Christian Intermediate Acoustic Guitar Course (Level 1 , 2)
Guitar Emerge has fueled the passion for guitar in me! I've never thought I could have this many breakthroughs. The lessons are structured and engaging. The teachers are ever so patient and motivating! Beyond learning, they selflessly share their experiences with me to build my musicianship
--------- Wayne Leong
Working Adult (Intermediate Acoustic Guitar Level 1)
This Christian Intermediate Acoustic Guitar Course was designed for students who have completed Fundamental Guitar Level 1 & 2 or have prior guitar experiences and wish to further upgrade their skills to play for their cell group or church worship team. Our guitar classes can be catered for individual 1 to 1 learning or a group class of max size 3. Christian Praise & Worship songs will be used in this syllabus.
At Guitar Emerge, as a specialised guitar school in Singapore, we take pride that we have our own syllabus and notes that we will provide every lesson. With a structured syllabus, we will also encourage you to provide your favourite songs, so that we can use those songs in our lessons as well. This will make learning more exciting and keeps the interest going especially for a young child.
Here are some of the topics we will cover in our Christian intermediate acoustic guitar lessons:
1) How to groove on the guitar when you strum
In this level, we will cover more strumming patterns and variations that is used in praise and worship. We will also help you identify which strumming patterns to use based on drum beats you hear in a song. Having 1 strumming pattern throughout the entire song can be boring for a listener after 1 round of the song. Thus we will also teach you different variations you can apply to make the song more interesting and exciting. We will cover a total of 15 new strumming patterns and grooves in which you will then be able to strum almost 90% of the songs you hear in church.
2) How to create color and dynamics in a song
Strumming the guitar with different patterns and variations is the first step to making the song sound interesting. On top of these patterns, we will also teach you how to create dynamics in your strumming. These includes things like palm muting, rolls, intensity etc. With these ideas, your strumming skillset will be upgraded to the next level and you can sound like a full one man band in your cell group praise and worship.
3) Simple Plucking with melody (Basic Fingerstyle)
In the fundamental guitar course, we learn how to pluck chords and play simple melodies separately. In this acoustic guitar course, we will combine both the plucking and playing of melodies together which we term as Basic Fingerstyle. Instead of 2 guitarist each playing different roles, by using fingerstyle, 1 guitarist can cover both the chords and melody. This technique though challenging, with patience and guidance from our teachers, it will give you a huge sense of achievement when played nicely. Fingerstyle can be used in free worship moments, praying moments, when the pastor is talking etc. This adds a new dimension to your playing.
4) Major Scales & Pentatonic Scales
To step up our scales knowledge, instead of playing open scales which we did in the fundamental course, we will learn scales that have movable shapes. This also means that once you learn the 7 positions of the major scale and 5 positions of the pentatonic scale, you can literally play them in any key. You will then improve your knowledge of the guitar fretboard and where the notes are located. In each scale position, we will also teach a few simple guitar fill ins and lead lines. This will prepare you for playing guitar solos in the future.
5) Color Chords / Barred Chords
We will learn more color chords like sus2, sus4, add9, barred form etc. Color chords makes the same chord more interesting and provides melodic movement in the chord while strumming or plucking. Some Keys like Bb, Eb requires chords which are in barred form. Learning barred chords will then allow you to play any song in any key.
6) Music Theory / Knowledge of Guitar
To provide a holistic guitar musical education, we cannot neglect Music Theory. At this level, we will cover more intermediate music theory, usage of capo, transposition, chords construction etc
7) Exam Certification
Everyone has different goals when learning the guitar. Some learn for fun and leisure, some learn to get a certification. If you are keen for guitar certification, at the end of both levels, you will be able to take the grade 3 to 5 Acoustic Guitar Exam under London College of Music (LCM) RGT.
Christian Advance Acoustic Guitar Course (Level 1 , 2)
This Christian Advance Guitar Course was designed for students who have completed Christian Intermediate Acoustic Guitar Level 1 & 2 or have prior guitar experiences and wants to upgrade their skill level to be the best they can be. Christian Praise & Worship songs will be used in this syllabus. Our advanced guitar classes are catered for individual 1 to 1 learning only.
Here are some of the topics we will cover in our Christian Advance acoustic guitar lessons:
1) Advance chords and chords construction
We will cover barred color chords and the theory behind the construction these color chords.
2) Plucking with melody, fills and groove (Advance Fingerstyle)
In this level, we will add in more ideas into our fingerstyle. By adding in fill ins, it creates a smoother continuous melodic feel to your plucking. We will also add in a smack groove (Ciak), so mimic a drum beat while you are plucking.
3) Blues / Funk / Fusion / Folk / Country etc
We will be exposing the students to more genres to prepare them for real life performance. As a performer, many times we get request which are beyond pop songs, thus we will need to be versatile in our skill set. Church songs also comes in a wide variety of styles and genres.
4) Modes application
We will dive deeper into different scales and modes and how the different modes can be used in different situations and chord progressions to create a beautiful creative unique melody and solo.
5) Exam Certification
Everyone has different goals when learning the guitar. Some learn for fun and leisure, some learn to get a certification. If you are keen for guitar certification, at the end of both levels, you will be able to take the grade 6 to 8 Acoustic Guitar Exam under London College of Music (LCM) RGT.