Scott Paul Johnson posts
Posts: 662
Files: 1735
Office Hours Q&A 198 | Soloing Mindset and Interesting Melodies
Where to Start• Lesson Archive• Recommended Lesson Plan • Book a Private LessonYou missed this one, but you can always ask a question on the Office Hours community forum thread.Here are the timestamps:Question 1 -Richard is wondering what goes on in a guitar player's mind when their soloing using specific sha...
Community Challenge 91 | Write something with open voicings
Where to Start• Lesson Archive• Recommended Lesson Plan • Book a Private LessonHi Everyone,I'm going live in a few minutes for this one.Every week I post a Community Challenge. These challenges serve as a regular reminder that MAKING music is the single best way to get music theory concepts into your fingers ...
Live! Technique Check-In
Where to Start• Lesson Archive• Recommended Lesson Plan • Book a Private LessonHi Everyone,I'm going live shortly for a technique check-in lesson. I'll cover some basic concepts that often get overlooked to make sure your guitar playing is as comfortable and efficient as possible. Also I got a haircut yes...
Office Hours Q&A 197 | Pop Music Writing Concepts
Where to Start• Lesson Archive• Recommended Lesson Plan • Book a Private LessonYou missed this one, but you can always ask a question on the Office Hours community forum thread.Here are the timestamps:Question 1 -Ray is wondering how popular music, consisting mainly of just four chords, is guided through changes ...
Community Challenge 90 | Write a harmony for a melody
Where to Start• Lesson Archive• Recommended Lesson Plan • Book a Private LessonHi Everyone,This Community Challenge is a live one! Your goal is to write a harmony to a melody. In order to do this, you'll need to know how! And you'll need to write a melody! I'll show you how to do both things in this C...
Office Hours Q&A 196 | Practicing Speed, Putting Lyrics to Music, and Minor Key Chords Shapes
Where to Start• Lesson Archive• Recommended Lesson Plan • Book a Private LessonYou missed this one, but you can always ask a question on the Office Hours community forum thread.Here are the timestamps:Question 1 -Erin wants to know if it's beneficial to continuously increase the bpm of practicing scales.Quest...
Community Challenge 89 | Edit a Previous Challenge
Where to Start• Lesson Archive• Recommended Lesson Plan • Book a Private LessonHi Everyone,Each week, I offer a Community Challenge. This is an opportunity to put your education to the test in a real world situation. All your favorite artists have something in common: they all write music. You can too. It takes p...
Gear, Goals, & Workflow
Where to Start• Lesson Archive• Recommended Lesson Plan • Book a Private LessonHi Everyone,I've tried quite a few times to start doing lessons about gear and it never felt right to me. I realized that I can't do lessons about gear without first talking about my philosophy around gear. That led me down a p...
Office Hours Q&A 195 | Parallel Minors, CAGED Soloing Mindset, and Acoustic Chord Voicings
Where to Start• Lesson Archive• Recommended Lesson Plan • Book a Private LessonYou missed this one, but you can always ask a question on the Office Hours community forum thread.Here are the timestamps:Question 1 -Matthew is curious about the concept of parallel minors.Question 2 -Lauren is working on CAGED shapes...
Community Challenge 88 | Play a Solo to this Jam Track
Where to Start• Lesson Archive• Recommended Lesson Plan • Book a Private LessonHi Everyone,I'm trying something a little different with this Community Challenge. I've attached two jam track files below - one is short (under a minute) and one is long (over 2 minutes). Pick whichever one you feel like and d...
Pedalboard Tour | Gear, Goals, and Workflow
Where to Start• Lesson Archive• Recommended Lesson Plan • Book a Private LessonHi Everyone,I've been trying to figure out a good way to talk about gear for a long time. I think youtube channels that review gear are awesome and I love gear. I really love gear. Probably too much... anyhow... I think what is usu...
Office Hours Q&A 194 | Alternate Tunings, GarageBand Layering, Chord Movements
New here? Wondering where to start? Click herefor my Patreon start page, or herefor my recommended lesson plan.You missed this one, but you can always ask a question on the Office Hours community forum thread.Here are the timestamps:Question 1 -Gareth wants to explore different tunings, especially tunings that are grea...
Community Challenge 87 | Write something Dancy
Where to Start• Lesson Archive• Recommended Lesson Plan • Book a Private LessonHi Everyone,Community Challenges are a reminder that music theory needs to be put to use to be remembered. It's one thing to memorize a concept, but it's an entirely different, fun, exciting thing to actually use those concepts...
Practice Thought | Getting Stuck in Your Own Head
Where to Start• Lesson Archive• Recommended Lesson Plan • Book a Private LessonHi Everyone,I haven't done a practice thought in a while. I was checking out a recent Community Challenge and saw a few people talking about how they haven't participated in a while because they "got stuck in their own head...
Community Challenge 86 | V of V Progression
Where to Start• Lesson Archive• Recommended Lesson Plan • Book a Private LessonHi Everyone,This Community Challenge is: Write something with a V of V chord progressionWhat is a V of V chord progression? I explain in the video, but I also explain in lesson 8 of my latest Music Theory for Guitar IIseries. As usual,...
Office Hours Q&A 193 | Jam Session Survival, Seventh Chords in a Minor Key, and Song Completion Tips
Where to Start• Lesson Archive• Recommended Lesson Plan • Book a Private LessonYou missed this one, but you can always ask a question on the Office Hours community forum thread.Here are the timestamps:Question 1 -BritishCO is looking for some jam session survival techniquesQuestion 2 -BritishCO ask for clarificat...
Music Theory for Guitar II | 9 | What's Next?
Where to Start• Lesson Archive• Recommended Lesson Plan • Book a Private LessonHi Everyone!This is the final lesson of Music Theory for Guitar II!In this lesson we do a little review, a little clarification about what it actually means to be in a key, and we discuss where to go from here.The most important questi...
Office Hours Q&A 192 | The "Pre-Intermediate Slump," Why Modes Feel Different, and Standard Tuning Intervals
New here? Wondering where to start? Click herefor my Patreon start page, or herefor my recommended lesson plan.You missed this one, but you can always ask a question on the Office Hours community forum thread.Here are the timestamps:Question 1 -Lauren is looking for tips for getting over the "pre-intermediate slump...
Community Challenge 85 | Write Something in D Major
New here? Wondering where to start? Click herefor my Patreon start page, or herefor my recommended lesson plan.Hi Everyone,This weeks Community Challenge is simple: Write something in the key of D Major.When I say "Something" I literally mean "a thing" or "a small little musical idea" or "a ...
Music Theory for Guitar II | 8 | V of V
Where to Start• Lesson Archive• Recommended Lesson Plan • Book a Private LessonHi Everyone!In this lesson, the major key steals the minor key peoples' hard work one more time. Check out the PDF for helpful homework and chord charts.If you’re not familiar with Major Scales, Minor Scales, Intervals, the Circl...
Office Hours Q&A 191 | Expression and Dynamics, Writing Out Chord Progressions
New here? Wondering where to start? Click herefor my Patreon start page, or herefor my recommended lesson plan.You missed this one, but you can always ask a question on the Office Hours community forum thread.Here are the timestamps:Question 1 -Jeff is looking for tips on incorporation more expression and dynamics into...
Community Challenge 84 | Write Something Quickly!
New here? Wondering where to start? Click herefor my Patreon start page, or herefor my recommended lesson plan.Hi Everyone,For this Community Challenge, your job is to write something quickly.An exercise like this helps you find your base line, your go-to approach, your general habits around writing music. It's a g...
Music Theory for Guitar II | 7 | Melodic Minor
Where to Start• Lesson Archive• Recommended Lesson Plan • Book a Private LessonHi Everyone!In this lesson, the minor key people figure out a way to fix a problem, resulting in yet another extra chord.Check out the PDF for helpful homework and chord charts.If you’re not familiar with Major Scales, Minor Scales, ...
Office Hours Q&A 190 | Playing Ergonomics, Music History, and Applying Theory to What You Already Know
New here? Wondering where to start? Click herefor my Patreon start page, or herefor my recommended lesson plan.You missed this one, but you can always ask a question on the Office Hours community forum thread.Here are the timestamps:Question 1 -Michael has a question about re-learning the ergonomics of their playing an...
Community Challenge 83 | Write something Somber
New here? Visit my Where To Startpage.Hi Everyone,The challenge this week is "Write Something Somber"The weekly community challenge is an invitation to practice writing music with a very low barrier to entry. Come as you are, try writing something with the writing prompt in mind, and see what happens. Post what...
Music Theory for Guitar II | 6 | V of vi
Where to Start• Lesson Archive• Recommended Lesson Plan • Book a Private LessonHi Everyone!In this lesson, the fictional story continues in order to explain why the major key stole a chord from harmonic minor.Check out the PDF for helpful homework and chord charts.If you’re not familiar with Major Scales, Minor...
Hello new patrons!
I'm out of town this week! Instead of Office Hours, I'd love to have new folks introduce themselves! What are your goals? How long have you been playing? What are you hoping to learn, understand, or accomplish with music? What kind of guitar do you have? What do you like to play? That kind of stuff!If you haven...
Community Challenge 82 | Write something to this drum track
Where to Start• Lesson Archive• Recommended Lesson PlanHi Everyone,This weeks Community Challenge is “Write something to this drum track”This is a cool challenge! I had my friend Luke record some drum tracks in his studio for us to play along with. I tried to give a three tiered example of how to complete this ...
Music Theory for Guitar II | 5 | Harmonic Minor
Where to Start• Lesson Archive• Recommended Lesson Plan • Book a Private LessonHi Everyone!In this lesson, I introduce a fictional story to help explain why the minor key gets to have an optional extra note to create harmonic minor. This sets up the drama for future lessons.Check out the PDF for helpful homework ...
Office Hours Q&A 189 | Thursday, Feb 6, 10AM Pacific Time
New here? Wondering where to start? Click herefor my Patreon start page, or herefor my recommended lesson plan.Hi Everyone,Join me tomorrow, Feb 6 at 10AM Pacific Time for the weekly live Q&A.If the video above isn’t working for you, here is a link to watch directly on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/live/CHgjRIrosE...
