How To Study

Part 1: Starting to Improvise back to contents

This Course

• Get Access to the Online Version

• Who Should Study This Course?
• How Long Will It Take?
• How Should You Practice?
• Good Things to Study First
• Playing Posture

©1998-2024 Jim Gleason. All Rights Reserved.

page 2 How to Study This Course Part 1: Starting to Improvise back to contents

GET ACCESS TO THE ONLINE VERSION

The table of contents on the following pages shows the contents
of the entire course. It is over 3,700 pages with hundreds of hours
of audio and video online.
Access to the digital version of the print course, with links to online
audio and video content is free.
link for the entire course:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9qirb4mbnn9dush/gi.pdf?dl=1

link for individual chapters: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mjt1

AG2S84STby43wpUU3Enal2W5v1Hu/view?usp=drive_link

WHO SHOULD STUDY THIS COURSE?

This course is not for beginners. You need a little knowledge and ability before studying this course.
Usually a year or so of basic study is enough preparation.

HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE?

It’s really dependent on your quality of practice and intensity. You could go from beginner to performer
in a few years with good smart work.
Think of it as an ongoing study for the rest of your life. You’ll get deeper and deeper into it. Call it a
few thousand quality hours to get a thorough start on the entire course.

globalizing musical structure and design

View “Globalizing Musical Structure and Design” to see what is needed for each style.

©1998-2024 Jim Gleason. All Rights Reserved.

back to contents Part 1: Starting to Improvise How to Study This Course page 3

HOW SHOULD YOU PRACTICE?

High Quality Practice

“dialing up” the emotive intensity of your engagement like an actor

Control the intensity and tone of your practice like an actor calling up an emotion to play a part. Act
engaged and alert and you will be that way. Always think positive and “dial it up”.
Practice things you will actually use in playing music. You will do much better if you are engaged
in what you are doing. Choose pieces you can get into. Study a few pieces in a row that develop a
particular technique or design.
Breathe and use good posture.

repetitions geared for retention

repeating cycles Use high-intensity training as in sports. Practice something you can accomplish
within a ten or twenty minute session. You should usually practice repeating phrases that take under a
half minute to play once. Perform the phrase over and over with a high degree of focus.
During repetitions of a phrase or exercise, you will usually improve gradually. At some point you will
fatigue and start getting worse, usually after a few minutes Acknowledge the point of fatigue and rest
about half the time you practiced. Really rest, don’t play. Then repeat the cycle (repeat until fatigue,
then rest) five or ten times.
play enough cycles to retain Adjust the number of cycles (a set of a repeated event, followed by
rest) so you will remember the item the next time you practice. As you get to know your practice habits
you get better at predicting the necessary number of cycles for retention.

multiple contexts
Think the song in terms of how it makes you feel. What it sounds like. The melody. The chord
progression. The rhythm. The emotive curve, building to a climax near the end.
If you know the piece well in many of these contexts you’ll more easily retain it in your memory and
more fluently make enhancements to it.
Build modules into larger knowledge and ability. Break down things you are learning to do into small
units and plan on putting the units together. For example, memorize phrase by concentrating on the
note pattern with the fretting hand separately from picking or plucking hand. Do whichever first is
easier, then add the other. Build the phrases into an entire piece.

©1998-2024 Jim Gleason. All Rights Reserved.

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Avoid Redundancy and Memory Loss

To avoid redundancy and memory loss, wait an appropriate number of days to practice a song or study
again so you have no trouble remembering it and retaining proficiency at playing it. Don’t practice an
item too soon if there are other songs or studies that need work sooner. Technical studies need to be
practiced closer to daily.
Practice each item enough that you will remember it until the next time you practice. Learn to predict
how many times you need to repeat something in practice to remember it for a given number of days.
The number of repetitions would be different according to the difficulty of the piece and your goal
number of days. Hypothetically, if a particular person practiced a particular four bar section fifteen
times, and was therefore able to remember it for four days: in three days it would be redundant to
practice it and in five days you would experience some memory loss. The periods of time between
practice of any particular item should be of increasing lengths of time, as you build a stronger memory.
Practice each phrase with enough repetitions to remember it while you are working on the next phrase.
By studying multiple aspects of a piece such as technique, rhythm, phrasing and harmonic theory, you
build memories in different parts of your brain and therefore create a greater total awareness of the
piece.

Learn the Part Right in the First Place

Get it right in the first place. It is a waste of time to have to go back and re-learn parts.
Practice new material within 48 hours of a lesson or media study, preferably the same day as the lesson
or media. Use visual input (tablature, diagrams, standard notation or watching a video with cueing
ability) very carefully at first, while you are memorizing the part.

study techniques
Develop principles of study techniques and drills creatively to meet challenges in your playing of songs.
Isolate difficult sections and practice them slower at first. Isolate any difficult technique required for
each hand, such as practicing chord fingerings with a simple strum.
Learn to make up exercises to overcome difficult sections that trouble you. Break the troublesome part
down to components and work on each separately. For example, count and clap the rhythm. Go over
the fingering first without rhythm. Then put the two together. If a fretting technique is difficult for
you, make up an exercise for it. Always make your exercises musical, so they have some relationship to
something you will play.

©1998-2024 Jim Gleason. All Rights Reserved.

back to contents Part 1: Starting to Improvise How to Study This Course page 5

fingering
Carefully learn each note with good principles of fingering. Take advantage of the more capable fingers,
sometimes avoiding fretting with the little finger. When avoiding use of the little finger, you typically
will span two frets with the index and middle fingers, with an “empty” fret between then.
Prepare for the occasions when the little finger should be used by heightening the ability to fret with
the little finger. This is typical of more complex parts that use four consecutive frets on the same string
or patterns like whole step (two frets), half step (one fret) on one string and half step, whole step on the
next, as shown below in playing ascending notes from the second through first strings. It doesn’t matter
what position (fret) you play this at.

rhythm
If you are reading tablature or if you are reading music without a great reading ability, be sure to listen
to any available recordings to mimic the rhythm. Learn the placement of each note (or group of notes)
in relation to the beat. Progressively establish an even tempo.
In three steps: count the rhythm, then vocalize it, then memorize its sound. Start looking at the
standard music notation above the tablature to get graphic cues as to the duration of notes, even before
you completely understand how to read it.

Progressive Study
Work on music that is a little challenge for you, so you can accomplish in a few weeks at most. Start at
a tempo that is slow enough that you make 5-10% errors. Work until perfect, then increase the tempo
slightly. A phrase is around 8-20 events (notes or chords). Practice short phrases, then join them
together.

learning with recordings

• Play with the original recording slowed down enough to allow you to play with it. Gradually
increase the speed of the recording, so you can keep up with it.
• Learn to play the melody and chords separately first.
• If the part you are learning can be sung, sing it along with the original recording and sing the
before you play it on the guitar. Then play it while you are singing.

©1998-2024 Jim Gleason. All Rights Reserved.

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• If you can play the chord progression while singing the melody, do it.
media aids
Software can enable you to slow down songs, change them to the key you need or cue sections of the
songs for study.
On an Apple Macintosh computer, you can use Amazing Slow Downer at http://www.ronimusic.com
or Anytune at: https://anytune.us/products/anytune-for-mac
On a PC, you can use Windows Media Player as follows: Begin playing a file. Click the arrow below
the “now playing” tab, point to “enhancements”, and then click “play speed settings”. Move the “play speed”
slider to the speed at which you want to play the content, or click the “slow, normal, or fast” link. To
select speeds between the labeled play speeds, in the “enhancements” pane, clear the “snap” slider to
common speeds check box. To hide the settings, click the “close” button in the “enhancements” pane.
Play with a metronome https://www.onlinemetronome.app/80-bpm-metronome
Record yourself on one channel with the original recording on the other channel with software like
Garageband or Logic Pro X on Mac or with Pro Tools on PC (there’s a free version).

practice with a looper

It’s great to practice with a looper, especially if you re-record the accompaniment every time, so you get
better at it. My favorite loopers are the Boss RC-1. Boss RC-2 and the TC Electronics Flashback series.

©1998-2024 Jim Gleason. All Rights Reserved.

back to contents Part 1: Starting to Improvise How to Study This Course page 7

GOOD THINGS TO STUDY FIRST

Reading Tablature and Chord Diagrams
If you are not already able to read chord diagrams and tablature, see “Chord Diagram and Tablature
Quick Start”.

Chords and Scales

Your first approach to most songs should be strumming or plucking the chords and thinking the melody.
To be able to do this, study “Fingering Common Chords”. Use them in songs and in the progressions
used below in “Learning Keys With Chord Progression”.

Number and Letter Cycles

Study the number and letter cycles in Note Sets, Structures and Design. You should begin with stepwise,
thirds and fourths in numbers in the key of C (all natural notes). Then relearn to rotate each cycle so it
aligns each of the other keys with “1” in the cycle and apply the key signature. For example, the cycle of
thirds for D major would start with “D” at the “1” and cycle around with the letters “D-F-A-C-E-G-B
D”, just like the did in the C major cycle, except sharp the “C” and sharp the “F”.

Octave Shapes and Intervals

Learn at least to identify each of the five octave shapes. Learn the intervals necessary to construct a
major chord.

Rhythmic Words and Comping Rhythms

rhythmic words
Like the words that make up our verbal languages, music is made up of common short rhythms, which
I call rhythmic words. Start building your library of rhythms by memorizing the most common rhythmic
words to both recognize them when you need them in playing songs and to improvise rhythms in your
own accompaniment and solo parts.

comping rhythms
Comping rhythms are used to create accompaniment parts. Memorize them and learn to vary them.
You can memorize them by ear in the Comping Rhythms section of “Rhythmic Words And Comping”.
©1998-2024 Jim Gleason. All Rights Reserved.
page 8 How to Study This Course Part 1: Starting to Improvise back to contents

Major Scale Note Names

learn major scale note names first by playing chord progressions
Song are built with scales. Learn the names of the notes in each major scale by playing chord progressions
that each use a single major scale. Once you have many memories of chord progressions that each use
the notes of a major scale, the note names in every major scale can be more thoroughly memorized with
the system of key signatures.
The roots of the songs will teach you the names of the notes in each major scale, starting with chords
built on I, IV and V (the first, fourth and fifth steps of each of the keys). Then you can use them to
progressively use more keys and chords built on each of the steps of the scale. After I, IV and V, we’ll
first add VIm (six minor).
Learn the step to step intervals by number in major scales in the number and letter cycles section of
“Note Sets, Structure and Design”. III to IV is one fret. IV to V is two frets. V to VI is two frets, and
so on. Each major scale uses all seven letters, A through G. Each letter is used only once.
I, IV and V are easy to figure out in any key. You just need to get a sense of the notes that need sharps
or flats. IV to V is two frets, so if IV is B (as in the key of F#), V has to be C#, since B to C is only one
fret. In the key of F, IV has to be Bb, since III to IV needs to be one fret, III is A, so B has to be flat to
make it one fret from III to IV.
The chart below can be used to figure out each of these progressions in every key. The chart is in the
order of keys (going down vertically) you should use to learn the progressions in all keys.

major scale-tone triads in all keys

major scale-tone 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
major scale-tones 1, 3, 5 2, 4, 6 3, 5, 7 4, 6, 1 5, 7,2 6, 1, 3 7, 2, 4
quality major minor minor major major minor diminished
formula on root 1, 3, 5 1, b3, 5 1, b3, 5 1, 3, 5 1, 3, 5 1, b3, 5 1, b3, b5
roman numeral name I IIm IIIm IV V VIm VIIdim.

no sharps nor flats

literal names in C C Dm Em F G Am Bdim.

keys with sharps

literal names in G G Am Bm C D Em F#dim.
literal names in D D Em F#m G A Bm C#dim.
literal names in A A Bm C#m D E F#m G#dim.
literal names in E E F#m G#m A B C#m D#dim.

©1998-2024 Jim Gleason. All Rights Reserved.

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literal names in B Bb Cm Dm Eb F Gm Adim.

literal names in F# F# G#m A#m B C# D#m E#dim.
literal names in C# C# D#m E#m F# G# A#m B#dim.

keys with flats

literal names in F F Gm Am Bb C Dm Edim.
literal names in Bb Bb Cm Dm Eb F Gm Adim.
literal names in Eb Eb Fm Gm Ab Bb Cm Ddim.
literal names in Ab Ab Bb m Cm Db Eb Fm Gdim.
literal names in Db Db Eb m Fm Gb Ab Bb m Cdim.
literal names in Gb Gb Ab m Bb m Cb Db Eb m Fdim.

Learn the Minor Pentatonic Scale and a Few Licks

Short melodic ideas called licks, riffs, motifs or cells are the building blocks of improvisation by
ear. Cells are the shortest ones. You’ll learn to modify the ones you’ve memorized and adapt them to
fit on new songs.
Study some of the solos in “Improv Level 1-Improv By Ear”, learn a pentatonic scale fingering or two
and start experimenting with licks you’ll find in “Blues Rock and Swing Blues Cells”.

©1998-2024 Jim Gleason. All Rights Reserved.

page 10 How to Study This Course Part 1: Starting to Improvise back to contents

PLAYING POSTURE
I like the combination of my player-specific point of view on guitar playing posture and Ethan Kind’s
anatomical point of view. Ethan wrote a series of books, curiously available only in Kindle book format
on Amazon.com. You can get a free Kindle reader from Amazon for your PC or Mac. Check out An
Alexander Technique Approach to Jazz and Rock Guitar Technique.
Feel your body and relax all the muscles you don’t need for your activity. The most common cause
of fatigue, stress and injury on the guitar is caused by tightening muscles that you don’t need. Use only
the pressure needed for fretting, adequate tension for form, no more, no less.
Keep your lower back in its nearly straight, naturally-curved shape. Since you are reaching around in a
circular manner (seen from an aerial view), your upper back is slightly rounded. Your shoulders should
not be forward of the clavicle by more than about a half inch.
Keep the head of the guitar at least as high as the bridge. I keep the neck at more than 45º to the floor.

Sitting Posture
Sit where your knees are at least as high as your hips. The rounded part of the guitar in the middle of
its body is meant to rest on your leg. In classical guitar style, you can raise the knee on the fretting hand
side with a foot stool to allow the fretting hand arm to bend less at the wrist. Flamenco players put the
ankle on the fretting hand side on top the leg on the fretting hand side, just before the knee.
Using a foot stool or similar device, elevate your fretting-hand foot six to nine inches to raise your upper
leg on your fretting hand side. Put the other foot flat on the floor. I built a wood block assembly with
4”X4” wood, strapped it together with cable ties, screwed it to a 1” solid wood base. I got tired of foot
stools breaking.
Avoid bending your fretting-hand wrist. When you need to bend it, try to make it momentary.
Tilt the upper part of the guitar body toward you about two to six inches (from a vertical position).
Don’t lean over and look at the fretboard much. Learn to look at the edge of the fretboard and feel
where your fingers are on the fretboard. You won’t develop a good spacial sense otherwise.
Keep the neck of the guitar about one open hand span away from your fretting hand shoulder. This
will help in keeping your fretting hand wrist straight. Rather than keeping your fretting hand fingers
parallel to the frets, generally play with your fingers angled to the frets about 10º to 20º, so the tip of the
index finger is right up against the fret, but the base of the index finger is over half way toward the next
fret on the head side. This is very similar to the fingering hand posture of a violinist.

©1998-2024 Jim Gleason. All Rights Reserved.

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tweaking of the distance between the neck and the fretting hand shoulder
The distance can be tweaked by fretting four-finger G chord (sixth through first string GBDGDG),
then moving it to the seventh fret (first finger at the seventh fret). Start with the neck three or four
inches from your fretting hand shoulder. Unless you have extreme hyper-extension in your fingers (one
of my students can bend each finger tip to a full 90º!), when you get to around six to ten inches between
your fretting hand shoulder and the guitar neck, the fifth string should become muted by the fretting
hand second finger. Find the “tipping point” distance where this begins and use the distance and inch or
two closer to your shoulder as a safety margin.

Standing Posture
Sitting posture should generally mimic standing posture in regard to the angle of the neck, the distance
from the fretting-hand shoulder and the distance in tilting the guitar back from the imaginary vertical
plane.
Most of us sit too much. I had major back surgery a few years ago, primarily caused by too much sitting.
Alternate your playing between sitting and standing. Take a five minute break every 20-30 minutes.

©1998-2024 Jim Gleason. All Rights Reserved.

page 12 How to Study This Course Part 1: Starting to Improvise back to contents

©1998-2024 Jim Gleason. All Rights Reserved.