The first lesson went well. The teacher's pretty organized - we already have all the music for the course, and she'll be e-mailing around mp3s of examples of her playing and singing along with the various songs we'll be working with. She has a good policy for those who have to miss a class - she'll do phone calls to go over the basics of the class with you, so you don't fall too far behind, and is open to calls with questions before 9 PM on weeknights.
The teacher's nice. A little... hippy-dippy (which is understandable, given the venue), and fairly chatty (which is probably a good thing, in that as beginners our fingers are not up to an hour-plus of solid playing). There are four students in the class, and the overall atmosphere is very no-pressure.
We covered (in no particular order), the chromatic scale (which was actually the last thing we touched on), A, E, and D-major chords, to construct the background for Amazing Grace.
Got a mnemonic for the strings that, due to the presentation, I won't be able to forget - Every Acid Dealer Gets Busted Eventually. This was relevant because it lead to an "Aha!" moment.
Most of the online and book lessons I have seen may mention the string names in passing to start, but then move on to using numbers. This is a practical approach, as what the student probably wants to learn is which finger goes on what string on which fret. If you number the strings, you can say, "First finger, second string, third fret" and the student knows what to do. If you said, "Index finger, A-string, third fret," the student has to think more.
This teacher continued to talk string names. And I went, "Oh, wait! So the chord is named for the lowest note in the chord!" (I know, this is not strictly true - it is merely true for the forms of the chords we are being taught so far). This ends up being useful for me to know where to start strumming. Later, when dealing with six-string chords, this won't hold any more...
Every Adult Dog Growls, Barks, Eats is also good.
And yes, the lowest note in the chord is essentially the root note. When playing power chords, that's where you are anchoring your index finger.
When a song's key is set, that's likely the lowest note.
When you play a scale for a solo for a song in a key, that's the root note for the scale.
For chords, where it won't hold anymore that the lowest note is the root is because the notes wrap around. And because of that, lower versions of the same valid notes for a given chord can be used (rather than always choosing higher ones than the root).
This becomes more obvious when you learn what notes are in a scale for a given key (how to compute that), and then see those notes can be hit from all over, relative to the root note. This becomes the shopping list of what notes to can be used for a Chord.
What I did to help reinforce the notes and numbered positions was an mental exercise when I was laying in bed waiting to fall asleep (the musical equivalent of counting sheep).
visualize the guitar neck from the headstock to the 12th fret (the 12th fret is just a repeat from the top, so ignore it for now).
Now go through the EADGBE to identify which string is which. This helps reinforce what string to pluck when somebody says "A String or Play a D.")
Then, mentally identify where each note is on each string. Start with the big fat E string (string 1).
E is open
F is 1
F# is 2
G is 3
G# is 4
A is 5
A# is 6
B is 7
C is 8
C# is 9
D is 10
D# is 11
E is 12
Notice how E/F and B/C are adjacent (no Sharp/Flat between them). That's important as it forms an important component of what notes are in scales relative to what key you are in.
Also notice how Fret 5 is A, which is the next string. When you perform the count-down on the A string, you'll see how D is at the 5th fret.
Anyway, if you work through that exercise every night, you'll know where everything is on the fret board when somebody calls out to do something. On Bass, this is very handy, because I can look at the Chord progression of a song, and just bang out those notes on a 4-count and play along while keeping time without really knowing anything else. All because I know where the notes are.
