Rock School Gradings

Clarky

Clarky said:

I'm taking one of my students through rock school grade 5 right now..

it's pretty good fun actually..

he passed today…

yaaaayyyyy ! ! !

Phil_aka_Pip

@Clarky excellent!

hubobulous

That's great, congrats. I'm thinking about these too. Good for focus in practising when I want a diversion from band rehearsal material

Georgie

omg - how amazing!! Well I now use Grade 2 as my warm up and now trying to construct a solo for grade 4.
I will need to do a mock exam first though coz I don't understand the riff/improvise bit. I get the scales and the ear tests bit.

Clarky

I'm well proud of him for passing.. it's so cool..

@Georgie I don't know the grade 4 stuff.. what is being asked of you with the riff/ improv thing?

Georgie

It is in the technical exercises bit that you use the cd for after the set pieces. It is on the grade 2 syllabus.

Phil_aka_Pip

@Georgie are you skipping G3?

Georgie

Yeah my teacher says to put in for my grade 2 for the experience of doing an exam. Then because I only want gradings for a label for auditions for a band - grade 4 is the first one where you construct a solo so will be a good point to end on.

Clarky

ahh... just took a look on the website.. and it seem that the only way for me to find out what's required is t buy the book..

I can imagine though that a riff improve would require you to create a simple riff [learn a simple riff that's been given to you] and then they'd ask you to make it fit a short chord progression..

so for example.. if you riff was in Am, started with the notes A, B, C, and the chord progression was Am ' ' ' I Dm ' ' ' I Am ' ' '  I Em ' ' ' I

your riff could be A, B, C, then D, E, F, then A, B, C then E, F, G so you're lil' riff follows the chord changes.

I'm not saying that this is exactly what's being asked of you cos I've not read the book, however, in grade 5 there is a lil' funky thing that's a bit like this.. essentially: "come up with a groove and then make it fit this chord progression"

what you are demonstrating is that you can create a small idea and then make it fit over different chords

Georgie

Brill thanks for this.

Clarky

no charge.. lmao

mike_l

Clarky said:

Clarky said:

I'm taking one of my students through rock school grade 5 right now..

it's pretty good fun actually..

he passed today…

yaaaayyyyy ! ! !

I blame the teacher.

 

 

>:D<

Clarky

mike_l said:

Clarky said:

Clarky said:

I'm taking one of my students through rock school grade 5 right now..

it's pretty good fun actually..

he passed today…

yaaaayyyyy ! ! !

I blame the teacher.

 

 

>:D<

haa.. cool ain't it…

funny.. I feel like I've just passed something myself in an odd sort of way..

I've taught / coached loads of players, but never had one put himself through an exam before..

mike_l

I can understand the feeling of passing something yourself.

I've had a couple of apprentices work with me, when they finish and are fully qualified it does feel like you've taught them well, and are also being tested.

Phil_aka_Pip

Georgie said:

Yeah my teacher says to put in for my grade 2 for the experience of doing an exam. Then because I only want gradings for a label for auditions for a band - grade 4 is the first one where you construct a solo so will be a good point to end on.

That's OK as far as it goes, but if you need to be taught theory as well (assuming you don't already know it - apologies for insulting your abilities if you already do) then there's enough theory available to back up each grade with - if your teacher is any good - to keep you fully occupied at each grade unless you're an extremely quick learner. G3 is the first grade in which you get asked to make anything up IIRC, and therefore is a gentler introduction to improvisation than jumping straight into G4. Higher grades have even more pupil-generated content. There's improv, and there's pre-planned solos. When they say "solo" in a set piece they don't necessarily mean improv. You're allowed to plan it, and there's nothing to stop you writing out every single dot if you want to. However improv means you need to be able to condense all that thinking you did in planning a solo for a set piece into a simple gut reaction for a chord progression and rhythm that you've only seen for the first time and they give you 90 sec to prepare.

And before Frankus tells you you don't need theory - ignore him! You do, except that the more used you get to doing this sort of thing the less you will consciously think about it, and then you'll be where Frankus thinks you should be - doing it without thinking. However there's no short cut.

Clarky

mike_l said:

I can understand the feeling of passing something yourself.

I've had a couple of apprentices work with me, when they finish and are fully qualified it does feel like you've taught them well, and are also being tested.

now that he's passed [mission accomplished] he's asked me to start working on turning him into a more complete player in general.. he wants everything.. playing, theory, composition, studio stuff etc...he's already a very nice lil' player.. so this is going to be fun..

so... tonight is his first session into his brave new world.. we're going to start with his kit... he has an Axe-FX, so tonight we'll nail the fundamentals of MIDI so he can get his head around how his controller / DAW talk to his lil' black magic box.. then I'll show him how to get it to jump through all kinds of hoops..

from there.. we'll start working on filling the gaps in his knowledge and increasing his repertoire.. the repertoire will be used for theory, technique, compositional analysis etc...

this is going to be fun

mike_l

@Clarky sounds like a mission.

The big things (playing techniques, theory etc) are covered by most (good) teachers. It's the "other sides" of being a musician that are often missed (gear and usage, writing etc).

My old teacher (good guitarist, maybe less good teacher) didn't go with any of the latter, and wasn't that up with newer gear. The one time he did cover gear, it was a very brief "the volume knob does this, the tone knob does this", back to theory.

Clarky

on the gear side.. we'll be covering MIDI, Axe-FX modifiers and controllers, reamping, and a few tips and tricks, like blending amps, matching amps and cab IR's.. frequency and parametric EQ, fx placement, etc..

there's no point in being a great player if you can't get the best out of your kit.. in fact, a reasonable / good enough player with good tone and a good understanding of how to get the best out of his kit will sound more polished than a great player with a tone that sux..

Georgie

For grade 4 there is a lot of theory but I am not wanting to pass it anytime soon, but learning the pieces to the backing tracks are challenging and going along for the ride is keeping me motivated and keeps technique and focussed practice a must rather than just playing covers.

He has also told me to work with backing tracks on YouTube to keep me improvising. At the moment I am preplanning my solo for basejumper - really enjoying it but it changes every time lol!!!

Clarky

top tip for improvising...

try learning a few solos by other guitarists.. even simple blues centric stuff like Pink Floyd.. you'll end up growing a whole vocabulary of licks that you can use is lots of different situations..

once you've learn a solo / lick, experiement with it by changing some notes, adding notes, taking some out, changing the phrasing and note lengths.. so as well as learning the lick / solo, you are also flexing some creative muscle..

when you're improvising, try introducing some of these licks [the ones you've learned, as well as some new onces you created yourself]..

think of it like learning another language.. before you can be fully fluent, you'll be relying a lot on set piece phrases.. eventually, you'll rely on them less and less until you can express yourself on your own terms...