1 The 7 Steps To Guitar Mastery (+ NGA Guitar Map) CONTENTS PAGE 1) Welcome 2 2) My Mission 3 3) Why Did I Create This? 4 4) Step 1: The Fundamentals 6 5) Step 2: Chords 7 6) Step 3: Musicality 9 7) Step 4 & 5: Scales and lead 10 8) Step 6: Theory 11 9) Step 7: The Dark Arts 12 10) The Guitar Map 14 AllRightsReserved 2015NationalGuitarAcademy www.nationalguitaracademy.com
2 Welcome Hi, my name is Mike Kennedy, I m the Director of the National Guitar Academy. I ve been playing and teaching guitar for over twenty years and through those tens of thousands of hours I ve learned what gets results for fast. I was in a rock band for most of my twenties, then I started a guitar teaching school (the Chester Guitar Academy) and in 2015 I founded the National Guitar Academy. Want to know more about me and how the National Guitar Academy can help you? Go to: www.nationalguitaracademy.com/about-us AllRightsReserved 2015NationalGuitarAcademy www.nationalguitaracademy.com
3 My Mission My mission is pretty simple: I want the National Guitar Academy to become the best guitar tuition business in the world and something you enjoy being part of. Let s create a place that s just for people like you and me. A place that profits by putting people first. A place with no internet snarkiness or negativity A place where peaceful, helpful musicians can unite with like-minded souls. A place to escape our celebrity-obsessed TV screens & enjoy REAL music A place where you can enjoy world-class guitar teaching programmes and bliss out to the pure joy of music. I hope that sounds like something you want to be part of. Let s get started AllRightsReserved 2015NationalGuitarAcademy www.nationalguitaracademy.com
4 Why Did I Create The 7 Steps To Guitar Mastery Framework? I created this to help my students. Here are some of the most common things that new students say to us when they first get in touch: I don t understand how things fit together I feel like I m just trying random things and I m not really progressing I don t know what I should be learning next These comments all express a similar feeling don t they? That feeling is disorientation. Perhaps the best definition of this came from a student who told me: I feel like I m trying to fill in a jigsaw without knowing what the overall picture is. What a great description I created the 7 Steps framework & guitar map to help people stop feeling like this. AllRightsReserved 2015NationalGuitarAcademy www.nationalguitaracademy.com
About The 7 Steps To Guitar Mastery 5 This is a framework I created so my students could clearly visualize the bigger picture of their guitar journey. I wanted people to have a clear overview, so they could easily see what to learn next. The seven steps is a framework that you can follow along your guitar journey. And it is a journey. (One that never really ends. I m still learning stuff now, every day.) These are the 7 things you must master if you want to be able to confidently say I can play guitar. If any one of these 7 steps are missing, then you ll have flaws in your knowledge and/or technique that will prevent you from progressing. Think of this as a roadmap you can follow. Sure you can go off-road, there are no absolute rules in music, but I want you to have something you can return to when you want to get back on track and continue progressing along your guitar journey. AllRightsReserved 2015NationalGuitarAcademy www.nationalguitaracademy.com
6 Step 1) Setup Correctly: Make Things As Easy As Possible By Mastering The Fundamentals Of all the 7 steps, this is the most important one. These are like the foundations of your house. If the foundations aren t solid, everything else will be wonky. These are the fundamentals: The most important fundamentals are highlighted here in yellow. These are the least sexy elements of playing the guitar, yet they make the biggest difference. Dismiss these things as your peril. If you take only 1 thing from this report it should be to spend time checking out your posture and wrist and forearm placement. You probably think these things are fine (everyone thinks they re fine), but if you re progressing slowly, 99 times out of 100 it s due to problems in these areas. If these areas aren t in good shape you will never be able to play the guitar well. AllRightsReserved 2015NationalGuitarAcademy www.nationalguitaracademy.com
7 Step 2) Chords: Get Comfy With Chord Technique & Transitions For your first 20-30 hours of guitar playing you should focus on playing chords. Good chord knowledge makes all lead guitar & scale work easier & helps bring all music theory to life. Playing chords is the best way to develop your control and dexterity. When you begin learning guitar, start with chords. Here s some easy chords you should learn and a few fundamentals you must know. We ll teach you all this stuff over time. The yellow things here are the most important of all. (For many people, learning the universal strumming pattern is a game-changer.) AllRightsReserved 2015NationalGuitarAcademy www.nationalguitaracademy.com
8 Once you have the fundamentals down you can move on to more intermediate chordbased stuff, like this: Moveable E shapes and A shapes are vital as they act as your bridge into moving from open chords to barre chords. This is when music theory starts to reap rewards. (More on that later.) We ll run you through the CAGED system soon, which is always an eye opener for players with poor chord awareness. Again, we ll teach you all this stuff. Don t feel overwhelmed, this isn t a race and you ll get to it all in time AllRightsReserved 2015NationalGuitarAcademy www.nationalguitaracademy.com
9 Step 3) Boost Your Musicality: Improve Your Groove & Bring Everything To Life This is a critical point in your guitar journey and it s the point when a lot of people sadly abandon their goal of learning the guitar. Have you been at this point? The point where you know a few chords, but it just doesn t sound musical and you slowly stop playing the guitar as it s become a game of diminishing returns. You re putting the practice time in, but you just don t feel you re getting any better. Can you relate to this? You need a musicality boost You need to learn some tricks that bring your chord playing to life. This is one of the most fun steps of them all, as you get almost instant results. It s such a thrill to see people come alive as a tidal wave of musicality is unleashed in their guitar playing. I love it AllRightsReserved 2015NationalGuitarAcademy www.nationalguitaracademy.com
10 Step 4 & 5) Scales & Lead Guitar: Learn To Play Heroic Riffs, Licks & Solos For a lot of people, this is WHY they wanted to play the guitar in the first place. And I understand why. The giddy highs of lead guitar are guitar nirvana. Start off with this stuff: Then move on to this stuff: I ll run you through all of this over the coming weeks and months. Scales and lead are easy to learn, but you need to know some basic tips to make things sound good consistently. AllRightsReserved 2015NationalGuitarAcademy www.nationalguitaracademy.com
11 Step 6) Dark Arts: Revealing The Tricks Of The Trade Yeeeeaaahhhhh This is the juice dude Now we re talking These are the tricks of the trade, techniques and tips that don t really fit into any category, but are vital to the experience. Learning this stuff is essential if you want to add a layer of polish to how you play the guitar. I ll run you through all this stuff in future emails. It s gonna be a blast AllRightsReserved 2015NationalGuitarAcademy www.nationalguitaracademy.com
12 Step 7) Understand Music Theory & Keys Music theory is a black hole. You can go as deep as you want with this stuff. You don t have to become a boffin or jazz nerd, but if you want to be an accomplished guitarist, someone who can improvise and jam confidently with other musicians, then you need to know at least SOME theory. Do you know this stuff yet? Once you ve got the basics down you can progress to more advanced topics like this: Most guitarists shy away from learning music theory as it seems too dry. Don t be like them Theory is the key that unlocks the skills of improvisation. All guitarists need to know some theory, but for lead guitarists in particular, it is essential. A little theory goes a long way. AllRightsReserved 2015NationalGuitarAcademy www.nationalguitaracademy.com
13 The 7 Steps To Guitar Mastery Guitar Map On the next page you ll see a summary of all 7 steps. Take a few minutes to look it over. Can you see areas where you know you re weak? QUESTION: What holes do you have in your guitar knowledge? AllRightsReserved 2015NationalGuitarAcademy www.nationalguitaracademy.com
14 The 7 Steps To Guitar Mastery Guitar Map Want to download a higher-resolution PDF copy of this? Click here: http://nationalguitaracademy.com/guitarmap [QUICKTIP: Print the PDF and use it as a handy reference as you move along your guitar journey.] AllRightsReserved 2015NationalGuitarAcademy www.nationalguitaracademy.com
15 What do you think? I hope you ve found this overview useful? Did you spot any holes in your guitar knowledge? I hope you now have a better understanding of what the whole guitar world looks like and that you have some ideas for things that you can work on next? The 7 Steps Of Guitar Mastery is a framework that underpins everything that the National Guitar Academy does. This is our tuition framework. There are hundreds or lessons that sit within each area, but I really hope you ve enjoyed this quick overview If you liked this free report and want to be the first to know when we release new guitar tutorials please consider subscribing to our new YouTube channel and liking our new Facebook page. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nationalguitaracademy YouTube: http://nationalguitaracademy.com/youtube AllRightsReserved 2015NationalGuitarAcademy www.nationalguitaracademy.com
16 Can you help me out? Here s the thing amigo. I need your help. Me and my team of guitar ultra-ninjas know the answers to every guitar question that you have. In our videos, podcasts and lessons we try to do a great job of giving you those answers. But if there s something that s not clear to you, if there s something that doesn t make sense please tell us. Also, if you spot a technical problem, please tell us. Drop us a note via our contact page at http://nationalguitaracademy.com/contact-us/ or email me directly at mike@nationalguitaracademy.com, thank you so much AllRightsReserved 2015NationalGuitarAcademy www.nationalguitaracademy.com
17 We want our stuff to blow you away We re not interested in making stuff that s just ok. We want to make the absolute best stuff that we can. We want to create your dream-solution and teach you guitar fast. We can only do this with your feedback, so please speak up. You (yes YOU) are important to us. So let s make this a two-way street Thank you so much for your support, we appreciate it enormously and we are so grateful that you have let us into your life. Much love dudes, see you soon. Mike Kennedy AllRightsReserved 2015NationalGuitarAcademy www.nationalguitaracademy.com
18 www.nationalguitaracademy.com AllRightsReserved 2015NationalGuitarAcademy www.nationalguitaracademy.com