Week 17: choose a piece, and map it before you learn it
Week seventeen of a 32-week guitar practice path, and the first of the repertoire half: picking a piece and taking its shape apart before a note of it.
- Week
- 17 of 32
- Days
- 7
- Played as
- blues or rock
The first sixteen weeks taught devices. From here the material is real music you choose yourself, because a player who owns the devices and still cannot play anything end to end has vocabulary without sentences — which is what the intermediate plateau actually is.
Nothing is handed to you this week except a method. Count the form, find the key by ear, name the sections, and only then start learning notes. Blues counts bars and looks for the quick change; rock names sections and looks for where the riff stops. Both are the same question: what shape is this, before I try to play it?
Blues treatment
Choose a piece and map it: the form, the key, and where its sections turn
Pick with three questions: do you actually love it, is it mostly within reach with one or two things that are not, and does it have a solo you would want to play. A piece slightly above you is a month well spent; one far above you is a month of frustration and a piece you quietly abandon.
Then map it before you touch a note of it. Count the bars out loud from the top — most of what you will choose is a 12-bar, but check rather than assume, because the quick change, an extra turnaround and stop-time bars are exactly where a tune gets its character. Find the key by humming the note it resolves to and locating it on the low E. A form you have counted is a form you can find your way back into when you lose your place mid-song.
The daily session · ~25 min
- Warm upHands, then ears on the record4 min
- Pick the pieceThree questions4 min
- Count the formBars, not notes6 min
- Find the keyBy ear, then check it6 min
- Jam, play the changes onlyNothing but the form5 min
Check yourself
- Name the key of your piece without looking it up.
- Count the form out loud from the top without losing your place.
- Play nothing but the changes, along with the record, for a full chorus.
Reference
Rock treatment
Choose a song and map it: the riff, the sections, and the key it all sits in
Pick with three questions: do you love the riff, is it mostly within reach with one thing that is not, and is there a solo or lead break. In a rock song the riff is the thing you will play a hundred times, so liking it is not a small consideration.
Then map it before you play it. Name every section out loud as it arrives — intro, verse, chorus, bridge, solo, outro — and count the bars in each; rock sections are usually 4, 8 or 16 and the exceptions are the interesting part. Nearly every rock song is a handful of blocks in a repeating order, and once you have the order you can never truly get lost.
The daily session · ~25 min
- Warm upHands, then ears on the record4 min
- Pick the songThree questions4 min
- Map the sectionsIntro, verse, chorus, break6 min
- Find the keyBy ear, then check it6 min
- Jam, the riff onlyIn time, all the way through5 min
Check yourself
- Name the key of your song without looking it up.
- Name every section in order and say how many bars each one is.
- Play the main riff along with the record every time it comes round.
Reference
How the week runs
Whichever accent you pick, the material stays the same for all 7 days and the tempo and intent move. Day one takes it slowly, day two chases clean notes, day three brings it to target tempo and into the jam, day four pushes past comfortable, and day five drops back to tempo to record and listen. Days six and seven are yours.
You can switch accent any day without losing your place — it is the same week either way, so week 17 means the same thing in both.