Courses

Have you always wanted to play the guitar but were afraid it would be too hard to learn? This course will help make guitar playing easy and fun. At a comfortable pace, students will learn basic chords and right-hand accompaniment patterns and apply these techniques to easy folk and popular songs—including those by Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, and more. The course will also lead students through a study of elementary music reading on the instrument, allowing them to acquire basic musicianship skills and play simple melodies from standard musical notation. This study will enable students to pick up a piece of sheet music and accurately follow its directions regarding form, chord symbols, and meter. We will also cover how to tune with and without a guitar tuner, change a string, use a pick, and when to use a capo. Toward the end, students will form small groups and play easy ensemble pieces together.