My approach to the guitar covers these key concepts that represent essential area of focus for any accomplished player:
Sight reading
Having the ability to read standard notation and chord charts opens up more professional opportunities. Those opportunities include: session musician, music educator, pit orchestra, collaboration with classically trained musicians (e.g. ‘John Wilson Orchestra’).
Gives you the ability to improvise over any given chord sequence or groove. Analysing solos from different musicians (not just guitar players) across a variety of genres helps develop a more affective and authentic approach to improvising within a particular genre or style.
Aural Awareness
Not only having good aural awareness enables you to figure out chords, melodies and solos by ear, it can also help navigate through demanding scores which one might be presented with.
Range of Styles: Jazz, Pop, Folk, Rock, and Funk etc.
Studying a broad range of styles gives you the opportunity to be more adaptable in other musical situations, such as: function bands (e.g. ‘wedding bands’), theatre shows, recording sessions (session musician). This also develops musicianship and enhances cultural awareness.
Technique (plectrum and fingerstyle)
Plectrum: Developing a strong plectrum technique helps you improve your accuracy and tone control, and enhances articulation and phrasing. This also contributes to increasing speed and efficiency. Fingerstyle: Enables you to play repertoire across a broader range of pop and contemporary music (e.g. ‘Blackbird’ by The Beatles and ‘Tears in Heaven’ by Eric Clapton) and acts as a gateway for developing more advanced techniques such as ‘Hybrid picking’ (using both plectrum and fingers) commonly associated with genres such as ‘Blues’ and ‘Country Rock’.
Solo / Ensemble Repertoire
Developing solo and ensemble repertoire not only broadens your repertoire development, but also prepares you to function as a ‘dep’ musician. Being able to work and adapt in a variety of different situations makes you more employable. This ties together with being able to sight read efficiently.