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Matt Trousdale
Past Notes
April 30th, 2025
Matt is away on April 30th to South Carolina
April 23rd, 2025
Here's the fingering chart for the pentatonic scales up the neck of the guitar:
https://beginnerguitarhq.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Majorpent-1024x640.png
We went through a list of questions today about major and minor keys, why they're named that way.
We discussed harmonic minors as well, which have a sharp 5 in them which are leading tones into the 6 chord.
We went through the strumming pattern of Flake as well.
April 16th, 2025
We talked through the transposition of Jack Johnson, Flake in order to use a capo. It's in F, which makes use of the E string for the bass note. Moving it to a different spot on the neck means we use a different string as the bass note (unless we go up really high on the E string).
Choosing the 5th fret means we can play it in C. The 3rd fret means we can play it in D.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II7yJTzHx2o
April 9th, 2025
We started off the lesson talking about capos, and how they work. The key doesn't change how it sounds, just how it's played. The voicing of the chord changes (like an inversion), but it remains in the correct key.
This question arose from playing Pixies, Where Is My Mind in C with a capo on 4. (It's in E).
We then moved on to Caamp, By and By, and looked at the ending specifically, where there's a low electric guitar playing a solo line. I wrote it out
April 2nd, 2025
We spent most of the lesson working through the timing of Pink Floyd, Mother. This has a lot of weird time signature changes... from 5/8 to 8/8 etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ8YdCJLPYw
We also talked about the timing of Canola Fields, and played through it.
March 26th, 2025
We went through some of the previous songs with a mind to analyze the time signature. I tried to explain the difference in the beat which gets the emphasis, based on the bottom number.
We then went through This Is the End, looking at it's time signature, and a new song, Canola Fields, by James McMurtry.
March 19th, 2025
Matt brought another great song in today, by James McMurtry called Lights of Cheyenne.
It was in 3/4 time, so we worked on the strumming pattern they were playing, and where the down beats of each chord (and how many of each chord there are) so he could play along correctly.
March 12th, 2025
Away for March Break
March 5th, 2025
Matt came in with Annabelle today, and we went over All The Debts I Owe with her playing along on the ukulele! Fun!
We then tried one of her songs, and selected "The Man" and "Down by the Bay."
At the end we played through Much Too Young (To Feel This Old) by Garth Brooks.
February 19th, 2025
We started out working on the strumming and figuring out some parts of the Caamp song "26" We then switched to All The Debts I Owe, and focused on the chorus, and then the instrumental part, including playing a little banjo "lick" in that section.
February 12th, 2025
We focused on All The Debts I Owe today, working out how many times to play the C before sticking in the G chord, or switching between the A minor to the F 2/4 bar and then the C.
It was a productive lesson, Matt improved in just the time we met today.
February 5th, 2025
Worked on Highway 20 Ride for half the lesson, and then All the Debts I Owe for the second half. We focused on strumming in that one and figuring out where the accent of the melody fits on the strum.
January 29th, 2025
Matt brought the guitar in today, and we spent the lesson working through Highway 20 Ride, especially with regards to using numbers for chords. We talked about how to finger pick it a bit, and also the walk down on the bass in the middle section.
January 22nd, 2025
Matt sang through Much Too Young for me - he did great! I looked over how he aligned the chords with the solo and helped him figure out how to play it timing-wise.
He then had Highway 20 Ride as a new song to learn, so we worked on that.
We then did it on the guitar, and figured out how to play the intro with a capo. We also looked at the F chord and the F bar code for a bit.
January 15th, 2025
Matt did both guitar and piano today. He brought in a new song, Much Too Young (To Feel This Old) by Garth Brooks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=var7ZOJkfYY
We did half an hour on the piano, then half on guitar... I wrote out some notes on the piano for the intro, and for the steel guitar solo.
We then worked on the finger picking of the intro and he checked the strumming pattern with me for the verses.
January 8th, 2025
Vocal Pitch Monitor
Android:https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tadaoyamaoka.vocalpitchmonitor&hl=en-US&pli=1
Apple: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vocal-pitch-monitor/id842218231
Today we talked a bit about singing, and finding pitch, and tuning oneself based on visual or audio feedback.
We also did piano instead of guitar today, looking at Adele's Someone Like You, and Wagon Wheel by various artists.
December 18th, 2024
(I believe Matt is away this week).
December 11th, 2024
We started working on Hasn't Hit Me Yet by Blue Rodeo, working through the intro chords. We played around at picking the intro at the start, but it's two things to remember, so we agreed to focus just on strumming and the chords.
We then moved into the strumming style of the rest of the song (Down, down up, _ up, down), which can also be used on the Em7 and Cadd9 of the intro.
December 4th, 2024
Matt needed some clarification on the Bminor.
We looked at finger picking, and did some hammer-ons.
We talked about 26 by Caamp, and learning to play it like finger picking.
November 27th, 2024
Matt is away this week to Florida.
November 20th, 2024
I was playing another Caamp song when Matt came in, so we did it today instead. This brought a few topics into highlight, including the Bm7 (a D with a B bass), and how to play it in various ways. I also showed him the bar chord approach, and how to move chords around the neck, using your first finger as a temporary capo.
The song was 26:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2CA-zSfwwQ
November 13th, 2024
We continued working through some of the songs Matt has been bringing, and focused mostly on strumming.
We also looked at All the Debts I Owe by Caamp, and this brought up the topic of capos and the F chord.
November 6th, 2024
In guitar lessons today we worked through a few song sheets Matt brought with him. They included Redemption Song, This Is The End, and Flying Horses.
We focused mostly on strumming, for example where the upbeat and downbeat go, and what to do when a chord changes in the middle of a strumming pattern.
October 30th, 2024
We started off with looking at the Redemption Song for a while, working out where the bar lines and slashes go to play the chords in time.
After that, we added a new song, This Is the End by Ghost of Paul Revere.
We also looked at how guitar tablature (TAB) works.
We talked about the Cadd9 chord, and how to switch between G and C quickly...
We played through the song a few times together.
October 23rd, 2024
We continued with guitar today, and worked through the Redemption Song for most of the lesson. We talked about the G scale, and how to find the notes of the scale within the chords. For example, a G chord will have g, b, and d in it, and a C chord will have c, e, and g.
We played it through with the chords a few times.
October 16th, 2024
Matt brought his guitar today, and we went over some of the chords we'd learned before... Em, G, Am, C, D, and F.
We talked a bit about bar chords too.
Here's that chord sheet:
https://www.rockandroll101.ca/images/guitar-chords-chart.png
Here's a video for fixing your cracked bridge:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=967TxqlAUzY
October 9th, 2024
Matt brought his Lumineers book, and we continued working through Submarines and Ho Hey, figuring out some of the syncopation and rhythms together. I think that by depending less on the sheet music, and playing more by feel he's able to execute the song more accurately and more "musically."
October 2nd, 2024
We continued working through Ho Hey and Morning Song, and looked at Submarines too. We decided that a good approach might be to go back to the chord charts, and focus on rhythm instead of reading music. Matt's going to look up the chord sheets for these songs or make them himself from the chords at the top of the sheet music.
September 25th, 2024
Ukulele tuning: g c e a from the top string (closest the ceiling).
We started by looking at Morning Song by the Lumineers, which was a song in Matt's book that distracted him this week. It was a good switch because it allowed us to focus on some reading aspects.
Afterwards we spent 15 minutes or so again on Ho Hey, working out the intro rhythms.
September 18th, 2024
Matt brought in a sheet music booklet of Lumineers songs, and we looked at Hey Ho together. We focused mostly on how to play the left hand with the melody, and to get the right timing in places where there's syncopation, or when the chords don't change on beat 1. I suggested practising along with the recording to get a sense of timing.
September 11th, 2024
We started with piano, and did some working through songs Matt had practised this summer. For example, the ones I can remember: Tuesday's Gone, we looked at the piano solo. I recommended playing up an octave, and playing all the subdivision notes to emulate the style. Knowing the A scale will help avoid bad notes. Use the G natural sparingly. We looked at Have a Little Faith In Me, playing melody with the piano part. The iconic piano part could be shared between the left and right hand thumb so the melody could be found with the pinky and ring fingers etc. Phantom of the Opera song - talked about playing arpeggios in the left hand to make it a bit more interesting. For the last 15 minutes, we moved to guitar. Matt used my classical guitar, and we talked about its advantages. Learned C add 9, strumming for Every Rose Has It's Thorn- it's similar to a G chord.
September 4th, 2024
We learned the beginnings of guitar today, first the names of the parts of the guitar, then some theory of how music is made on the fretboard, combining half step frets together to assemble a chord.
We learned E minor, G, D, and A, and then talked a bit about fingerings for A7 and Dsus.
We took a look at a song by Bob Marley, called Redemption Song, and worked out the notes for the intro. We also talked a bit about hammer-ons, and playing legato between two notes by not lifting your finger after sounding it.
June 26th, 2024
Matt has been working on a couple of songs which we went over today. One was Tuesday's Gone by Lynyrd Skynyrd and the other was The Music of the Night from Phantom of the Opera by Gerald Butler.
For both of them, I encouraged him to think about the timing of the song- what is the time signature? By looking at the smallest beats, one can infer if we're in a three-based or two-based time, and that can inform us for chord changes etc. when we're not certain when to change chords.
We also looked at That's My Daughter In the Water again.
June 19th, 2024
We started with talking about syncopation, and note reading. I showed him the note reading "master rhythms" video, and we talked about the difference between triplets and other notes, etc. Here's that video again:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp4flocUmxM
We talked about intervals, and I gave him some examples of melody cues that can be used to find intervals. Knowing them can make it easier to hear and find melodies without a lot of stumbling around for the right note.
Here's a video that might help:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhDIm_2qS5s
We talked about his sheet music Canon In D, and analyzed the way the arpeggios work with the third on the top of the fifth, and I pointed out an easier way to read it by looking at just the lowest not in the bass clef to know the chord. Reading the thirds in the second line is easier too if you look at the top melody note, and play the harmony as a third below.
We then looked at the Pixies, Where is My Mind- piano version.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxthmuqWF1Q
This shows the notes being played on the piano, so will be a good reference for learning the song.
June 12th, 2024
We did a bit of jamming in Matt's lesson today, with me on bass or guitar, and working through some of the past songs we've done like The Archer, Champagne Problems, Romeo and Juliet, and These Days.
June 5th, 2024
At the beginning we talked about 12 bar blues, and a pattern that I use with both hands. I also showed him the blues scale, something he can do with the right hand while he's playing the rhythm.
We then went back to Dire Straits, Romeo and Juliet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJmER493F4U
We added a missing part at the end of the chorus.
May 29th, 2024
I wrote out the rhythms and melody of a new song:
Dire Straits, Romeo and Juliet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rC95MEenIxA
I mentioned this tutorial video which is really helpful for learning to read rhythms.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp4flocUmxM
May 22nd, 2024
Here's the link to that music site:
https://www.hacklily.org/
May 15th, 2024
Today in Matt's lesson we worked on timing some more, trying to identify the reasons and places where Matt struggles with playing both hands in time.
My thoughts were that it's related to not know where the beats lie in time for the melody (or the left hand for that matter), and by working on that, it might help lining them up better.
I suggested he try to write out the rhythms for the song Champagne Problems.
May 8th, 2024
We worked through Tim McGraw, Highway Don't Care
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOdmkbmAzeE
...And talked more about pulse, and thinking through the beat of the song while adding little features and extras.
We had some time, so also tried this with Taylor Swift, The Archer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWfZ5bfQfSs
May 1st, 2024
Matt did drums today - we played through Michael Jackson, Thriller:
https://youtu.be/SPAd-4dzFu0
I taught him which spaces and lines were which instruments, and we worked on the various beats throughout the beginning of the song and through some of the fills too.
April 24th, 2024
Matt is away this week.
April 17th, 2024
We continued working through the Archer and Champagne Problems. We figured out some of the notes and rhythms, and talked about sixteenth rhythms and how to count them.
April 10th, 2024
I wrote out The Archer by Taylor Swift, with lower case melody, and upper case chords underneath. We played through it, and talked about timing, how to play this way, etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KpKc3C9V3w
We also did some melody/chord work on Don't Stop Believing.
April 3rd, 2024
We went through two Taylor Swift songs, (Champagne Problems and The Archer), and talked about chord changes, counting rhythms for the melody, how to notate these melodies in a way that helps to figure out what beat they fall on, etc.
We also talked about finding a reference point in the song where you know the count, or feel comfortable with the count, and then counting evenly through until the section you're less comfortable with.
March 27th, 2024
We started off at the piano, and talking about counting beats while playing, even easy melodies, in order to get used to thinking where notes fall on which beats. It helps to keep in time if you start to get used to knowing on which beats a particular note falls, or to develop an instinct for time.
We then moved to drums, and played through the quarter note beat, adding cymbals, fills on 4 and then 3 with 4. We then added an eighth note beat, playing the same speed, but adding an additional eighth note on the highhat in between the other counts.
We also played a drum fill on the beats 8 and 8-AND
At the end of the lesson we tried to add an additional kick on the AND of TWO.
March 20th, 2024
In Matt's lesson we worked through some approaches to adding melodies to chord progressions, and ended up focusing mostly on keeping time.
At the end of the lesson, we switched to drums so I could show him a basic quarter note beat. By the end of the lesson, we added a crash on beat 1, every 2 bars.
March 13th, 2024
Away for Match break
March 6th, 2024
In Matt's lesson we continued with where we left off last week. Matt had learned Forever Young by recognizing the chords in his attempt to transpose Have a Little Faith In Me to C, from D. We discussed that song a bit, and talked more about intervals and inversions, and stuff like that.
February 28th, 2024
Matt and I talked through how to find chords and notes for songs. We did a few songs that he knows well by memory so we can find the chords and the melody using the ear only.
I recommended he focus on interval training to really be able to hear when songs change (by listening at the interval in the bass line).
We did Piano Man, Don't Stop Believing, and a couple of others which I forget now.
February 21st, 2024
We started out doing walking in Memphis and then talked about how to find songs by ear using intervals. Listening to the bass notes and knowing whether a chairs should be major or minor.
I texted him an app that night help for getting used to hearing intervals.
February 14th, 2024
Jason is sick today, so cancelling lessons.
February 7th, 2024
We lost electricity halfway through Matt's lesson today.
I printed another copy of Walking
January 31st, 2024
We worked through Walking in Memphis some more, and talked about different things you can do to fill out the chords.
I also showed Matt the blues scale, which is a modified pentatonic scale (with a flat five note added).
January 24th, 2024
We worked through Have a Little Faith In Me, working out some places where the timing wasn't quite right. That was fun!
We then tried adding Marc Cohn, Walking In Memphis... a hard one!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLVGRqHd5dY
January 17th, 2024
Matt came in Annabelle's spot on Tuesday January 16. We worked through a few of the songs he's been working on in the past, and added Cold War Kids, First in order to talk about arpeggios:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE23hMLbHg4
We also talked about singing and playing at the same time (and I'm going to write out John Hyatt's Have a Little Faith). We also talked about dissonance below middle C and avoiding notes in chords that are two close to each other.
We continued the second half hour of Matt's lesson today, and I printed out Have a Little Faith In Me. We worked through the chords and my notation style. There were a few little things different than what Matt was expecting, so we talked and played through those.
January 10th, 2024
Good lesson today. We went through a few of his songs, for example Unchained Melody, and talked about things like timing, and 12/8 time (thought of as triplets on four quarter notes (3 x 4 = 12)
We also went over Have a Little Faith In Me, with me on the drums, and tried to work out the timing in the key change and syncopated part.
We then added Loudon Wainwright III, Daughter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B06_jlEF5R8 and I transposed it from G into the recorded key of A.
January 3rd, 2024
Matt's going camping this afternoon, and won't be coming in.
December 27th, 2023
Matt forgot to come in today.
December 20th, 2023
We went through ___ and I suggested he play it with arpeggions in groups of 6. Also, by choosing inversions carefully, the whole hand doesn't need to move from one chord to the other. We went through it this way a few times.
We then reviewed John Hiatt's Have a Little Faith In Me. The chorus part felt too slow to me, and it turned out we were playing the verses too fast, and that's why. I also recommended that he try to count full measures (instead of 123,12345, for example, to count 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and, or 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8). This will help long term with counting songs.
At the end of the lesson we touched very quickly on Tennessee Whiskey. It's hard to play both hands and do the pentatonic scale at the same time. I recommend you try playing along with a recording (either your own, or on youtube).
December 13th, 2023
Today we worked through a new song by John Hiatt, Have a Little Faith In me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aYxMuLb3h8
We also talked about the pentatonic scale and how to use it for adlibbing in any key. The numbers are 1,2,3,5,6 for a major pent scale and 6,1,2,3,5 for a minor.
We talked about the western scale and how to add the 4 and 7 to make a pent scale into it.
December 6th, 2023
We worked through These Days together, and also touched on Tennessee Whiskey for a bit.
November 29th, 2023
Matt's in Florida
November 22nd, 2023
Matt's away next week to Florida.
We worked through some of the questions he had for These Days by Rudamentals Feat. Macklemore, and then Macklemore, And We Danced.
I'm going to make some time to chart out Tennessee Whisky for him today or this week for us to try in two weeks.
November 15th, 2023
Matt brought in a couple of new songs this week, and I forgot to make note of what they were.
We talked through some arrangement approaches, for example, keeping the beginning of Let Her Cry kind of quiet, and up in the higher register (octave), then building it by dropped to the mid register, then using octaves (thumb and pinkie) to play the left hand to get it even stronger.
November 8th, 2023
Matt is away to the USA for some water sport thing.
November 1st, 2023
Matt had found a YouTube video explaining how to play And We Danced by Macklemore.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58wj_qQ697g
We talked through it a little bit (at the end of the lesson we looked it up and saw that it's not in 12/8 but 4/4.)
We then reviewed Let Her Cry a couple of times, and also Free Fallin.
See you next week!
October 25th, 2023
Matt worked through a few other songs on his own this week:
1. Hootie & the Blowfish, Let Her Cry
2. Journey, Faithfully
3. Loudon Wainwright, Daughter
After talking through those, I played bass with him again on a couple of the past songs, and we worked out some areas where the chord inversions could be different etc.
October 11th, 2023
We had fun today, first going through Hey There Delilah, and working on the chorus especially, where Matt was wondering how to fit the chords with the melody.
We then played through Rocket Man, and Don't Stop Believing, and I joined him on the bass to help give the song some tempo / structure / rigidity. Sounds great!
Reminder, no lessons next week as I'm in New Jersey!
October 4th, 2023
We went over Don't Stop Believing, Hey There Delilah, and a bit of Rocketman. We talked about lots of stuff, like scales:
whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step
We talked about number systems for scales and chords (1,2,3,4,5,6 and 7 instead of, say, D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#,)
We talked about arpeggios and how they can be used to fill in long empty spots.
We talked about playing melodies with the right hand, and chords with the left.. .like in the Delilah song.
See you next time! Great job.
September 20th, 2023
Matt did really well on Rocket Man, I was very impressed! He figured out the inversions, and was able to play them even though we hadn't talked about the slash chords in the lesson.
I showed him a few of the little things I'd overlooked mentioning before, including how to play the slash chord with the left hand.
We printed out a few other songs as well,
Don't Stop Believing,
Hey There Delilah,
Here Comes the Son.
Have fun this week!
September 13th, 2023
Matt started at 2:00 today, and we talked through a whole bunch of stuff. I loaned him my Fake Book as well.
We talked about sus2 and sus4 chords, 6 chords, major 7 and 7 chords, add 9 (or 2) chords, etc.
I showed him how to play fake book melodies, and how to do that with Free Fallin.
We thought we'd start Rocket Man next week. I'm going to write it out for him.
September 6th, 2023
This was Matt's first week with me. We talked about approaches: learning to read and improving sight reading, etc., or learning more about why music works, chording, improvising, etc.
He settled on the latter. I showed him through Canon in D, and how it follows a pattern of chords in the key of D.
Each key has three major and three minor chords (and one diminished). They are in this order:
Major, Minor, Minor, Major, Major, Minor, Diminished.
In D, that would be D, Em, F#m, G, A, Bm, C#o (the 'o' is diminished)
I showed him the circle of fifths, and how this can help us know what chords are in what key, and what the key name is based on the key signature (the number of flats or sharps in a key).
Here's a circle of fifths:
https://mattcullenmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/MCM_circle-of-fifths-v3.png
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