Session 36: Final Showcase

Duration: 50 minutes

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

This is the Final Showcase, the last session of the course. Nothing is new and no tempo rises. You perform your programme of three complete pieces in one recorded take, mark it against the pages as the end-of-course assessment asks, and plan what is still open. Before the programme you take the assessment’s other performing item, one piece over a backing you recorded yourself. The session ends with your programme: the take, and its marking.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this session you will be able to:

Perform three complete pieces one after another in one recorded take, each played alone from your own count-in to its written ending: 3 pieces, with no stop and at most 3 wrong or missed notes in any one
Play one of the three pieces from memory, with its page turned face down: 1 piece, to its written ending
Play one complete piece from start to finish over a backing you recorded yourself: 1 piece, the last note within 1 beat of the backing’s last chord

Where an objective gives a tempo, it is the figure for the end of this week’s practice.

Materials Needed

Your Saga SF-600C-BK guitar
A guitar pick
A clip-on tuner or phone tuner app
A metronome
A phone that records sound
The pages of your three pieces, in the order you will play them
Your sheet of results from the end-of-course assessment, with the numbers of any items still open
Paper and a pen, for the strokes
The backing you recorded for the piece you will play over it
Reference: Chord Chart, Glossary

Segment 1 — Warm-Up and Stretch (5 minutes)

Hand Warm-Up

Open and close both hands loosely five times. Circle each wrist five times each way. Touch your thumb to each fingertip in turn. Shake the hands out.

Tune Your Guitar

Tune all six strings (EADGBE). Before you look at the tuner, guess: too low, too high or right? Then look.

Warm-Up

Play the two arpeggios of Session 34 from memory, once each, at 70 BPM, one note per click: the G major arpeggio, then the A minor arpeggio, each after four clicks. Their blocks are not printed here: they are in Scales And Arpeggios.

Spider crawl: frets 5-8, one finger at a time, all six strings, up and down. If it pulls, stop the crawl; if it aches, stop playing for today.

Segment 2 — Technique Focus: The Barre, the Performance Rules and the Recovery Drill (10 minutes)

Barre: Presses and the Change Drill

Full barre work: no more than 2 minutes a day in the week of Session 28 and 3 minutes a day from Session 29, at fret 5 only. It counts inside the 5 minutes of barre work.

Barre work: no more than 5 minutes a day in total. Pain rule: tender fingertips are normal. Pain in the wrist, forearm, thumb joint or knuckles, numbness or tingling, any sharp pain, or pain that lasts into the next day means stop. The full rule is in START HERE.

A (full barre): at fret 5 (Session 28), placed by the four steps of “How a Barre Works” (Session 19): press, pluck the six strings one at a time, release, and shake out the hand. 4 presses. Its diagram is in Session 28 and is not printed again here.

Then the change drill for E and A (full barre) (Session 31), a new chord every 4 beats at 60 BPM: one downstroke on beat 1 of each measure. One set is E, A (full barre), E, A (full barre), E: five measures. Play the set twice, and shake out the hand between the two.

If you play the “Fifth-Fret Rock Study” today, in your programme or as the piece over your backing, leave this drill out today: the piece holds the change, and its full-barre measure counts in the day’s minutes.

The Performance Rules

Read this part; nothing is played in it. These rules come back from the beginner course, as it wrote them.

From Beginner Session 6:

Play from start to finish without stopping. If you make a mistake, keep going. Do not restart. In real performance, the music never stops.
Count yourself in. Before you begin, count a full measure aloud to set the tempo. This is called a count-in.
Breathe. Tension in your shoulders and arms makes everything more difficult. Before you start, take one deep breath and let your shoulders drop.

From Beginner Session 24:

Do not stop. No matter what happens — a buzzing string, a wrong chord, a missed note — keep playing. The music continues. Keep counting and come back in on the next beat 1, as you practised in the recovery drill in Beginner Session 23.
No apologies. Do not say “sorry” or make a face when you make a mistake. The listener probably did not notice. Your reaction draws more attention to the mistake than the mistake itself.
Between pieces: Put the guitar in rest position (on your lap, hands relaxed). Take a breath. Tune if needed (quickly). Then count yourself in and begin the next piece.
Play for an audience. Even if you are alone, imagine someone is listening. This changes your focus from “am I making mistakes?” to “am I communicating music?”
Enjoy it. This is your music. You made it happen.

In a programme you play each piece alone, as its page writes it, from your own count-in, with no backing sounding.

The Recovery Drill

With the metronome on, play your piece. Stop on purpose for one measure, counting “1 2 3 4” aloud, and come back in on the next beat 1. Do this at three different places.

The measure you count is in the piece’s own count: 1 2 3 in a piece in 3/4, and 1 2 3 4 5 6 in “Greensleeves”. The drill is practice for keeping the count; in the take you come in on the very next beat 1.

Do the drill on the piece you will play from memory, with the metronome at that piece’s performance tempo. The table under “Setting Up the Take” in Segment 3 gives the performance tempo of every piece.

If that piece is the “Fifth-Fret Rock Study”, play the drill on its measures 1 to 12 only, the riff and the verse, so that its full-barre measure is played once today, in the concert. None of the three places is in its chorus.

If the piece has a daily limit, the drill counts in that limit: the “Slur Study in A minor” is slur work, and measures 1 to 12 of the “Fifth-Fret Rock Study” hold three-string power chords (G5 (string 6) in measures 3, 7 and 11).

Slur work: no more than 5 minutes a day in total.

Three-string power-chord work: no more than 5 minutes a day in total.

Pain rule: tender fingertips are normal. Pain in the wrist, forearm, thumb joint or knuckles, numbness or tingling, any sharp pain, or pain that lasts into the next day means stop. The full rule is in START HERE.

Segment 3 — New Learning: Before the Concert (15 minutes)

Setting Up the Take

Nothing is played in this part.

Lay the pages of your three pieces in the order of your programme. Lay the page of the piece you play from memory face down; on a screen, close that page.
Put the phone where it will record the guitar.
Make a ten-second test recording and listen to it.
Tune again.

No metronome sounds while a piece of a programme is played. Before each piece, with the recording running, set the metronome to that piece’s performance tempo, listen to eight clicks and stop it, then count one measure aloud and begin.

A piece that begins with pick-up notes is counted in as its page prints it: the tune’s own counted measure is the count-in.

A piece’s Tempo paragraph, on its own pages, states its performance tempo. This table gives the performance tempo of each of the eleven complete pieces:

Piece	Session	Performance tempo
”Seventh-Chord Blues in A”	2	70 BPM
”Stop-Time Study in E”	3	70 BPM
”Seventh-Chord Blues in E”	4	70 BPM
”Amazing Grace” (traditional; the course’s arrangement in G)	5	70 BPM
”Evening Sevenths”	10	70 BPM
Giuliani: “Andantino”, Op. 50 no. 1	11 and 14	55 BPM
”Down by the Salley Gardens” (traditional air; the course’s arrangement in D)	15	65 BPM
”Shuffle Blues in A”	20	70 BPM
”Slur Study in A minor”	23	60 BPM
”Greensleeves” (traditional; the course’s arrangement in A minor)	28	40 BPM, two clicks to the measure
”Fifth-Fret Rock Study”	32	60 BPM

How the Take Is Marked

Nothing is played in this part.

The check, in the words of exit criterion E26: the recording, followed on the page of each piece. The pass mark: no stop; each piece reaches its written ending; at most 3 wrong or missed notes in any one piece.

To count, listen to the take once for each piece, with that piece’s page in front of you, and make one stroke on paper for every wrong or missed note. For the “Fifth-Fret Rock Study” the page is the form you perform, the first or the full.

This take is the first item of Section 8 of the end-of-course assessment, item 26.

A stop is a break in the count inside a piece: going back, beginning a measure again, or waiting a whole measure or longer before coming in. Keeping the count and coming in on the next beat 1 is not a stop: its notes are counted as missed.

A take with a stop has not passed and ends at the stop. One take a day: the next is made on a later day and begins with the first piece.

In a strummed piece, and in the strummed verse of a tune, one wrong or missed note is one measure in which the chord is wrong, late or not played.

A Piece over Your Own Backing

This is the second item of Section 8 of the end-of-course assessment, item 27, and you take it once, here: one complete piece from start to finish over a backing you recorded yourself. The metronome alone does not count.

The pieces that fit, as exit criterion E27 lists them:

“Amazing Grace” (Session 5), over your recording of its own strummed verse
the “Shuffle Blues in A” (Session 20), with one chorus of your own (Session 22) over your recording of it (Session 21)
the “Slur Study in A minor” (Session 23), over your second recording of the Shuffle Blues, made at 60 BPM (Session 25), ending with one A on its last chord
the “Fifth-Fret Rock Study” (Session 32), over your recording of it, with your solo in measures 21 to 28

For the “Fifth-Fret Rock Study”: in the programme the piece is played as written, alone. Over your recording, with the solo, it is played for exit criterion E27.

Start your backing and play the piece over it from its first measure to its last note. The pass mark, in the words of exit criterion E27: you finish with the backing, your last note within 1 beat of its last chord. The “Fifth-Fret Rock Study” is marked by its tick list as well (Session 32, “The Tick List”): 5 ticks. Write the result beside item 27 on your sheet.

If your phone cannot play the backing and record you at the same time, play with the backing sounding and judge it as you play; checking it on a recording then needs a second device.

The limits hold. If you would take this item with the “Fifth-Fret Rock Study” and that piece is also in your programme, do not take it today: take it on a practice day this week instead, in the “Assessment sections” row.

Three of the four pieces have lines of their own: the “Shuffle Blues in A” is fast strumming, the “Slur Study in A minor” is slur work, and the “Fifth-Fret Rock Study” holds barre work, full barre work and three-string power chords.

Full barre work: no more than 2 minutes a day in the week of Session 28 and 3 minutes a day from Session 29, at fret 5 only. It counts inside the 5 minutes of barre work.

Slur work: no more than 5 minutes a day in total.

Three-string power-chord work: no more than 5 minutes a day in total.

Fast strumming: if your strumming hand or forearm aches, that is tension. Stop playing for today, and next time loosen your grip on the pick.

If your hand, wrist or thumb aches during the study, stop playing for today: the pain rule comes before the plan.

Break: 5 minutes. Guitar down.

Segment 4 — Piece Workshop: Your Programme (15 minutes)

The Concert

Your programme is the three pieces you wrote down in Session 33. Write them at the top of a sheet of paper in the order you will play them, each by its name with its session in brackets, as the table under “Setting Up the Take” names it. No block of any piece is printed here: each is played from its own pages.

Then make one recorded take. Start the recording, then play the three pieces one after another, each alone from your own count-in to its written ending, one of them from memory. No backing and no metronome sounds while you play, and you do not stop. A slip is played through, in time. Each piece is at its own performance tempo.

Play the take to the end of the third piece, even if it runs past the 8 minutes of this part: the marking takes what is left.

The limits hold: a piece with a daily limit is played today for no more than keeps the day inside that limit. The lines for those pieces stand under “A Piece over Your Own Backing” in Segment 3, and they hold here too.

A take that hurts ends there: stop playing for today, and play nothing more today.

Marking the Take

Nothing is played in this part. Listen to the take with the pages, one piece at a time, and make the strokes, as “How the Take Is Marked” in Segment 3 has it. Write the three counts and the result beside Section 8 on your sheet, at item 26. A piece you have not reached when the segment ends is marked after the session.

Segment 5 — Review and Practice Plan (5 minutes)

What You Achieved in Phase 6

The change to the full barre and back
A complete rock piece, with a solo of your own
Reading a TAB passage, a staff melody and a chart at sight
A programme of three complete pieces in one take

Common Mistakes

A piece is started again after a slip in the take — Keep the count and come in on the next beat 1: the notes you left out are strokes on paper afterwards. Going back, or beginning a measure again, is a stop, and the take is over for today.
The count-in is faster than the piece’s tempo — Before each piece use the count-in of a take, as “Setting Up the Take” in Segment 3 gives it, and count at the speed of the eight clicks.
The take is judged from how it went, not from the recording — Listen once for each piece with its page in front of you and make the strokes: the count is what is written down.
The programme is played again and again on the day of the concert — One take in the session. The daily limits hold today: a piece with a barre, a slur or a three-string power chord is not repeated beyond them.

Self-Check Questions

Read the three counts of your take: the one made in the session or, if that did not pass, the one of the last practice day. Check: listen to the recording once for each piece with its page in front of you, and make a stroke on paper for every wrong or missed note. Pass: no stop, each of the 3 pieces reaches its written ending, and at most 3 strokes for any one piece. If not: use the week’s “Programme” row: the piece with the most strokes in sections on the days before, then one recorded take, under “The Concert” in Segment 4, and try again on the last practice day.
In that take, play one of the three pieces from memory, with its page turned face down. Check: listen to that piece on the recording with its page in front of you. Pass: 1 piece from memory, to its written ending with no stop. If not: play the drill on the place where the memory failed, once a day, in the “Programme” row, under “The Recovery Drill” in Segment 2, and try again on the last practice day, in the recorded take.
Play one complete piece from start to finish over a backing you recorded yourself, and record it. Check: the recording; if your phone cannot play the backing and record you at the same time and you have no second device, judged as you play with the backing sounding. For the “Fifth-Fret Rock Study”, the tick list as well. Pass: your last note falls within 1 beat of the backing’s last chord. If not: listen to the backing once with the page and count its measures aloud, under “A Piece over Your Own Backing” in Segment 3, and try again the next day, in the “Assessment sections” row.
Count the items of the end-of-course assessment that are still open at the end of the week. Check: your sheet of results, item by item. Pass: 0 items open that have to pass; any that is open has its date for the next try written beside it. If not: take the open item again in its own form, in the “Assessment sections” row, under “Practice Plan for Week 36” in Segment 5, and try again after the wait that item’s own line names.

Practice Plan for Week 36 (each practice day, 40 minutes)

Notes on the rows:

Rotation this week, the change-test pairs: G and D7, a new chord every 2 beats at 80 BPM; Em and B7, a new chord every 2 beats at 80 BPM; Am7 and D7, a new chord every 2 beats at 80 BPM; C and G7, a new chord every 2 beats at 80 BPM; D and Bm, a new chord every 4 beats at 80 BPM. One of them a day, in turn.
The “Programme” row: if today’s take did not pass, the recorded take of the last practice day is the second try.
The “Assessment sections” row: write down the numbers of the items of the end-of-course assessment that are still open. Each is taken again in its own form, after the wait its own line names.

If your take passed today and no item is open, the course is finished: this plan is yours to play or to leave, and nothing more is marked. If you play it, the “Programme” row is your three pieces once through and the “Assessment sections” row is any one section, as practice.

If the take did not pass: on the first four practice days the “Programme” row is the piece with the most strokes, in sections, and then the three pieces once through; the take is on the fifth.

Block	Time	Activity
Warm-Up	4 min	Movement warm-up, tune; then the two arpeggios, once each; then the spider crawl at frets 5 to 8
Rotation	4 min	One scale card, played twice. One change-test pair, played as the test at the figure its ladder has reached (80 once it is there). Two single chord cards from the pile of E1, as far as its chords have been taught, with the Bm (four strings) card and the nine power-chord cards of E5. Each chord card: place the shape once, pluck each string that should sound, let go. These are the cards the end-of-course assessment uses. A chord that holds a barre is not in the pile, and that keeps Dm7 out: it is a barre chord, practised as presses, not as a card
Barre	2 min	A (full barre): presses and the change drill, 1 minute each; in the drill, the set E, A (full barre), E, A (full barre), E twice for each minute, shaking out the hand between sets
Programme	20 min	your three pieces, each from its own count-in to its written ending: one recorded take on the last practice day; one of them from memory. If a piece you choose has a daily limit, play it for no more of this row than keeps today’s total inside that limit: 5 minutes of slurs, 5 of three-string power chords, and 5 of barre work, no more than 3 of them full barre
Assessment sections	10 min	any section of the end-of-course assessment not yet passed, by its number

Full barre work: no more than 2 minutes a day in the week of Session 28 and 3 minutes a day from Session 29, at fret 5 only. It counts inside the 5 minutes of barre work.

Full barre rows this week: “Barre”, 2 minutes. Total: 2 minutes a day.

Barre rows this week: “Barre”, 2 minutes. Total: 2 minutes a day.

Two sittings this week: Sitting 1 is the rows from “Warm-Up” to “Programme” (30 minutes). Sitting 2 is the “Assessment sections” row (10 minutes). Leave at least an hour between them. Begin Sitting 2 with the movements under “Hand Warm-Up” in Segment 1, and tune again: neither is counted in the minutes.

This is your plan for the whole week. On your last practice day, answer this session’s Self-Check Questions as you play the rows that hold them: a question adds no minutes to a row and nothing to a daily limit.

After this session: finish any section of the end-of-course assessment that is still open. Its section “What Your Result Means” says what your result means and what comes next.

Guitar Tip — Saga SF-600C-BK

The Saga SF-600C-BK has a cutaway: it lets your fretting hand reach the highest frets, where the body of the guitar would otherwise be in the way. The highest fret this course presses is fret 9, in the power chords B5 (string 6) and E5 (string 5).

After the session (not part of the 50 minutes)

Read: Whats Next, the sections “What You Can Do Now”, “What This Course Did Not Teach”, “If an Item Is Still Open”, “What a Graded Exam Also Needs” and “Where to Go Next”. (15 minutes)
Read: Final Assessment, the section “What Your Result Means”. (10 minutes)