the vocabulary, the phrases, sentences, and paragraphs — so you can play more confidently and tell your own musical stories.

Topics
The Major Scale and Two-Note Chords
Notes and Intervals
Scales and Modes
Three-Note Chords
Keys and Four-Note Chords
Key Changes and Improvisation

Logistics
Wednesdays, 7:00 to 8:00 pm

Location: Marin Community Music School, 55 San Anselmo Avenue, San Anselmo, CA 94960

Fee: $25 per class for new students, $15 for students already enrolled in lessons.