This week was our 3rd week of guitar lessons and I wanted to get to the point of what most people want to do with their guitar, which is playing chord. I included in their worksheets a basic chord chart. I figured since we learned how to read a chord chart last week that they should do fine and I was right. I started with a basic chord progression of 1 4 5 4 1 and we started in the key of C so they played C F G F C. Then I said I would just add one chord and we would play in a different key. I asked them to learn D. Then I asked what the chord progression would be in the key of G and we figured it out G C D C G. Then I added the A chord and we played the progression in the key of D which was D G A G D. It was a great way to build on a progression having to only learn one new chord at a time.
After that we worked on strumming patterns. Started of just playing down and upstrokes 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &. Then I taught them to keep the same pattern but only actually strum at different times. I had half the class play on down beats only, and the other half play on upbeats only. We will build from that and add different patterns over the next three weeks.
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