Acoustic Truffle

Can you already sing and play but want to expand your creative possibilities? Do you want to add more power and sophistication to your skills? Do you feel you could contribute more to your band if you knew more?

After the first years of making music, we musicians often find ourselves stuck on a plateau of ability. We’ve gone as far as our strengths can carry us and we need to develop more depth of understanding. Weak areas in our playing begin holding us back. Writers may find a lack of variety of knowledge is starting to make their songs sound all the same. Many serious musicians benefit from a well designed, focused practice routine that maximizes time use.

Some Intermediate and Advanced Skills

Soloing

• Devices and strategies
• Scales, modes and patterns
• What to play with what chord
• Arpeggios
• Improving speed

Chords

• Chord voicings, choices, and substitutions
• Playing bass, chords, and melody at the same time
• Jazz accompaniment

Time and rhythm work

• Play steadier and more dynamically
• Expanding your vocabulary of and flexibility with rhythms
• Getting the most out of a phrase
• Jazz and world rhythms

Developing a melody

Left hand development (or right hand for lefties)

• Fingerpicking
• Hybrid picking
• Flatpicking studies

Ear training

Learning to recognize what you’re hearing more quickly and accurately. Helps you to sing in tune, solo better, and be more sensitive to melody

Practical Theory

Intervals, triads. tetrachords, closed and open voiced chords, turnarounds, scales and modes

Lifts

Developing the skill to replicate melodies, solos and rhythms accurately from your cd’s

Alternate tunings, slide tunings

Note reading