New Year, New Routine

In this masterclass, Jamie McLean takes viewers through a comprehensive guide to establishing a new practice routine for the new year, emphasizing the importance of consistency and focused practice. He begins by discussing the significance of active listening, encouraging musicians to start their practice sessions by engaging deeply with music, noting how different instruments interact and how these observations can seep into one’s playing. Jamie then transitions into warming up with scales and modes, demonstrating how to play them forward and back and introducing patterns to make scale practice more musical.

Following the discussion on scales, Jamie shifts focus to chord inversions and the essential theory musicians should familiarize themselves with, including memorizing notes on the fretboard. He emphasizes the utility of knowing major and minor chords, seventh chords, and their inversions across the fretboard for enhancing one’s ability to play rhythm and lead. Jamie also touches on the importance of alternate picking and how it integrates into scale and chord practice to develop a more versatile technique.

Lastly, Jamie dives into the art of transcribing music by ear, stressing how this practice can greatly improve musical ear training and overall musicianship. He shares personal anecdotes and tips on starting with identifying the key of a song and determining whether it’s major or minor, then finding the root notes and matching them on the guitar. Jamie encourages learners to take it slow, focus on accuracy over speed, and gradually incorporate more complex elements like bends and riffs into their practice. The masterclass wraps up with Jamie expressing openness to reviewing practice videos from students and the possibility of dedicating a future class to transcribing music.