Session 24: Final Showcase: You Are a Guitarist

Duration: 50 minutes

Break: Put the guitar down for 5 minutes at the end of Segment 2. No stretch of playing is then longer than 30 minutes.

This is it. The final session. Twenty-four sessions ago, you had never held a guitar. You did not know what a fret was. You could not name a single string. Today you perform a concert of three short pieces from memory, drawing on what you have learned — chords, melody, fingerpicking, power chords, dynamics, improvisation, and musical expression. This is not a test. This is a celebration. You are a guitarist.

Learning Objectives

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

1. Perform three short pieces from memory, one after another, each started with your own count-in and played to its written ending without stopping
2. Demonstrate multiple techniques in a single performance (strumming, picking, fingerpicking)
3. Make at least one planned loud-or-soft change that can be heard on your recording
4. Check your tuning and count yourself in before each piece
5. Listen to your recording, check the time-keeping of one piece against the metronome, and look back over your journey from Session 1 to Session 24

Materials Needed

• Your Saga SF-600C-BK guitar
• A guitar pick
• A clip-on tuner or phone tuner app
• A metronome (for the timed run of each piece and the check of your recording)
• A phone or other device that can record sound and play it back (to record your performance)
• Reference: Phase 4 Checkpoint (for final self-assessment)
• Reference: Chord Chart
• Reference: Glossary

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

Hand Movements

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. Check each string twice. This is your final performance — perfect tuning matters.

Light Warm-Up

Play the C major scale up and down once at 60 BPM, one note per click (quarter notes). Then play a chord cycle: Em → Am → E → D → A → G → C → Dm → F (simplified), one strum each, with no metronome. Finally, play the alternating-thumb pattern from Session 15 (a first step towards Travis picking) on Em for 4 measures at 50 BPM, one note per click. This gently activates every technique you will use.

Spider crawl: frets 1-4, one finger at a time, all six strings, up and down. Stop if it pulls or aches.

Do not over-warm-up. Save your energy for the performance.

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Segment 2 — Technique Focus: Performance Preparation (10 minutes)

Choosing Your Three Pieces

Play the three pieces you wrote down in Session 19 and ran through in Session 23. The course’s versions of well-known songs are short, simplified excerpts: a riff, an intro, a verse or a melody phrase. They are not complete songs. Each of your three should be memorised by now: by the routine “How to memorise a piece” (Session 6), a piece is memorised when you have played it from memory, start to finish, on three different days.

If you have not settled on three, here are three recommended options:

Option A — Maximum Range:

Order	Piece	Technique	Tempo
1	Em–D arpeggio study (Session 15)	Fingerpicking arpeggios	55–60 BPM
2	Showcase Study in A minor (Session 21)	Melody + chord section	60 BPM
3	”Smells Like Teen Spirit” simplified arrangement (Session 20)	Power chords, dynamics	70 BPM

This order builds energy: gentle fingerpicking → expressive melody → explosive rock. A professional concert often follows this arc.

Option B — Rock Focus:

Order	Piece	Technique	Tempo
1	Arrangement study in E minor (Session 19)	Melody + chords	70 BPM
2	”About a Girl” verse accompaniment (Session 10)	Open chord strumming	70 BPM
3	”Smells Like Teen Spirit” simplified arrangement (Session 20)	Power chords, dynamics	70 BPM

Option C — Strumming, Melody and Riffs:

Order	Piece	Technique	Tempo
1	”Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” (Session 10, half-speed chart)	Open chord strumming	70 BPM
2	Showcase Study in A minor (Session 21)	Melody + chord section	60 BPM
3	”Iron Man” riff four times (Session 9), then “Paranoid” verse riff twice (Session 13)	Single-note riff; palm-muted power chords	70 BPM, then 75 BPM

Your choice. Pick the three pieces you enjoy most and play best. The best performance comes from music you love. This is the full list, the same one as in Session 23: the pieces named in the end-of-course assessment, plus four earlier course pieces. Every piece on it has a fixed length:

Piece	What you play, and how it ends	Tempo
”Smells Like Teen Spirit” simplified arrangement (Session 20)	Moveable power chords, loud and quiet sections. Intro, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, ending: 33 measures	70 BPM
Showcase Study in A minor (Session 21)	Melody and chords. Melody phrases 1 and 2, chord section, melody phrases 3 and 4, chord section, phrase 1 again (26 measures), then one slow strum of Am	60 BPM
Em–D arpeggio study (Session 15)	Fingerpicking study: arpeggios, p-i-m-a technique, chord changes. 16 measures, then one last thumb note left to ring	55–60 BPM
”About a Girl” verse accompaniment (Session 10)	Open-chord strumming. The verse accompaniment only: 8 measures, then one Em strum, let it ring	70 BPM
”Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” (Session 10, half-speed chart)	Gentle strumming, four chords. The eight-measure chart twice through (16 measures), then one G strum, let it ring	70 BPM
Arrangement study in E minor (Session 19)	Melody and chords. 20 measures, the last one a final Em chord left to ring	70 BPM
”Iron Man” riff four times (Session 9), then “Paranoid” verse riff twice (Session 13)	Single-note riff; palm-muted power chords. 8 measures, then 8 measures; the last chord rings	70 BPM, then 75 BPM
Blues in A minor with your own solo (Session 22)	The performance printed in Session 22, over your recorded backing: 40 measures, then one Am chord left to ring	The speed of your backing: 60 BPM, or 65 BPM if you recorded the faster backing in Week 22
”12-Bar in A” (Session 8)	Blues form with A, D and E. Three times round (36 measures), then one A chord, let it ring	75 BPM
”Scarborough Fair” accompaniment (Session 7)	Waltz strum in 3/4. The 16-measure verse twice, then one Am strum, let it ring	70 BPM in 3/4
”Two-Chord Rock” (Session 3)	Em and Am. 8 measures, then one Em chord, let it ring	60 BPM
”Em Groove” (Session 2)	Em downstrokes. 8 measures, then one Em chord, let it ring	70 BPM

Each tempo is the metronome setting from the piece’s own session, which also says how many notes or strums go with each click. In the two-riff piece the tempo changes: stop, set the metronome to the new tempo, count in one measure, and start the next section. The blues needs a second device to play your backing while the phone records.

Performance Order Principles

1. Start with your second-strongest piece. It gets you settled without the pressure of opening with your best.
2. Put your strongest piece last. End on a high note.
3. Vary the techniques. If your first piece is strummed chords, your second should be melody or fingerpicking.

Timed Run

Play each of your three pieces once, in your concert order, with the metronome clicking at the tempo in the table, from its first note to its ending. Finish with the click. This is the only time you play with the metronome today: the concert itself is played without it.

Pre-Performance Routine

Before you begin your concert:

1. Sit comfortably. Adjust your chair. Plant both feet on the floor.
2. Check tuning. One last time.
3. Take three deep breaths. Slow inhale, slow exhale. Drop your shoulders.
4. Visualise the first four measures of your first piece. See your fingers forming the first chord or playing the first note.
5. Start recording. Press record on your phone. Place it somewhere it can capture the full sound.
6. Count yourself in silently. Four beats in your head. Then play.

Break: 5 minutes. Guitar down.

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Segment 3 — Your Concert: Three Pieces (20 minutes)

The Rules of Performance

1. 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 Session 23.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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?”
5. Enjoy it. This is your music. You made it happen.

Piece 1

About 6 minutes: settle, play the piece once through, and play it again if you were not happy.

Play your first chosen piece from start to finish, from memory, without the metronome.

After finishing: put the guitar down gently. Take a breath. Check your tuning on all six strings. Prepare for piece 2.

Piece 2

About 6 minutes: settle, play the piece once through, and play it again if you were not happy.

Play your second piece. If it involves a different technique (e.g., switching from fingerpicking to pick playing), take a moment to set up — pick in hand, correct hand position.

After finishing: brief pause. Breathe. Prepare for your finale.

Piece 3

About 6 minutes: settle, play the piece once through, and play it again if you were not happy.

This is your closing number. Play with everything you have — full dynamics, expression, confidence. End strong. Let the final chord ring. When the sound fades, look up. You are done.

Stop recording.

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Segment 4 — Reflection and Course Review (10 minutes)

Listen to Your Recording

Play back your performance recording. Listen objectively. Notice:

• What sounds good. Chord changes that were clean. Melody notes that sang. Dynamic contrasts that worked. Celebrate these.
• What needs work. Transitions that were rough. Notes that buzzed. Moments where you lost the beat. Note these for future practice.

Then check the time-keeping of one piece. Start the metronome at the piece’s tempo, tap along with the recording, and mark any measure where your taps leave the click. Check the other two pieces the same way on your practice days this week.

Your Journey — Session 1 to Session 24

Take a moment to appreciate how far you have come:

Session 1: You could not name the strings. You did not know how to hold a pick.

Session 6: You played your first medley — a riff, a strumming study, and three chords. It was rough but real.

Session 12: You had seven open chords, power chords, and songs from three different musical traditions. You understood 12-bar blues structure.

Session 18: You fingerpicked arpeggios, played scales, used hammer-ons and pull-offs, and had the simplified F chord in your toolkit. You played a palm-muted riff, a melody and a fingerpicked section in a single medley.

Session 24: You just performed a concert of three short pieces from memory. Along the way you have strummed, picked melodies, fingerpicked, played power chords and improvised a blues solo. You read TAB, you have practised telling major from minor chords by ear, and you play in 4/4 and 3/4 time.

You are a guitarist.

Skills Inventory

Here is everything you have worked on. Write M (mastered), F (functional) or D (developing) after the final assessment.

Skill	Your status
Open chords: Em, Am, E, D, A, G, C, Dm
Simplified F chord (strings 4 to 1)
Power chords: E5, A5, F5, Bb5, Ab5, Db5 (moveable shape)
Strumming patterns: Downstrokes, D/U, D D U U D U, syncopated, waltz
Palm muting
Alternate picking (single notes)
Fingerpicking: p-i-m-a arpeggio, alternating-thumb pattern
C major scale (one octave, open position)
A minor pentatonic scale (open position)
Hammer-ons, pull-offs, slides
TAB reading
Reading an unseen TAB passage
Ear tests: major or minor, 4/4 or 3/4, playing back a four-note phrase
Improvisation over a 12-bar blues
Song arrangement (melody + chords)
3/4 time, 4/4 time
12-bar blues structure

Repertoire

You have played short, simplified parts of these songs:

• Nirvana: “Come As You Are” (riff), “About a Girl” (verse accompaniment), “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (simplified arrangement)
• Black Sabbath: “Iron Man” (riff), “Paranoid” (verse riff)
• Hindi film songs sung by Kishore Kumar: “Ye Shaam Mastani” (refrain chords), “Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas” (refrain chords), “Mere Sapno Ki Rani” (opening lines), “Roop Tera Mastana” (refrain chords)
• Bob Dylan: “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” (half-speed chord chart)
• Traditional: “Scarborough Fair” (accompaniment)

Listening only, not played: “Zindagi Kaisi Hai Paheli” and “Ae Meri Zohra Jabeen” (both sung by Manna Dey).

Plus pieces written for this course: “Em Groove,” “Two-Chord Rock,” the Em to E major strumming study (Session 5), “12-Bar in A,” the Em–D arpeggio study (Session 15), the Question-and-Answer Melody Study (Session 16), the Arrangement study in E minor (Session 19), the Showcase Study in A minor (Session 21), and the Blues in A minor with your own solo (Session 22).

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Segment 5 — Review and Practice Plan (5 minutes)

What You Achieved in This Course

You went from zero musical experience to performing a three-piece concert on acoustic guitar. You read TAB, play scales, improvise, and play short arrangements from rock, metal, Hindi film, folk, and blues traditions. You understand the 12-bar blues, verse-chorus song structure, and the basics of music theory. Your fingers have calluses. You have practised telling major from minor by ear. Your hands can fingerpick, flatpick, strum, palm-mute, hammer-on, pull-off, and slide.

This is not the end. This is the foundation.

What Comes Next

Immediate options:

1. Decide about a Grade 1 exam. If your final assessment result is Pass or higher, you are ready to start preparing for one. Get the board’s current syllabus and its Grade 1 book first: Whats Next explains what each exam needs.
2. Continue building repertoire. Learn new songs using the skills you have. Any song with chords you know (and many you can now figure out) is within reach.
3. Deepen your improvisation. The open-position pattern you learned is one of five pentatonic shapes that together cover the neck. Learning the other four opens the entire neck for soloing.
4. Start on the full barre chord. The six-string F is beyond this course; the simplified F is your starting point. Begin at fret 5, where it is easier, press, pluck each string and release as you did in Session 17, and keep to 3 minutes a day. 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 barre shape can be moved to any fret, so one shape gives you many chords.
5. Move on to intermediate study. This site has an intermediate guitar course that follows this one: Guitar: Intermediate Course. It is being published one phase at a time. The topics of intermediate study, in that course and beyond it: the CAGED system, more barre chord shapes, modes, extended chord voicings, advanced fingerpicking, and deeper genre exploration.

See Whats Next for a detailed roadmap.

Self-Check Questions

1. In the timed run, did you play at least one piece all the way through with the metronome clicking and finish with the click? If not: put one piece first in the Repertoire block of the practice plan and repeat the Timed Run with it each day until you finish with the click.
2. In the concert, did you play all three pieces from memory, one after another, each to its ending without stopping? If not: put the piece where you stopped first in the Repertoire block of the practice plan for two days, then record the three pieces again.
3. Did you count yourself in before each piece and check your tuning between pieces? If not: do steps 2 and 6 of the Pre-Performance Routine (check tuning, count yourself in) before every piece in the Repertoire block of the practice plan for two days, then record the three pieces again.
4. On the recording, can you hear at least one planned loud-or-soft change? If not: choose one place in one piece to get louder or softer, put that piece first in the Repertoire block of the practice plan for two days, then record the three pieces again.
5. Tapping along with the recording and the metronome, did your taps stay with the click through the whole of one piece? If not: put that piece first in the Repertoire block of the practice plan and repeat the Timed Run with it for two days, then record the three pieces again.

Any no: put that piece first in this week’s Repertoire block, and record the three pieces again before you take the final assessment.

Practice Plan for Week 24 (each practice day, 30 minutes)

Block	Time	Activity
Warm-Up	3 min	The warm-up from this session’s Segment 1, then tune. On practice days that means the hand movements, the chord cycle, the alternating-thumb pattern and the spider crawl; the C major scale has its own row below
Scales	2 min	C major, then A minor pentatonic, up and down at 60 BPM, two notes per click (eighth notes). Repeat until the time is up
Technique	5 min	Rotate daily: the simplified F, fingerpicking, the syncopated strumming pattern, improvisation over your blues backing. Repeat until the time is up, except on the simplified F day: press, pluck four strings, release, 8 times, then stop and use the rest of the 5 minutes for fingerpicking
Repertoire	10 min	Play two pieces from your repertoire from memory, a different pair each day. Repeat until the time is up
New Learning	10 min	Learn a new song using your existing skills. Find a published chord chart for a song you love, check that you know its chords, and work out a strumming pattern from the five you know

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. On the day the Technique row is the simplified F, that row is your barre work for the day.

This is your plan for the whole week. The end-of-week check is in Weekly Plans Phase 3 4, Week 24. The same plan will serve you after the course.

Final Self-Assessment

On the last practice day of this week, take Phase 4 Checkpoint and nothing else. On one further day, take Final Assessment (45 to 60 minutes); make its three ear-test recordings the day before. Leave at least one day between the checkpoint and the final assessment, so that the recordings have a day of their own.

Checkpoints are not exams, but they do decide when you move on. Items marked * are must-pass. If every * item is Mastered and at least four in every five items are Mastered, go on to the next phase. If not, practise the items that are not yet Mastered for one more week, using the advice under each, and take those items again. After that second week, go on in any case and keep the unfinished items in your warm-up. After Phase 4, the next step is the final assessment.

The final assessment is the course’s own end-of-course check. It is not a mock exam and does not predict an exam result.

Guitar Tip — Saga SF-600C-BK (Final)

Your Saga SF-600C-BK has been your partner through 24 sessions, countless chord changes, sore fingertips that became calluses, and songs that went from impossible to second nature. The dreadnought body gave you the bold sound to learn rock riffs and the projection to fill a room with Hindi film songs. The steel strings toughened your fingertips and gave you a bright, ringing tone.

As you continue your guitar journey, your Saga will grow with you. It handles barre chords, fingerstyle, flatpicking, and everything intermediate study will demand. Keep it maintained — wipe the strings after playing, change strings when they go dull, and keep it in a case when not in use. A well-cared-for guitar is a lifelong companion.

You started this course with a guitar and no knowledge. You end it as a guitarist. Everything that comes next builds on what you have already achieved. Enjoy the music.