BUILD SOLID MUSICAL SKILLS IMPROVISE WITH FREEDOM

The majority of guitar players — even advanced ones — struggle to play fully-improvised solos over chord changes. They struggle to outline the harmony of the passing changes in their solo; moreover they struggle to use the chord changes as a medium to tell their story.

Somehow soloing over Chord Changes is a vastly blurry topic for most guitar players. Basically, most guitarists know what chords they are playing only when they play the chords themselves (rhythm guitar), but when it comes to soloing, most guitarists wildly underestimate the value and the importance of the chord progression that they are soloing over. This is one of the biggest blindspots that MGL brings to the surface and to the attention of fellow aspiring guitar improvisers. Becoming confident and fluent when soloing over chord changes lies at the core of the MGL methods and of the training that our students go through.

Intermediate & advanced guitar players who are struggling to improvise fluently and freely are all facing the same problem (whether they realize it or not). Their learning process relies purely on memorizing shapes and geometrical patterns through what I call the “Parrot Mindset” — they will not understand what they are doing or why they are doing it. When something works they don’t know why it worked, when something doesn’t work they also don’t know why. And this is mainly because their process relies purely on muscle memory through the usage of TABs & Diagrams (or even Standard Notation, but more rarely) and without knowing the real essence of the Harmonic and the Melodic ingredients that they learn.

In order to understand this to its full extent, you need to imagine a chef who only knows how to cook by memorizing specific recipes by heart (or by reading them on the spot), without truly knowing the unique taste of each ingredient isolated from the rest — and without knowing the purpose that each ingredient serves in the grand scheme of the overall recipe.

How possible — or easy — would it be for this chef to try some brand new idea and cook improvised food that actually tastes great?

Chord-Melody means to be able to play melodies and chords — at the same time. The electric guitar is clearly a polyphonic instrument, just like the piano. But the thing is, while the majority of piano players do that from their early beginning stages (playing melodies & chords at the same time is something that piano players learn to do from their very first lessons), the majority of electric guitarists don’t really do that — even when they reach the “advanced” stage after several years of playing the instrument.

Since the guitar is a proper polyphonic instrument, a guitar player who wants to be liberated and fluent on the instrument needs to be able to take their favorite songs and play the vocal melody together with the chords simultaneously on their guitar — with good timing/groove and good sound.

A massive blind spot (perhaps the biggest one) for most intermediate guitarists is that their timing is “shaky”. The minute they switch a position on the fretboard or try to play something slightly uncomfortable — or perhaps something unplanned — they will start dragging behind or rushing ahead of the beat. Furthermore, they usually play only basic rhythms that focus heavily on the downbeats and find it really hard to play syncopated rhythms (syncopation means to play notes that don’t fall on the downbeat but in the “space” between the downbeats). It is vital for a good musician to be able to play freely with the sub-divisions.

One way to tell straight away is when a guitarist jams with a drummer who likes to play creatively by utilizing rich, playful and syncopated rhythmic patterns that deviate from the expected and standard drum patterns. A guitar player with weak — or perhaps basic — rhythmic skills will find it exceptionally hard to stay on the beat and to jam properly or comfortably in this situation.

No matter how well a guitarist learns the fretboard or how excellent one’s technique is, if one doesn’t have a strong sense of rhythm & timing, then whatever they play will always lack confidence, clarity and strong intention.

Most electric guitar players come from a Rock / Blues (or perhaps Metal) background and therefore whenever they play other styles of music such as Funk, Jazz, Fusion, Bossa Nova, Soul, Rhythm & Blues, or even Reggae, they end up sounding like a Rock player when playing these styles.

We basically need to learn how to speak the “language” of each style — and how to create all these little nuances that will enable us to play faithfully to each style. And this is such a vital issue because playing a variety of genres and making your guitar playing adapt to the language of each style offers a musician a great deal of freedom and a deeper connection to the overall language of music.

Most people who learn the electric guitar do it in a self-taught manner or with limited sporadic lessons, and this usually causes them to stay unfocused and unstructured for several years (sometimes decades) and to jump aimlessly between different topics. Therefore they develop a wide variety of non-beneficial habits which in return causes them to plateau and stay stuck.

But musical practice is not supposed to be like that. It is an art in itself, a form of meditation that causes the human brain to create incredible new neuron connections. It would make complete sense to say that musicians who practice properly truly expand their human horizons.

A student who joins MGL gets proper training on realizing what their ineffective habits are and how to re-configure them to their own benefit. Furthermore, MGL students get trained on how to practice in a goal-oriented, result-based, focused and structured manner that prioritizes efficiency, time-saving and real benefit.

The problem begins with lack of structure. When the algorithm of YouTube, Facebook Groups, Instagram Reels — and god forbid TikTok — dictates and directs your practice “curriculum” and the pathway of your musical studies, you are not growing as a musician, you are just getting lost, detoured and overwhelmed by the fragmented overinformation.

Self-taught guitarists who use the freebies on the internet as their main way to grow their musical skills will often feel lost or stuck, and usually that’s due to the fact that this way of learning does not provide a clear Roadmap. Jumping from one random YouTube lesson to another is not the solution to the problem (even if these lessons are actually good), nor is it to seek for answers & tips from random people on FB groups. All of these just add to the overall feeling of overwhelm and to the lack of direction — there is no clear pathway, only scattered dots that never connect.

Guitarists who want to truly reach their full potential need the real solution of a structured curriculum where the lessons/steps within it build incrementally on each other to connect the dots and provide powerful learning. That’s how you clearly see the Big Picture.

There are several online automated video guitar courses out there that do indeed provide guitar students with a structured curriculum — and that’s a good (and cheap) alternative to the no-cost videos from YouTube that cause the learner to be overwhelmed by the noise and stuck by the lack of structure.

However, the problem with these automated paid courses is that they are 100% passive learning: the student only receives guidance and never interacts with the teacher. The teacher is always talking to the student through a pre-recorded video and never listens or watches the student in order to spot errors and in order to identify the bad habits that need to be addressed for the student to be able to progress. Therefore the guidance is generic and not personalized. No coaching, no accountability, no focus on the problem that the individual is facing. And that is the reason why most of the people who buy these courses never actually complete them.

On the other hand, when a guitar student gets personal guidance and coaching from their mentor, this is the only solid way to ensure that the real issues of the student will actually be addressed.

In musical growth, just like with so many other different fields of life, people usually need someone that they are accountable to, otherwise they easily get lost, distracted and end up postponing their progress indefinitely. You know how the story goes… First you say “I’ll do it tomorrow”, then tomorrow becomes next week, next week becomes next month, next month becomes next year, and before you even realize, an entire decade has passed and you haven’t made the musical progress that you really wanted.

Even when you have access to all the information (online courses/books/etc.), nothing really beats the feeling of being accountable to your mentor and making sure that you prepare and work on whatever your mentor has given you — before you show up at the next meeting.

Therefore in MGL we take the concept of accountability really seriously, because we know how powerful and effective it can be for an individual’s musical growth. We have built a state of the art “Practice Log” that works as a refined and powerful environment for the student and the teacher to collaborate in an efficient way; we send regular personal reminders to our students to help them stay on track (optional, only if the student requests it) and we encourage them to submit weekly — or even daily — videos of their progress so that their progress can be evaluated week after week.

Finally, perhaps needless to mention, as their mentor I see my students in the live Zoom classes and check in on them regularly. Nothing beats live — on the spot — personalized guidance from an experienced professional… Human Being (!)

If we don’t have each other in the musician community, we don’t have anything. Music, deep in its historical core, is largely a tribal and social form of art.

It is true that aspiring guitarists who want to reach a high level of musicianship generally need to isolate themselves and practice in solitude for several hours (woodshedding), however this is only half the story. The other half lies in the connections that we make through music and in being able to communicate to the world who we really are deep inside us, through our music.

Therefore, because we understand the importance and value of community in one’s personal musical journey, in MGL we have created an “inner circle” of like-minded guitarists who support each other and, most importantly, inspire each other.

One small example that makes all the difference in the world: every week I personally give a WEEKLY IMPROV CHALLENGE to our “inner circle” members and ask whoever wants to submit a video of their improvisation in our inner circle group channel. Everyone can watch everyone’s video, and offer or receive supportive feedback. Sometimes the Weekly Challenge is to collaborate with each other and create a piece of music — or an improvised solo together — in pairs or in groups. Our students don’t only learn from their mentor, but they also learn from — and with — each other.

This was just one example out of many. We also do Weekly Ear Training Sessions, Improv Workshops and much more… Our MGL inner circle basically functions as an inspiring & supportive environment for each individual.