Essential Guitar Skills Level 3 CDROM

In level 3, lessons 21 to 30 make you a highly competent performer with transferable skills that enable you to play live, compose, and improvise. Equivalent to Grade 5.

Here in more detail are the 10 lessons covered in Level 3. To hear an example of the kind of things you'll be able to play at the end of each lesson click the "Hear how you'll sound!" button.

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.