Welcome to this online Guitar Masterclass, designed around my acoustic guitar instrumental The Mayo Jar. This Masterclass is for intermediate to advanded players, and will teach you to play this song in a highly structured, step-by step manner. It will provide you with all the materials and information needed to learn to play this song exactly like I do. However, in my view, learning to play the song is only a bonus, not the most important objective. My main purpose of these Masterclasses is much more valuable: to help you become a better guitarist!
A different approach
Most courses explaining guitar instrumentals will only explain the difficult parts. The entire song is shown in a performance, the tricky bits are explained in some detail, but most of the actual work is left to the student, usually by providing tablature. These Masterclasses, however, are different.
One difference is that I will guide you through each and every section of the entire song. I will show you every intricate detail and every little trick I use, from the first to the last note, so that you will understand everyhing I do. My goal is not only to make you a better player, my goal is to provide you with all the information and materials needed to play this song exactly like I do. I know a good deal about guitars and guitar playing, and I will tell you everything. I have no secrets for you.
Repetition, repetition, repetition…
If there is one blinking word in learning to play guitar, that word is: repetition. Regardless your skill level, the only way to learn new techniques is to try and play them as often as you possibly can, until you master them. All famous top guitarists have been there and have done that, and they will all agree how important this principle is.
When I started to play guitar, this is exactly what I did as well. I never had guitar lessons, so I used my record player. For the young kids: a record player was used a long time ago (almost in the time of the dinosaurs), and consisted of a large black disk spinning on a round table, with a needle at the end of a mechanical arm. That needle scanned the spiraling groove that had been cut into the disk, and since that groove had little irregularities shaped like sound waves, the needle could be used to drive an elecromagnetic pickup, which reproduced music through an amplifier and speakers. I developed great skill to lift that needle every second and place it back in exactly the same groove, at exactly the right position. This way I could hear the same short piece of music over and over again. This was extremely important for me to memorize the notes I had to play, and to understand and learn to intricacies that the players had put into their music. In these masterclasses we will use exactly the same, proven principle, however, in a modern implementation.
Sections
Each song in this series of Masterclasses has been divided into short sections, which you should practice one by one. Every time you master one section, you move on to the next. This prevents that you get overwhelmed by the song, because you will do it all step-by-step.
And this is where the 'record player' is introduced: every short section will be provided by tablature, with the corresponding audio. The audio has been looped, so that you can play along with as long as you want when you practice. If you get lost, the tablature will be right there. See below.
Tablature of a single section, with audio loop for practicing.
For each section you will also get written instructions, spoken instructions, and close-up videos showing both my hands. By working on one section at the time, you will have an efficient and systematic approach for learning each song, as well as a simple way to track your progress.
Set the volume such that you hear the audio about as loud as your own guitar, play the audio (it will loop automatically) and start to play along. When the volume of your audio is the same as your own guitar, you will immediately hear even the smallest difference between what I play and what you play. And because the audio loops are always short, you can give it another try almost immediately. All you need to do is repeat this a million times 😉😂 and you will ready for the next section! |
Other advantages
In comparison with video-only lessons or instructional books, the combination of video and written text combines the best of two worlds. It allows you to quickly find information of interest, absorb it at your own pace and get back quickly to specific parts (like a book), while still being able to see and hear everything I do, as if you were looking over my shoulders when I play (in a video).
Moreover, because of the highly detailed explanations I will provide you, these Masterclasses will even be useful when your playing is below the level of the song that is taught. Of course, if you are a beginner and you select an intermediate level song, don’t expect you will be playing it within a week. But you can still learn a lot of things that you can apply right away, and you will also become better aware of what you can not play yet. That is important too! In the end, you can learn everything, regardless your current level. You will only need more time than higher-level players, which of course is perfectly fine.
TMA Scores
| Technicality: | ★★★・・ | |
| Musicality: | ★★★★・ | |
| Arrangement: | ★★・・・ |
I will rank each song in these Masterclasses with a TMA Score. The TMA score helps you find the songs that best match your current playing skills and ambition. It expresses the complexity of each song on a scale from one to five stars, on three different aspects: technicality, musicality and arrangement. Of course such a ranking is always a little subjective, so if you don’t agree with the TMA score of any song in my Masterclasses, let me know.
Technicality score
A high technicality has everything to do with how hard it is to play the chords and to perform the right hand picking. Chords with long stretches, multiple strings pressed by one finger, long distance chord changes with many fingers involved, long and super-fast riffs, fast and combined hammer-ons and pull-offs, and fast or unusual picking with your right hand will increase the technicality rating.
Musicality score
The musicality is the most subjective rating. Some songs are quite straightforward, and will sound good if you simply play each note at the right moment. Other songs require more ‘feeling' to make them shine, and need to be played with subtle effects such as neck bends, string bends, slides, subtle grace notes etc. It is very hard to explain exactly how you must do all this, but if you have a good musical ear you will pick it up more easily. Such songs rate higher on the musicality scale.
Arrangement score
The arrangement rating tells you how complex and/or long the arrangement is. Some guitar instrumentals have a simple alternating verse & chorus structure, with many repetitive sections and similarities everywhere. Most of my songs, however, have more complex arrangements. Verses and choruses tend to blend into each other, and each repetition is usually played a little differently. Such songs score higher on the arrangement scale. As a result, the arrangement score also tells you how much work it will be to learn the entire song.
Breaking through your barriers
Many guitar players will reach a day where they feel they are not improving anymore. It’s the infamous ‘ceiling effect'. As a guitar player, you’ve reached the ceiling, and it seems like you cannot get higher anymore. It happened to me too, but fortunately I managed to break through this ceiling (more than once). So in these Masterclasses I will use my experience to try and help you too.
As soon as you learn the first basic techniques on guitar, you start to create a personal barrier that makes it harder for you to further improve your skills. This happens because over time you will develop your own way of doing things, and as a result you will tend to play everything from your personal repertoire of techniques: chords, finger settings, strums, licks, riffs and other tricks. This explains why one guitarist sounds different from another, even when both are playing exactly the same notes.
The more extensive your personal toolkit of techniques gets, the more versatile and the better you will become as a guitar player. However, at the same time it will also become harder to further improve your skills. You get the feeling that you are not progressing as fast as you used to, and sometimes even reach a complete stand still. This happens because you always use your own standard techniques, even when you learn new songs, and therefore tend to miss delicate intricacies that other players use. Many of these are very delicate, hardly noticeable and seemingly unimportant, but they can have a big impact on your performance!
I’ll tell you honestly that until recently I was not even aware of many little things I do when I play guitar, until I watched my own videos, and thought: Hey, why am I making that funny gesture with my wrist? And why do I bend forward when I strum that chord? Over time I became more aware of my ‘unconscious techniques’, and in these Masterclasses I will explicitly mention them all to you. In order to break through your personal barriers, it is therefore important that you try to play each section exactly like I do, and not give it your own interpretation yet. This can be difficult (and frustrating) sometimes, particularly for more advanced players, because doing things your own way is always easier. But that is precisely what creates your personal barrier!
Playing along with the audio loops while wearing headphones will help you a lot here. It will allow you to hear even the slightest discrepancy. Try not to proceed to the next section before you can play along with me without hearing discernible differences. This will force you out of your comfort zone, and help you break through your personal barrier.
Contents of this Masterclass
This Guitar Masterclass will teach you how to play my song The Mayo Jar. In all modesty, I think this is a great song and it will be a valuable addition to your repertoire, because many people like it a lot. In this Masterclass you will get everything you need for learning to play this song exactly the way I do:
- The complete performance
- Written instructions for each section
- Close-up video clips of both my hands, plus spoken instructions, for each section of the song
- Tablature for each section
- Looped, play-along audio clips to practice every part of the entire song
- Additional background information, playing and practicing tips, and side notes
Are you ready?
Click here to start this Masterclass
(of course you can also use the navigation menu at the top)