Advanced guitar lessons in Teddington

If you are an 'advanced' level guitarist then you probably have a good technique and understanding of keys, scales, arpeggios, and are probably interested in taking your playing into the realms of advanced rock or jazz.

In both of these areas it is essential that you develop good, meaningful musical vocabulary and that you have a whole armoury of weapons at your disposal. This means that rather than just knowing what scale to use over a certain chord, that you have high quality musical phrases that live within that scale. As well as this, there are always numerous different ways of treating a chord or sequence which will produce different musical flavours depending on which approach you choose. This includes 'superimposing arpeggios and scales' and being aware of alternative chords that could be substituted at any given time.

In addition to this, there is chromaticism. This is something MUST be introduced to your playing in order to reach the level of playing of the greats. Everybody from Mozart to John Scofield uses chromaticism to great effect, and having a sound grasp of how it can be used is often what separates the good players from the great ones.

Another area that you may have yet to master is that of aural skills - the ability to recognise interval, phrases, chords and entire sequences just from listening. This is an invaluable tool that will not only save you a vast amount of time in learning from the greats, but will indirectly improve your improvising skills as the barrier between your mind and your instrument gets broken down.