Category Archives: Uncategorized

Music Lesson Method Books

Since I’ve been teaching more private lessons lately, I took some time to work on my method books.

In my Guitar Method Book I made the chord symbols bigger and more detailed, added some minor key progressions, and started to incorporate bar chords. I also included a fretboard and practice instructions.

Guitar Chord Practice Instructions
Guitar Method Book 1 Fretboard
Guitar Method Book 1 Unit 1: Major and Minor Chords
Guitar Method Book 1 Unit 2: Common Chord Progressions
Guitar Method Book 1 Unit 3: 12-Bar Blues
Guitar Method Book 1 Unit 4: Sus2 and Sus4 Chords
Guitar Method Book 1 Unit 5: Major Bar Chords, Root on the E string
Coming soon: Unit 6: Minor Bar Chords, Root on the A string.

I also created some Advanced Guitar Exercises.

Advanced Guitar Exercises Introduction: “Chromatic” Exercises
Advanced Guitar Exercises Unit 1: Major Chords, Scales, and Modes
Advanced Guitar Exercises Unit 2: Minor Chords, Scales, and Modes

I recently started writing a Ukulele Method Book.

Ukulele Practice Instructions
Ukulele Method Book Fretboard
Ukulele Method Book Unit 1: The Key of C Major
Ukulele Method Book Unit 2: The Key of G Major
Ukulele Method Book Unit 3: The Key of F Major
Ukulele Method Book Unit 4: The Key of D Major
Ukulele Method Book Unit 5: The Key of Bb Major

I also transcribed some simple songs that can be played on ukulele or guitar.

Frosty the Snowman (in C Major and G Major)
Jingle Bells (in C Major and G Major)
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (in C Major and G Major)
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (in C Major and G Major)

Finally, I cleaned up my Music Theory Method Book and sectioned it into units like my other books.

Music Theory Method Book Unit 1
Music Theory Method Book Unit 2
Music Theory Method Book Unit 3
Music Theory Method Book Unit 4
Music Theory Method Book Unit 5

All of these links to free PDFs (along with my Snare Drum and Drum Set method books) can also be found on the “For My Students” page.

A Song a Day

Lately, I’ve been trying to rethink of the way I compose. I want break myself out of some habits, and I’ve also been wanting to get better at using different DAWs (Logic, GarageBand, Ableton Live, and most recently Soundtrap). So I came up with the idea to challenge myself to write “A Song a Day” as a way to push myself to be less particular about every little detail and just finish a song. If you’re interested in my progress, you can follow me on YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter.

A few new tracks…

Back in August I participated in a few contests and here are the results. The first was for Sample Library Review’s Soundiron Bumper Scoring Challenge. I was given a 10 second video logo to compose music for, using mostly Soundiron libraries. Had I won, my entry would be the official music for that logo. While I probably can’t publish the logo with my music, you can view the video here, and then listen to “Iron Sound” to get the gist. The other contest, through ThinkSpace Education and Spitfire Audio, was to compose a 2-3 minute piece using only Spitfire Labs libraries ($3 each and the money goes to charity). “Cold and Hollow” was the result.