I am taking a 6-week break from Michael's site. Last summer, owing to Covid19, the only camp I could find was on classical music. I did not have a nylon-string guitar but I used my acoustic and recorded in my own backyard (the camp was online). A rock-loving girl doing classical music, but it was a blast! Jacques Offenbach is extraordinary. The Finale from Orpheus is better known as the Cancan dance. I got to play that too, but I uploaded one of the Valses.

I am attending the camp again this summer, this time in person. One needs good reading skills: I am staring at a script. They are kind of easy to acquire. No, it does not mean you suddenly become Mozart, don't be fooled by what you read online. Understanding music theory is much more than that and getting to the level of Michael is a life-long adventure (even for Michael).

I had an audition, followed by a recital, followed by a talent show, but mostly this exercise was quite difficult. Hence the delay. If you don't believe the difficulty, watch my reaction at 6:30 in the video.

I do the 3 exercises at 120 bpm in the second half. In the first half, I note that such exercises are not only about pull-offs and hammer-ons, but more so about finger coordination. To do pull-offs a guitarist must first become comfortable moving more than one finger simultaneously to a new string (as I discussed in a previous video submission https://youtu.be/6f3eNW-58Vo).

In this exercise, I am wondering why Michael has considered this lesson. I am also featuring some cool Guitargate merchandise (hard to find; google "Guitargate merch" not "Michael Palmisano merch").

I play Michael's waltz and Michael's blues. Really, I explain that triplets appear in these two kinds of music as either triples of beats (in the waltz) or triples of subdivisions called shuffles (in the blues). I provide examples using one of Michael's exercises.

This is my cover of Enter Sandman, with Tommaso on the drums (in response to Michael's "learn songs you love along the way. I'd love to see you post more of those"). I hope future covers will feature Mia on vocals.

My name is Alexandra and I am 11 years old. Now, back to taking 1 beat and dividing it into 3 equal parts (Michael's THE GUITAR TRAINING COURSE: Triplet Subdivisions).

The solo has plenty of 1/8 and 1/16th played at 123 bpm. This is what Michael's exercise does to you!

I joined forces with Tommaso (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCjFdVx-q52FNOQUEnNzgYA), who plays phenomenal drums.

I cycle through whole, half, quarter, eighth, and sixteenth note values in a simple 4/4 meter with beats marked by a metronome set at 90 bpm. This is a long exercise, often boring. I use a clean guitar tone with wide vibrato on some of the slow notes to provide some excitement (that only a mom --- I mean guitarist --- could love). I now think Gilmore got his tone following such an exercise.

I use Enter Sandman to illustrate the usefulness of Michael's accenting exercises for creative purposes.

This exercise is done again with distortion and palm muting. I added the guitar intro to Enter Sandman at the end, to showcase these effects. I will cover the song with my drummer in a week or two.

I am accenting the second beat by adding a bit of vibrato and palm-muting the others. The metronome marks the first beat in the quadruple meter. I am using the tritone spider crawl exercise.

I used my electric guitar. I noticed that my nylon-string acoustic is much more willing to reproduce changes in the dynamics (that is, playing louder or softer) than steel-string guitars do. Does Trigger hold the key to this exercise?

This is an older post, which I repost because it seems more appropriate for this course. I show a simple variation on Michael's exercise that may help guard against the natural tendency of flying the fretting fingers, especially the pinky, away from the fretboard.

Well, definitely harder on the right hand than the previous exercise.

I used my nylon-string acoustic for a change. The higher action makes it a bit harder to respect the tempo at 2 notes per beat.

The exercise at 120 bpm, with 1 note per beat toward the bridge and 2 notes per beat toward the nut.

Here's my performance of the national anthem when I was in the third grade. The Stratocaster (at least my Staggocaster knock-off) deals easily with distortion. Place the pickup selector switch in the 2nd or 4th positions, especially if you turn off the noise gate, as I did to enable some feedback.

I point out and illustrate that position 2 and 4 on the selector switch activates hum cancellation on a Stratocaster. I use those two positions a lot with distortion and high-gain amplifiers.

Up One Down One at 120 bpm, 1 note per beat toward bridge and 2 notes per beat toward nut.

Just the exercise at 120 bpm: 1 note per beat going toward the bridge and 2 notes per beat going toward the nut.

I am presenting a variation of Michael's exercise in which the player has at least 2 fingers on the fretboard at all times (except when not possible at all). For very beginners, keeping two or more fingers on the fretboard and/or transferring pressure from one finger to another (lifting one finger while lowering another) is hard, because it requires finger independence. But it is a skill that is needed for chords, pull-offs, or just economy of motion. So good luck training to acquire the skill. The variation is intended as a training tool to be practiced at low speed (40 - 80 bpm). I start at 60 bpm and then I accelerate to keep the video short, but I've been playing guitar almost daily for over 4 years. Speed is not important at this stage.

I am Alexandra. I am giving some guitar tuning tips I wish I knew when I started out learning the guitar.

I am presenting my four guitars.