Gigajam : Guitar course lesson contents. Level 1 to 3 equivalent to Grade 1 to 5

Lesson 1: Playing Rock Chords

Understand the layout of the guitar, how to follow chord boxes and be able to play a couple of rock chords with music by the end of this lesson.

Lesson 2: Developing Rhythms

Learn how to create rhythm using different notes and play a series of rhythms with your rock chords along with music.

Lesson 3: Introducing Eighth Notes and Developing Rhythms

You will be developing a good understanding of rhythm and how to read rhythm on the musical stave, as well as learn two new chords to mix with your existing chords.

Lesson 4: Introducing Palm Muting

Learn to not only play great rock chords but learn the technique of palm muting, giving you greater control over the sound of the guitar, whilst developing greater fluency in moving around the guitar neck.

Lesson 5: Developing Palm Muting with Accents

Sound like a real rock guitarist using all your rhythms and chords learned so far, as well as the technique that makes you sound like a pro.

Lesson 6: Developing our understanding of the Fingerboard

The world of rock chords is wide open for you now, as you are taught how to learn and be able to play every power rock chord there is!

Lesson 7: Learning New Chords

With rock chords in the bag, it’s now time to use all your skills to develop playing all the chords you need. This lesson starts you on the journey introducing strumming technique and major and minor chords.

Lesson 8: Introducing Strumming and Developing Chord Changes

This lesson provides a more in depth look into strumming technique and opens up another world of rhythmic playing for you, whilst learning even more chords for your library.

Lesson 9: Developing our Rock Chord Library

More chords, developing your rhythm and ability to move fluently around the guitar neck.

Lesson 10: Performing a Song

Learn how to play with a professional band, whilst reading a guitar chart. This lesson can go towards your Level One in Essential Guitar Skills with Gigajam Guitar School.

Lesson 11: Introducing Sixteenth Notes

Introducing rests and how they are used in music to create more varied rhythms on and around the modern drum kit.

Lesson 12: Building our Rock Guitar Library

Here we begin to combine different note values together to create more complex rhythmic patterns.

Lesson 13: Developing Barre Chords

This lesson begins to open up a world of chords for you by introducing the concept of barre chords. This lesson will focus on creating barre chords rooted from the 6th string. By the end of this lesson you will be able to play E, F, Fm, Fm7, F#, F#m, A, Am, Ab, Am7, A7, G, Gm, G7, G#m, Bb, Bm7, B and C.

Lesson 14: Continuing the Study of Barre Chords

Developing the concept of the creation of barre chords this lesson develops your ability to play barre chords rooted from the 5th string.

Lesson 15: Introducing Rests

This lesson starts the study of Sound and Silence, introducing rests, their symbols and the affect they have on the development, construction and playing of rhythm.

Lesson 16: Introducing Dotted Notes and Ties

This is the second lesson in this Level that is devoted to reading and the understanding of rhythm. By the end of this lesson you will be able to read, recognise and play both Dotted notes and Ties, giving you access to sophisticated rhythmic patterns.

Lesson 17: Introducing 1-4-5 Chord Progressions

We are laying the groundwork for guitar solo studies that follow in Level 3. Here you will develop your ability to hear, recognise and play a 1-4-5 chord progression.

Lesson 18: Introduction to Triplets and Triplet Feel (12/8 and Shuffle)

This is the third lesson in this section devoted predominantly to the understanding of rhythm. Triplet based rhythms are commonly used and need to be understood in order for the modern guitarist to be able to play in a variety of rhythmic and musical styles.

Lesson 19: Introducing Lead Guitar Playing

This lesson points the way to your Level 3 studies and introduces the concept of the minor pentatonic scale, so that you have a basis from which to begin playing guitar solos. To accompany scale knowledge, we also introduce a number of lead guitar techniques so that you will be able to play some guitar solo ‘Licks’ by the end of this lesson.

Lesson 20: Performing a Song

As we did in Level 1, you will continue to develop and improve your skills whilst learning how to play with a professional band, whilst reading a guitar chart. This lesson can go towards your Level Two in Essential Guitar Skills with Gigajam Guitar School.

Lesson 21: Developing Lead Guitar Techniques (Hammering on and Pulling Off)

Part three of the course is devoted to the development of learning to play lead guitar using the techniques learned at the end of part 2, along with some new techniques and some licks. In this lesson we introduce the skills of Hammering on and pulling off and integrate these into some useful licks.

Lesson 22: Improvisation Part 1 (The Extended Pattern)

In this lesson we will start by building our musical theory and show how this relates to our ability to play lead guitar. We will develop the skill of playing the Extended A minor pentatonic scale and learn to play licks all around the extended pattern. We will develop the understanding of identifying the Root note, as this will become very useful as we progress.

Lesson 23: Improvisation Part 2 (Introducing the Blues Note)

Here we will build on the extended scale knowledge by adding the Blues Note. The Blues Note is incredibly useful in soloing of all styles and is an essential ingredient when learning to play lead guitar. As well as developing the understanding of the Blues Note there will be many practical licks to play along and learn.

Lesson 24: Improvisation Part 3 (Pattern 3 Minor Pentatonic)

We develop the theme here by learning pattern 3 of the minor pentatonic and incorporating the Blues Note. We will develop improvising within the scale by studying and learning some new licks.

Lesson 25: Improvisation Part 4 (Pattern 4 Minor Pentatonic)

We develop the theme here by learning pattern 4 of the minor pentatonic and incorporating the Blues Note. We will develop improvising within the scale by studying and learning some new licks. We will also connect patterns 3 and 4 together using the Root Note.

Lesson 26: Improvisation Part 5 (Pattern 5 Minor Pentatonic)

This is the third lead guitar lesson that builds upon your existing knowledge and develops your knowledge further, this time by learning pattern 5 of the minor pentatonic. We also include the Blues Note. Improvisation is developed with the scale by studying and learning some new licks. We also connect patterns 1 and 4.

Lesson 27: Completion of the Fingerboard

We now introduce and develop our understanding of the minor pentatonic pattern 2. Having done so, we can now integrate all the patterns learned so far. We take this a step further by developing the ability to solo in a number of different keys.

Lesson 28: Developing Pentatonic/Blues Scale Soloing

In this lesson we introduce the specific concept of Landing Notes and Safety Notes when soloing. As a contrast, we also develop our musical understanding of Licks that don’t land on Root notes and we take the whole lead guitar playing one step further by looking at genuine improvisation.

Lesson 29: Developing Improvisation of Pentatonic/Blues Part 2

The focus has been largely on the development of simple rhythms through our lead guitar studies thus far. This lesson specifically incorporates triplets to develop the rhythmic content of our solo playing. As we have done before we will apply triplets to Blues and the extended scale.

Lesson 30: Performing a Song

As we did in Levels 1 and 2, you will continue to develop and improve your skills whilst learning how to play with a professional band, whilst reading a guitar chart. However, there is one significant difference here. You have to play an improvised guitar solo, specifically applying all the skills learned through Part 3 of the course. This lesson can go towards your Level Three in Essential Guitar Skills with Gigajam Guitar School.

Guitar Course Content