Guitar Lessons in Bed Stuy Brooklyn

Guitar Lessons in Long Island City, Queens & Clinton Hill, Brooklyn

Author: Bryan

  • How To Find Notes On Your Guitar By Ear

    How To Find Notes On Your Guitar By Ear

    Image of an ear with music notes tattoo
    Use Your Short Term Memory To Find Notes On Your Guitar

    Everyone would agree that we have to hear the note first, but we can often skip this step without even knowing it. The trick is to use your short term memory, and I mean VERY short term. Here’s how to do it:

    • Listen to the recording with your finger poised to pause it
    • As soon as you hear the note you’re trying to find, pause the recording
    • IMMEDIATELY listen to the note that is ringing in your head
    • sing the note ringing in your head and hold that note while you
    • find it on your guitar

    After a few seconds, the note will start to fade in your mind so you may need to repeat this several times.

    The trick is to listen to the recording for the note you’re after and then hear it in your short term memory. It may be very faint, but it’s there. It’s like the shadow of the note, lingering in your mind. It’s magic.

    Bryan Wade Guitar Signature - Queens Guitar Lessons in Long Island City and Clinton Hill Brooklyn NYC
  • How To Instantly Find Any Fret on the Guitar Without Counting

    How To Instantly Find Any Fret on the Guitar Without Counting

    Just take a Drive Down The Fretboard!

    Learn to Find Any Fret on the Guitar Without Counting
    How To Instantly Find Any Fret on the Guitar Without Counting

    Imagine the 3rd, 5th and 7th fret dot markers as the lights of a traffic light. Then imagine drawing a triangle from the dot on the 9th fret to the pair of dots on the 12th to make a yield sign. Now each fret is unique:

    1st: beside the nut
    2nd: just outside the top of the traffic light
    3rd: the red light
    4th in between the red and yellow lights
    5th: the yellow light
    6th: between the yellow and green lights
    7th: the green light
    8th: in between the traffic light and the yield sign
    9th: the point of the yield sign
    10th: the narrow end of the yield sign
    11th: the wide end of the yield sign
    12th: the bottom of the yield sign
    13th and higher: the previous frets, but in reverse


    Now look at the neck of your guitar, imagine the images, say a number and then find the fret without counting. You did it, didn’t you?

    You did it, didn’t you?

  • How The Thumb Guitar Trick Really Works

    How The Thumb Guitar Trick Really Works

    Why do they say to lower your thumb? The truth is, it’s less about the thumb and more about the way that moves your palm under the neck, the space that creates and the way that improves the angle that it puts your fingers in. Watch the video below to see how much easier it makes things for your fingers.

  • Bryan Wade’s Ghost Notes at The Way Station

    Bryan Wade’s Ghost Notes at The Way Station

    Bryan Wade's Ghost Notes Live

    The Way Station

    Friday, May 17th at 8:30

    Featuring

    Ricky Ortiz on Bass
    Jesse Wallace on Drums

    Come out this Friday night for some Friday Night Music! We’re hot after our Great Eastern Songs concert in March and ready to rock out for you with songs of Voodoo Dolls, Airtents and Pipelines From The Sun

    The Ghost Notes
    683 Washington Ave Prospect Heights, Brooklyn (Prospect & St. Marks)
    C to Clinton/Washington – 2/3 to BK Museum – Q to 7th Ave.
    B45 to Washington Ave / Prospect Pl. (stops right in front)
    The Way Station Brooklyn, NY

    www.thewaystationbk.com Map

  • Feel the Space Between the Notes

    Feel the Space Between the Notes

    Feel the Space Between the NotesPlay a note, or chord, and just listen. Meet that note. Look it in the eye. Hear its personality. Don’t move to another one until you’ve actually listened to the present one.

    When you do this the most remarkable thing usually happens: you relax. It makes playing so much easier and more enjoyable. You improve with ease.

    Bryan Wade Guitar Signature - Queens Guitar Lessons in Long Island City and Clinton Hill Brooklyn NYC
  • How to Play To a Metronome? Do it Wrong!

    How to Play To a Metronome? Do it Wrong!

    How To Use a Metronome to Practice GuitarNo joke. Try it:

      • Set the metronome to a slow, comfortable pace.
      • Play just one note on each beat.
      • Then speed up just a tiny bit WITHOUT CHANGING THE METRONOME…. Feel that tense, rushing feeling.
      • Slow back down to the beat… Feel that smoothness.
      • Now slow down just a tiny bit… Feel that sluggish pull.
      Speed up just enough to get synchronized again… Feel that smoothness again.

    Playing in time is a matter of constantly feeling for this anxious or dopey energy and then adjusting until you feel that sense of relaxing into the beat. It’s not a thinking thing. It’s a feel thing.

    Bryan Wade Guitar Signature - Queens Guitar Lessons in Long Island City and Clinton Hill Brooklyn NYC
  • Guitarists, Rather Than Going for What’s ‘Right’…

    Guitarists, Rather Than Going for What’s ‘Right’…

    Play What Sounds Good to YouMusic is so much more fluid than we often treat it. When we get caught up in whether we are playing it “right”, we run the risk of not hearing what we are doing well. If you’re caught in the trap of “WRONGNESS” try this:

    For now, rather than going for what’s ‘right’, go for what you think sounds good. Learning music is a process and you are somewhere in the middle of it so, for now, go for your good tempo, your best rhythm, your best note choices.

    Listen for what you are playing that is good and build from there. Perfection is the result, not the method.

    Bryan Wade Guitar Signature - Queens Guitar Lessons in Long Island City and Clinton Hill Brooklyn NYC
  • Don’t Like Repetitive Guitar Practice?

    Don’t Like Repetitive Guitar Practice?

    Springsteen-Bored-by-Repetitive-Practice Repetition is one of the most effective tools in learning music. Yes, it can be boring, but it helps you memorize the technical stuff so your mind can be free to emphasize the cool parts of the music when you perform.
    If you hate it, try this:
    Every day set a timer for 3-8 minutes. Practice one repetitive thing until the timer goes off. Stop.

    Play something fun.

    Bryan Wade Guitar Signature - Queens Guitar Lessons in Long Island City and Clinton Hill Brooklyn NYC
  • Hypnotize Yourself With Your Guitar

    Hypnotize Yourself With Your Guitar

    Great Eastern Sun of Shambhala

    You know when you’ve been playing for about 45 minutes and you start to notice every little detail, everything you get right and get wrong, but you don’t really react to it? You just keep playing and notice everything?

    That is a very aware, flexible, and non-judgmental state of mind. Be aware that you can also space out and go on auto-pilot this way. It’s a delicate balance. But if you go for what sounds good and explore it, you can improve your playing and be completely immersed in it at the same time.

    Bryan Wade Guitar Signature - Queens Guitar Lessons in Long Island City and Clinton Hill Brooklyn NYC
  • Why Use a Guitar Strap?

    Why Use a Guitar Strap?

    Star Trek Guitar Strap - guitar lessonsSo you can bring the guitar into your comfort zone.

    We often approach the guitar as something we need to wrap ourselves around. We end up in awkward positions because we’re trying to hold it and play it at the same time, sidelining a lot of our energy and attention.

    With a strap you can find what’s most natural to you and bring the guitar into your space, bringing it to you. Strumming, picking and fingering becomes simpler, easier and smoother and your sound gets much more expressive.

    Bryan Wade Guitar Signature - Queens Guitar Lessons in Long Island City and Clinton Hill Brooklyn NYC