Guitar: Intermediate Course

From the end of the beginner course to about Grade 2 level in the skills it teaches, with a start on Grade 3 skills.

This page is for you if you have finished the beginner course, or if you can already do what it teaches. It is the course map: read it before Session 1.

This course is being published one phase at a time. A session, handout or sheet that this page names without a link is not published yet.

What This Course Reaches

This course takes you from the end of the beginner course to about Grade 2 level in the skills it teaches, and makes a start on Grade 3 skills. It is called intermediate because it follows the beginner course. In the exam boards’ own terms it covers the later early grades: Grades 1 to 3 are the first level of the graded system, and RSL calls Grade 3 the “final stage as a beginner player”.

The benchmarks are the course’s own. They are set from what RSL Awards, Trinity College London and LCME publish for Grade 2 and Grade 3 guitar, but they are not any board’s requirements, and meeting them does not mean you are ready to sit an exam. A real exam also needs the board’s own book: its set pieces, backing tracks and tests, which this course does not contain.

The phases, the session map, the repertoire and the exit criteria are in Course Overview.

What You Will Need

Your guitar: the Saga SF-600C-BK, or any steel-string acoustic in standard tuning
A pick
A tuner
A metronome
A phone that records sound
Slips of paper and a pen, for the ear tests and for the chord, scale, note-name and theory cards
A notebook, for the practice log
A ruler marked in millimetres, for the string-height check in Guitar Setup Check

Later you also need:

from Session 7, a way to hear the recordings of the songs the course names;
from Session 9, a capo made for a steel-string acoustic guitar;
from Session 27, a published chord chart that you own, of one song you would like to learn.

From Session 29 your metronome must go down to 30 BPM: a metronome app on your phone does.

Some checks ask you to record yourself while the metronome sounds, or while a backing plays. Session 1 has a short test of whether your phone can do both. If it cannot record while its own metronome sounds, a second device or a separate metronome gives the click, set down where the recording picks it up. If it cannot record while it plays a backing, a second device plays the backing, and the two checks that are played over a backing say what to do with one device only.

The whole course is in standard tuning: you never retune.

The course says “fretting hand”, “strumming hand” and “picking hand”, never left and right.

The Pain Rule

This is the course’s one rule about pain. Every reminder in a session, a handout or an assessment points back to this page, so read it now.

The pain rule

Normal: fingertips that are tender, red or dented by the strings. Keep to the time limits and take the breaks.
Stop for today: fingertips that sting or burn, a blister or broken skin, or a hand that cramps or aches. With a blister, do not press strings again until it has healed.
Warning signs, stop at once: pain in the wrist, forearm, thumb joint or knuckles; numbness or tingling; any sharp pain; pain that lasts into the next day. Rest until it has gone completely. If it comes back when you play, or has not gone after two days, see a doctor or physiotherapist before you play again.

Never play through any of these to finish a session or to keep to the schedule.

The time limits the rule refers to are these: no stretch of playing longer than 30 minutes without a 5-minute break, and the daily limits printed beside barre work, slur work, little-finger work and three-string power-chord work. A break means the guitar is out of your hands.

The Playing-Time Rule

No stretch of playing is longer than 30 minutes.

A session is 50 minutes of lesson, with one 5-minute break at the end of Segment 3, guitar out of your hands. That is so in all 36 sessions, and each one prints the break in these words:

Break: Put the guitar down for 5 minutes at the end of Segment 3. No stretch of playing is then longer than 30 minutes.

Between sessions, follow the practice plan at the end of each session, on five days a week. One rest day a week is part of the plan.

Phases	Each practice day	How	In the lighter week
1 and 2	30 minutes	One sitting	25 minutes, one sitting
3 and 4	35 minutes	Two sittings, neither longer than 30 minutes, at least an hour apart	30 minutes, one sitting
5 and 6	40 minutes	Two sittings, neither longer than 30 minutes, at least an hour apart	30 minutes, one sitting

In a week of two sittings the plan says where its rows divide. Begin Sitting 2 with the movements under “Hand Warm-Up” in Segment 1, and tune again: neither is counted in the minutes.

The session day is not a practice day: do not add the week’s plan to it.

In ten sessions a line at the top of Segment 2, beginning “Session day:”, says what a daily limit means on that day.

The end-of-course assessment is taken in two sittings on two days.

How to Use This Course

Before Session 1, read in this order:

This page.
Course Overview.
Entry Check, the section “How to Use This Entry Check” (5 minutes): print the page, or copy its item numbers onto paper.
Session 01: the entry check, which sends you to Guitar Setup Check for the string-height check.

Read nothing else first: every other handout is assigned by a session.

Take one session a week for 36 weeks, in order: six phases of six sessions. Each week has one session day, five practice days and one rest day.

Every session has five segments:

Warm-Up and Stretch: loose hand movements, tuning and warm-up playing.
Technique Focus: the session’s one hard new skill, or a drill on an earlier one.
New Learning: new chords, scales, rhythms or reading.
Piece Workshop: the session’s piece, and in some weeks a song chart.
Review and Practice Plan: recap, self-check questions and the week’s practice plan.

Read a session through once before you play it, on the day before or earlier the same day: that first reading is not part of the 50 minutes.

The practice plan at the end of each session is that week’s plan and the only one: this course has no weekly-plan handouts. Its rows add up to the day’s minutes. From Session 7 one row is the rotation, and from Session 10 most weeks have a row of staff reading. On your last practice day, answer the session’s Self-Check Questions. All yes: go on to the next session, or after a showcase session to its checkpoint.

Any no: repeat this week’s plan for up to one more week and check again. If it is still no after the second week, go on, and add that item to your warm-up until it passes.

If the item is barre work, slur work, little-finger work or three-string power-chord work, do not add it to your warm-up: play it inside the row of next week’s plan that holds that work, in that row’s minutes. The daily limits do not change.

If you have not played for three days or more, How To Practise At This Level, the section “After a Break”, says which week’s plan to go back to and how to begin again.

A lighter week (Sessions 5, 9, 16, 22, 27 and 33) has no hard new skill and at most one new piece. A showcase session (Sessions 6, 12, 18, 24, 30 and 36) starts nothing new: you perform a programme. Every other week starts at most one hard new skill. No session is planned to need a second week.

In a week with an ear check you record after the session, by the recorded card test (Session 2), and mark the recording on the day the week’s ear-check line names. Its result goes into the practice log of How To Practise At This Level.

Raise a tempo by 5 BPM only after three clean runs in a row. When an item gains a new chord, a new rhythm or a new finger, its tempo does not go up that week. The whole tempo ladder is in How To Practise At This Level.

When to Use Handouts

Reading is assigned at the end of a session: under “After the session (not part of the 50 minutes)”, a line names the file, the sections by their headings and the minutes. Do the reading that day, or at the latest before your first practice day of the week. Several handouts are read in parts over more than one session: the directory below shows the sessions for each.

There are four kinds:

Music theory: 9 handouts.
Technique: 7 handouts.
Practice: 3 handouts.
Genre: 4 handouts. They are optional reading: their music is copied from the sessions, and they add nothing to practise.

Guitar Setup Check is read after Sessions 1, 9, 19 and 28; its string-height check is done after Session 1 and again in Sessions 19 and 28.

For the two staff-reading handouts, in Sessions 10 to 35 the session’s materials list names the section that holds that week’s staff lines: one fresh line for each practice day, with the TAB of each in an Answers section at the end of the file.

When to Use Reference Sheets

There are six reference sheets:

Chord Chart: every chord taught in this course, with diagram, fingering and the session that introduces it.
Scales And Arpeggios: every scale and arpeggio of the course, copied from its teaching session.
Fretboard Note Map: note names on all six strings to fret 12, as a table.
Glossary: the terms this course defines, each with its session.
Tab Notation Guide: every symbol and count spelling the course uses, with the session that teaches it.
Credits And Sources: writers, recordings and sources for every song, tune and study; for each song, which sections are printed and which are not.

They are for looking things up: none is assigned by a session and none has to be read through.

A reference sheet holds the whole course, so it shows chords, scales, terms and marks that later sessions teach: each entry names its session, and nothing on a sheet is to be played before its session.

When to Use Assessments

The entry check is taken in Session 1 itself, from Entry Check. It has three outcomes:

Your result	What to do
All eight pass	Start the course
One to three not yet there	Start the course and work on those items in the Entry items row of Week 1; an item that is still not yet at the end of that week goes into your Warm-Up until it passes
More than three not yet there	Go back to the phase of the beginner course that teaches them first

Each of the five phase checkpoints is taken after the last practice day of its phase and before the next session starts: after Weeks 6, 12, 18, 24 and 30. The closing lines of those weeks’ sessions send you to the checkpoint whether the week’s check was all yes or not. The checkpoint’s own rule decides what happens next, and each checkpoint prints it: Phase 1 Checkpoint to Phase 5 Checkpoint.

The end-of-course assessment, Final Assessment, has eight sections that check every exit criterion still open. You take Sections 1 to 7 in two sittings on two days, after Week 35 and before the Final Showcase (Session 36), where you take Section 8. Then read Whats Next. The assessment is the course’s own check, and passing it does not mean you are ready to sit an exam.

In Sessions 6, 12, 18, 24, 30 and 35 the ear recordings are made after the session and marked when the checkpoint or assessment is taken, at least one day later.

Complete File Directory

Getting Started

File	Title	What it is for	When it is used
Course Overview	The Acoustic Guitar Journey: Intermediate Course	What the course reaches and does not, phases, session map, skills ladder, repertoire, exit criteria, practice expectations	Before Session 1
Guitar Setup Check	Your Guitar at This Stage	The string-height check, strings, fitting a capo, what is a job for a guitar shop	Sessions 1, 9, 19 and 28

Sessions (36 lessons: one a week, in order)

File	Title	When
Phase 1: Picking Up the Thread
Session 01	Where You Stand: The Entry Check	Week 1
Session 02	Seventh Chords: A7, D7 and E7	Week 2
Session 03	Rests You Can Hear	Week 3
Session 04	B7 and Two Pentatonic Scales	Week 4
Session 05	Lighter Week: A Complete Tune	Week 5 (lighter week)
Session 06	Phase 1 Showcase	Week 6 (showcase session)
Phase 2: Sixteenths, Sevenths and Two Voices
Session 07	G Major in Two Octaves	Week 7
Session 08	Sixteenth Notes	Week 8
Session 09	Lighter Week: The Capo and Three Minor Sevenths	Week 9 (lighter week)
Session 10	Major Sevenths: Cmaj7, Amaj7 and Dmaj7	Week 10
Session 11	Two Notes at Once	Week 11
Session 12	Phase 2 Showcase	Week 12 (showcase session)
Phase 3: Keys, Reading and the Neck
Session 13	G7, C7 and the Chords of a Key	Week 13
Session 14	The Andantino, Second Half	Week 14
Session 15	Bm and the Key of D	Week 15
Session 16	Lighter Week: A Melody from the Staff	Week 16 (lighter week)
Session 17	Power Chords Anywhere	Week 17
Session 18	Phase 3 Showcase	Week 18 (showcase session)
Phase 4: Blues, Swing and the Fifth Fret
Session 19	The F Shape at the Fifth Fret	Week 19
Session 20	The Shuffle	Week 20
Session 21	The Fifth Position	Week 21
Session 22	Lighter Week: A Chorus of Your Own	Week 22 (lighter week)
Session 23	Slurs Between Fretted Notes	Week 23
Session 24	Phase 4 Showcase	Week 24 (showcase session)
Phase 5: Six-Eight, a Song of Your Own and the First Full Barre
Session 25	A Four-String Shape in Time	Week 25
Session 26	Six-Eight Time	Week 26
Session 27	Lighter Week: A Song of Your Own	Week 27 (lighter week)
Session 28	The Full Barre: First Presses	Week 28
Session 29	Sixteenth Notes with a Push	Week 29
Session 30	Phase 5 Showcase	Week 30 (showcase session)
Phase 6: Performing
Session 31	The Full Barre in a Change	Week 31
Session 32	A Rock Study and a Black Sabbath Chart	Week 32
Session 33	Lighter Week: Eight Measures on a Chart You Have Not Seen	Week 33 (lighter week)
Session 34	Reading at Sight, and Two Arpeggios	Week 34
Session 35	End-of-Course Run-Through	Week 35
Session 36	Final Showcase	Week 36 (showcase session)

Music Theory Handouts

File	Title	What it is for	Assigned by
Seventh Chords	Seventh Chords	Dominant, minor and major sevenths: what each adds to a chord	Sessions 2, 9 and 10
Rhythm Beyond Eighth Notes	Rhythm Beyond Eighth Notes	Rests, note values by name, sixteenth notes, the triplet count and swing, 6/8 against 3/4	Sessions 3, 8, 20 and 26
Minor And Pentatonic Scales	Minor and Pentatonic Scales	A natural minor, relative major and minor, the pentatonic pair, the blues scale	Sessions 4 and 23
Keys And Their Chords	Keys and Their Chords	The major scale formula in G and D, key signatures, the chords of a key, the turnaround, chords by number	Sessions 7, 13, 15 and 33
Notes On The Neck	Notes on the Neck	The notes on strings 6 and 5 to fret 10, positions, naming a moveable shape by its root	Sessions 17 and 21
The Blues	The Blues	The 12-bar form with sevenths in A and E, the shuffle, a chorus of your own	Sessions 4 and 20
Reading Staff Notation 1	Reading Staff Notation, Part 1	Stages 1 and 2 (strings 1 and 2; string 3 and eighth notes) and the Staff Melody in C. About 60 lines of staff notation, one for each practice day of Sessions 10 to 21, each with its TAB in an Answers section at the end	Sessions 10, 13 and 16
Reading Staff Notation 2	Reading Staff Notation, Part 2	Stages 3 to 5 (strings 4 and 5 with the key signature of G; string 6, rests and ties; the unseen routine). About 70 lines of staff notation for Sessions 22 to 35, each with its TAB in the Answers section	Sessions 22, 28 and 34
Reading A Chord Chart	Reading a Chord Chart	Repeat signs, first and second endings, the capo line, a published chart’s tuning, key and section names, strumming a chart at sight	Sessions 2 and 27

Technique Handouts

File	Title	What it is for	Assigned by
Warm Up And Playing Time	Warm-Up and Playing Time	The movement-only warm-up, the spider crawl, the 30-minute rule, two sittings from Phase 3	Sessions 1 and 13
Strumming Rests And Sixteenths	Strumming: Rests and Sixteenth Notes	The rest stop, the plain sixteenth-note pattern, the eighth-note click, the pushed pattern with muted strums, the 6/8 pattern	Sessions 3, 8 and 29
Fingerstyle Two Voices	Fingerstyle: Two Voices	Plucking two strings together (two fingers together, and the pinch), the two voices of two-part writing, how to learn a study	Session 11
Barre Shapes Step By Step	Barre Shapes, Step by Step	How a barre works, the daily limit, the four-string shape at fret 5 and its change, the full barre at fret 5 and its change, each with its dead-string table	Sessions 19, 25, 28 and 31
Picking Across Strings	Scales, Positions and Arpeggios	Two-octave scales, the fifth position, the two arpeggios, how a scale climbs its ladder	Sessions 7, 21 and 34
Slurs And Staccato	Slurs and Staccato	Hammer-ons and pull-offs between fretted notes with their daily limit; staccato on a fretted note by relaxing the fretting finger, and on a strummed chord with the rest stop	Session 23
Moving Along The Neck	Moving Along the Neck	Shifts, power chords by root and their daily limit, the fret each phase reaches, what to do if a reach pulls	Session 17

Practice Guides

File	Title	What it is for	Assigned by
How To Practise At This Level	How to Practise at This Level	The tempo ladder and its limits, the rotation row, the end-of-week check, recording a backing, two sittings, the practice log, and how to write theory cards from a handout	Sessions 1, 2, 4, 7 and 13
Learning A Song	Learning a Whole Song	The song map; then the method for a song whose chart uses chords you have learned and whose recording is in standard tuning	Sessions 5 and 27
Performing A Programme	Performing a Programme	Choosing pieces within the programme rule, memory, the count-in, recording one take, the three questions on each piece	Sessions 6, 18 and 31

Genre Handouts (optional reading)

File	Title	What it is for	Assigned by
Rock Rhythm Guitar	Rock Rhythm Guitar	Optional reading: the rock charts of the course, each as its own section, and what was left out of each	Sessions 26 and 32
Blues And Improvising	Blues and Improvising	Optional reading: phrases, question and answer, the fifth position; the course’s improvising tasks in one place	Sessions 14 and 22
Hindi Film Songs	Hindi Film Songs	Optional reading: refrain and stanza, the capo and the singer’s key; the refrain chart, as its own section; songs for listening	Session 11
Fingerstyle Studies	Fingerstyle Studies	Optional reading: Giuliani’s Andantino and the studies held in reserve for after the course	Session 14

Reference Sheets

File	Title	What it is for	When it is used
Chord Chart	Chord Chart	Every chord taught in this course, with diagram, fingering and the session that introduces it	For looking up: not assigned
Scales And Arpeggios	Scales and Arpeggios	Every scale and arpeggio of the course, copied from its teaching session	For looking up: not assigned
Fretboard Note Map	Fretboard Note Map	Note names on all six strings to fret 12, as a table	For looking up: not assigned
Glossary	Glossary	The terms this course defines, each with its session	For looking up: not assigned
Tab Notation Guide	TAB and Count Rows	Every symbol and count spelling the course uses, with the session that teaches it	For looking up: not assigned
Credits And Sources	Credits and Sources	Writers, recordings and sources for every song, tune and study; for each song, which sections are printed and which are not	For looking up: not assigned

Assessments

File	Title	What it is for	When it is taken
Entry Check	Entry Check	The eight-item check taken in Session 1, with what to do for each result	In Session 1
Phase 1 Checkpoint	Phase 1 Checkpoint: Picking Up the Thread	The checkpoint of Phase 1	After Session 6, before Session 7
Phase 2 Checkpoint	Phase 2 Checkpoint: Sixteenths, Sevenths and Two Voices	The checkpoint of Phase 2	After Session 12, before Session 13
Phase 3 Checkpoint	Phase 3 Checkpoint: Keys, Reading and the Neck	The checkpoint of Phase 3	After Session 18, before Session 19
Phase 4 Checkpoint	Phase 4 Checkpoint: Blues, Swing and the Fifth Fret	The checkpoint of Phase 4	After Session 24, before Session 25
Phase 5 Checkpoint	Phase 5 Checkpoint: Six-Eight, a Song of Your Own and the First Full Barre	The checkpoint of Phase 5	After Session 30, before Session 31
Final Assessment	End-of-Course Assessment	Eight sections that check every exit criterion still open	In two sittings on two days after Session 35 and at the Final Showcase
Whats Next	What Comes After	What the course did not teach, what a graded exam also needs, and where to go next	After Session 36