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GUITAR COURSEWARE
“Little Virtuoso”
(Beginner Level - 3 Months)
SAVE
PAPER

THE MUSIC NEVER DI E S

Ownership, Publication & Exclusive Distributorship By:

Acoustica™ Gurgaon
(A Venture of MEWO)

mw365-acoustica@yahoo.com
customer-service@acoustica.co.in
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Copyright © 2011-15 by Acoustica ™

Little Virtuoso, 2nd Edition, Revised Dec. 2011.
• NCR/ Gurgaon – India • NOT FOR SALE
• FOR USE BY STUDENTS OF Acoustica™ ONLY • DISTRIBUTION TO 3rd PARTIES IS STRICTLY RESTRICTED•
www.acoustica.co.in
Mobile: +91-9654847144
+91-9711387943
Office: 0124 - 3220857
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Acoustica™ 2011-15 STC (Regn. No): CXMPS6475MSD001
Trademark Regn. No: 2248733; Porp-1313595
 PREFACE & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book is the result of sheer experience & Music Knowledge ‘put into practice’,
all together by the Acoustica™ Trainers, comprising of 18+ senior guitarists with
over 10+ years of experience each, in guitar playing (training individuals of all
ages & corporate employees, as well as performing for stage shows). The book has
been researched thoroughly (With help from resources like: Books, internet
resources, Musicians and Guitarists, etc) and developed for over 2 years. Also,
mental & learning capacity and playing techniques for teaching children of small
age groups have been studied over years through experience and the best and
fastest techniques been inculcated into the ‘Little Virtuoso’ Course of Acoustica
that aims at young Children, to equip them with the best of talent and Knowledge
in guitar playing at their level.

We, as Acoustica™ team, pay special regards to all the trainers and knowledge
areas used to create our structured courses.
As a team of professionals guitarists (playing all genres of western music), we see
the distinction in the different positive reactions of all our students to the material,
and more importantly, the structured approach. Hence this book seems very
appropriately located in the series of guitar playing, and the strong fundamentals
have been carefully woven into the fabric of the book.

We believe we are a very special part of the music community and that without
constant practice, reading and composing, to strive for excellence in our field; we
would have been so much less than what we are today, the same that we educate
our students also to follow for life.
We hope that we forever uphold the superior quality of training that we have been
delivering, and improve on it every time, for any later revisions of our course books,
to bring about the best each time. In the same spirit, we hope that this book
provokes some strong positive reactions in you, as a reader and Musician, and
changes your lifestyle with the addition of an instrument playing skill in your life,
the legendary instrument – GUITAR
All the Best on your Musical Journey, Practice hard and Love your Instrument.
With Best Regards,
Acoustica™

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 INTRODUCTION
Dear Children and Students of Acoustica™, we truly salute you for showing deep
enthusiasm and interest in the Guitar.
Firstly, we’d like to introduce you to what learning the Guitar is all about. Most
people say that it is best for the personality development and intelligence quotient
of an individual to know/learn at least one instrument in their lifetime. You will
never regret it if you do so. And what better instrument to start off than the Guitar.
The evergreen 6 string.
Learning the Guitar involves a lot of dedication and hard work in the beginning,
now this may sound like a difficult task, but we assure you that in a month or so
you will truly enjoy what you are learning and you will love to indulge in you
Guitar.
There are many stages you will go through when you start learning to play the
Guitar, the First stage consists of initial basic and familiarizing yourself with you
instrument. When you speak to your Guitar it responds back to you in the form of
a very melodious and soothing sound. Let’s take for example when you learn to
ride your first Bicycle, you do need to get your balance right, and as soon as you
have done that you are ready for it, and I’m sure that you experience extreme joy
when you get the hang of it.
This is the exact same thing that you will experience when you will learn the
Guitar. The first few weeks will be tough no doubt, but as a young mind with high
goals and aspirations you will be able to get over it in no time. All you need is a
little patience and maybe an hour or two each day. There’s nothing better if you are
able to put in more time if possible.
We have been teaching the Guitar to many people of different ages and we have
seen by experience that Young individuals such as you are able to perform much
better than people who are much older. Your mind is just waiting to be tapped into,
the ability and talent you probably never knew you possessed.
If you do exactly what you are told and how you are supposed to go about it, you
will definitely excel beyond your own expectations. We have learnt your minds
and how different children think and apply their knowledge. You may not know it
but your learning capability and patience is at a much higher level than older
individuals and adults. No offence to Adults of course.
So as you proceed through this course we sincerely request you to keep up your
hard work, and also the Enthusiasm and Emotional level you had in the
beginning(when you first decided to learn the Guitar) till the end of the Course.
And we guarantee that you will go out of here with a Skill for Life on your
instrument and a new level of self confidence.
After all, you children are the Future. We wish that you to grow up to be bright
personalities and may the world look at you in Awe.

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 Know YOUR GUITAR

HOLDING YOUR GUITAR WHILE SEATED

When you hold your Guitar while in a seated
position, Rest the bottom curve on your right thigh
with the guitar close to your body (i.e. your torso).
Your right hand goes over the guitar in such a way
that the base of your palm either rests on the Bridge
or your palm is right above the sound hole.
Preferably it should initially be rested on the
Bridge to maximize comfort and ease of
play/strumming, while at the same time you
should be able to reach all strings without moving
your palm on the bridge.
Also the neck of the guitar shouldn’t slouch
downwards and try to keep it as close to your torso
as possible.

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 Other Guitar Holding Positions

The above holding/seating positions are common for the Classical (Or Spanish)
guitar which is usually played using your fingers and not with a Pick (Also
called a Plectrum). Classical/Spanish guitars usually have Nylon Strings on them
instead of Metal Strings.

Naming & numbering of your fingers

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 Learning YOUR FRET BOARD

In order to move beyond playing simple "open chords" (chords that involve playing
open strings), we must first take care of a few necessities; learning note names on
the sixth and fifth strings.

It is important for all musicians to understand the way the "musical alphabet"
works. The musical alphabet is similar in many respects to the "regular" alphabet,
in that it uses standard letters (a, b, c...g). Where the musical alphabet differs, is
that in the musical alphabet, the letters only progress up to G, upon which, they
begin again at A. As you continue up the musical alphabet, the pitches of the
notes get higher (when you go past G up to A again, the notes continue to get higher,
and they don't start at a low pitch again).

On the guitar, each of these letter names represents a specific fret on the fret board.
Between each letter name, there is a "blank" fret (these are the sharps and flats,
which we'll deal with in a later lesson) WITH TWO EXCEPTIONS. B and E do not
have sharps.

Between the notes B and C, and also between the notes E and F, there is no "blank"
fret; these notes directly follow each other on the fret board.

Fig 1: Fret Board showing only Natural Notes on the Fret Board (1st to 12th Fret)

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COMPILED AND DESIGNED BY VARUN MELROY
 Fig 2: Fret board showing all notes (Sharps & Flats) on the Fret Board (1st to 12th Fret)

TUNING YOUR GUITAR

Tuning your guitar is probably the most basic, but most important thing you
should do before playing your guitar. We start at the 6th string, this is the fattest
string on your guitar, and when played open it’s an E note. You will need either a
harmonica, pitch pipe, tuning fork, or any other instrument so you can hear the
note. All you do is turn the tuning peg until the note on the guitar sounds like the
E note that you've just played. Once you have that first note you proceed in an
orderly manner tuning one string after another. Press down on the 5th fret of the
6th string...then play the 5th string open. The 6th string with the 5th fret pressed
down is the same note as the 5th string played open. Turn the tuning peg until the
5th string sounds like the 6th string with the 5th fret depressed.

Now the pattern continues and you press down the 5th fret on the 5th string...then
play the 4th string open. Once again, tune until these two notes sound the same.
Then move onto the next string...Press down on the 5th fret of the 4th string and
tune the 3rd string to this note. Once you get to the third string there is a different
pattern...you press down on the 4th fret of the 3rd string and then tune the 2nd
string to this note. Finally you press down the 5th fret of the 2nd string and tune
the open 1st string to this note.
There you have it, a tuned guitar, as a side note, you can tune your guitar without
having the 6th string in tune with E...this just will mean that your guitar is in tune
with itself, but you would need to tune it to the E if you wanted to play with other
musicians.
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This is also called standard tuning [E-6th, A-5th, D-4th, G-3rd, B-2nd, and E-1st] and
is used by most guitarists; however, this is not the only way to tune your guitar.
You can tune it in any variety of ways...but for the beginner this is the tuning that
you'll most likely always use.
Easier said than done, tuning the Guitar can be very challenging for some beginners
initially. So even if you can’t seem to get there do not lose heart and try anyway,
because in the end when you finally figure it out, it will be worth the wait.

Here are a few things to keep in mind as you play the Guitar:
• If you are playing an acoustic guitar, make sure to strum directly over the
sound hole.
• Make sure all strings are ringing clearly
• Make sure the volume of your downstrokes and upstrokes are equal
• Be careful not to strum too hard, as this often causes strings to rattle, and
produces an undesirable sound
• Be careful not to strum too softly, as this will produce a "wimpy" sound.
Your pick should be striking the strings with a relatively firm, even stroke
• Think of your elbow as being the top of a pendulum; your arm should swing
up and down from it in a steady motion, never pausing at any time.
• Having said that, the bulk of the picking motion should come from a
rotation of the wrist, rather than from the forearm. Be sure not to keep your
wrist stiff when playing.
• The musical alphabet goes from A to G, then back to A again.
• There is no blank fret between the notes B&C, and E&F.
• The note name on the 12th fret of any string is always the same as the open
string.
Memorize the open string names of all 6 strings in order and randomly, and also
several more note names and locations on both the sixth and fifth string. This will
make finding all other notes much quicker.
After completing up to this point, revise all again before starting the next
upcoming portion of this book. Be sure you have got your Guitar & pick holding
posture/position right, remember the names of all the 6 strings. Your left and right
hand placement on the neck/fret board and bridge respectively should be firm and
not faulty.

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 A FEW BASIC CHORDS
Before playing the Chords See the Finger Name & Numbering Diagram on Page 6.

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 Basic Chords (Contd.)

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 THE BASICS of music
NOTE
A note is a name given to a sound of any particular frequency. In Music there are
7 basic notes, they are:
A B C D E F G

The above seven notes are also called as Natural notes. And after G, A follows
again, and it continues in the same loop.
i.e. A B C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C D E F G…
The remaining notes are denoted by Sharp (#) or Flat (b) symbols. Only B and E
have no sharps but all the above 7 notes have their respective flats.
Hence the 12 notes in Music are:
A A#(Bb) B(Cb) C C#(Db) D D#(Eb) E(Fb) F F#(Gb) G G#(Ab)

SHARP (#)
A note that is a halftone/semitone/half step higher in frequency than its
corresponding natural note is called a sharp.
All the sharps notes are as follows: A# C# D# F# G#

FLAT (b)
A note that is a halftone/semitone/half step lower in frequency than its
corresponding natural note is called a Flat.
All the Flat notes are as follows: Ab Bb Cb Db Eb Fb Gb

CHORD
3 or more notes that are played or sung together is called a chord. In other words
chords are the part of music that is played in the background, i.e. over the melody
line as the background music. In guitar we strum the chords to play various
different rhythm patterns.
Chords can be classified into two main categories:
1. Major Chords (Primary).
2. Minor Chords (Secondary).

SCALE
A Scale is nothing but a series of 7 or 8 notes taken from the 12 notes of music
that are played in a sequence in ascending or descending order. We say 7 notes
when we count them theoretically because according to name the 1st note is the
same as the 8th note, but we also say 8 notes because when we play a scale we play
all the 8 notes, and the difference between the 1st and the 8th is the sound or pitch or
frequency. The 8th is higher in pitch/frequency than the 1st.

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Initially we will be learning the C Major Scale, which is commonly known as
“Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa” in Indian Classical and
“Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do” in western classical.
The C Major Scale is as follows:
“C D E F G A B C”
It is also called as the ‘Natural Scale’ because as you can see it consists only of the
basic 7 notes of music which are also called as Natural Notes as discussed earlier.
Out of the 12 notes in Music, each note has the following of its own:
1. 1 Major Scale
2. 1 Minor Scale
3. 1 Major Chord
4. 1 Minor Chord, and others that will be covered in Higher Grades.
Hence there are 12 each of the four listed above. The 12 major scales are all
derived from the C Major Scale, well actually, 11 major scales are derived from the
C Major scale as C Major Scale is one of the 12 Major scales.

BASICS OF STAFF NOTATIONS

(Optional in Little Virtuoso)

Standard notation is written on a set of five horizontal lines called the staff:

And the plural of Staff is called ‘Staves’.

Guitar music is usually written using a Treble clef, which looks like this:

The purpose of a clef is to identify the names of

the lines and spaces. Each line or space will
represent one letter of the musical alphabet, which is the letters A through G. Using
the treble clef, the lines are (from the bottom up): E-G-B-D-F, which you can
remember using the mnemonic “Every Good Boy Deserves Fun”. The spaces, from
the bottom up, spell out the word F-A-C-E. Combining these two, we can write the
notes from E through F on the staff:

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 Standard notation is very visual: the higher a note
is on the staff, the higher it will sound.

Notes are symbols that indicate how long a sound lasts. Notes are made up of one
or more of three basic parts: a head, a stem, and flags or beams.

The head of a note is a roughly circular shape:

If a note has ONLY a head, the head is always hollow (as shown), and the
note is called a whole note.

A stem can be added to a note. When a stem is used, the head can be either hollow
or solid:

Notes with stems and hollow heads are called half notes; notes with stems
and solid heads are called quarter notes. Notes with solid heads can have flags:

Notes with one flag are called eighth notes. We can keep adding flags to a note,
getting sixteenth notes, thirty-second notes, and so on:

The shapes of notes tell us how long the sounds last. A half note
lasts for half the time of a whole note, a quarter note lasts for
half the time of a half note, and so on.

Music isn’t just made up of sounds, though – it’s also made up of the silences
between sounds. We need rhythmic symbols to indicate how long to NOT play, and
we call these symbols rests.

Each note has a corresponding rest… the ones at the far left are double-whole
note/rest, which is pretty rare in notation; at the far right is the 128th note, which is
also rare:

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Since the shape of the notes tells us how long they last – at least relative to each
other – we can now start worrying about pitch. We can put notes on, immediately
above, or immediately below the staff:

But that only gives us notes from D (below the bottom E line)
through G (above the top F line). That’s eleven notes… and we
can play a lot more than eleven different notes on the guitar.

To handle the ‘extra’ notes, we’ll use temporary extensions of the staff called ledger
lines, and keep going higher or lower as needed:

Ledger lines are identified as if the staff just kept going:

We’re almost done with the preliminaries… just a few more

things. We know that a half note is half as long as a whole
note, and twice as long as a quarter note – but we need to
know what note represents one beat in order to count time. That’s shown by two
numbers called a time signature that appears right after the clef. It looks sort of
like a fraction, and it can come in a lot of different varieties:

Initially while learning the staff beginners use only these three time signatures:

In each case, the bottom number is 4 – that tells us that a quarter note will get one
beat. The top number tells us how many beats will be in each measure. Measures
in music are the space between ‘one’ counts. In staff notations, we set vertical lines
called bar lines between measures in music to help us keep our place.

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 Little Virtuoso Curriculum based Tunes

TWINKLE-TWINKLE

Tempo=100

BROTHER JOHN (Sing & Play)

Tempo=100

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 HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Tempo=100

THE AIRTEL THEME

Tempo=120

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 THE INDIAN NATIONAL ANTHEM

Tempo=100

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 STAFF WORKSHEET

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 NOTES

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 NOTES

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 NOTES

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 NOTES

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 NOTES

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 NOTES

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