Guitar course

For a while, I have been planning to release a course dealing with hobbies. How do we choose a hobby, and how we can enjoy the hobby and learn from it. So after some consideration, I created a course dealing with guitars. This course is a product of love and joy, and I welcome you to share the joy with me.

Where to find it

As I promised, we have a new course. It is cheaper than our regular coursed. Moreover, the first 80 people to use coupon GUITAR80 will get this course with a HUGE discount (80%). Here is the link to the course http://keytostudy.thinkific.com/courses/keytomeaning-guitar-masterclass.

Why do I offer this course almost free of charge? There is no clear return on investment. Having a hobby you love is wonderful, but it will not pay your bills. I do not claim to be good enough to make you earn money playing music. So I do not feel comfortable charging more.

How this course came to be?

Approximately 5 years ago Anthony Metivier came to Israel. He told me that he used to play guitar, and playing guitar was instrumental to his memory mastery. There is supporting scientific evidence. So as I was working on the raising superlearners Udemy course, I already hoped that someday my kids will play the guitar. Eventually, this happened.

Now, this course is my whimsy. My kids love music and they learn to play various guitars. So, together with my kids and their teacher we created the best hobby/music/guitar course we could think of.

What possibly could I write about?

You will see materials for every level from absolute beginner to the things even professionals do not know. There are musical mnemonics and engineering guidelines to creating your dream instrument, and much more. You will also see my kids play various guitars we have at home.

Since I do not play guitar professionally myself, and there are many techniques dealing with different kinds of guitar playing, I talk about everything except the playing itself. If you want to actually learn a specific strumming pattern, it is better to check that stuff on youtube.

As a mathematician, an engineer, and a memory expert, I focused on the things that musicians miss.  I sent the course to some professional musicians that are my friends and got very positive feedback.  Musicians tend to spend their days practicing particularly complex technical exercises or composing music for their gigs. They do not tend to think about the best representation of musical theory, the history of music, or the construction details of the tool they use.

Videos of my kids playing

I will be honest. I had a not-so-secret agenda. My kids are getting marginally old enough to learn my tools and to participate in my videos. This is the first time I add them to my videos, the first time they participated in my studio setup and filming.

The process has been difficult, but deeply satisfying. I had to take each video many times until everybody was happy. Even now, I got some comments from my video editor regarding sampling and illumination. But then you see my kids play the guitar they love. They are almost beginners and make mistakes now and then, but their enthusiasm is contagious.

This is the most important part: having fun. Many of my students tend to be overly aware of their own mistakes and very serious. This is stressful. In this situation, the main idea of effective learning is simply to let go and enjoy yourself.  You will make occasional mistakes. So what?

Pleasure and happiness

I try to use simple formulas if I can. In a very simplistic way, happiness = pleasure + purpose. But what is pleasure? Playing guitar definitely qualifies.  There are many kinds of pleasure involved:

• The esthetic feel of a beautiful instrument
• Belonging to the musical tradition we love
• Creative expression
• Playing with or for the people we care about
• The sound of music
• The feeling of achievement from technical elements
• Realization of theoretical elements
• Satisfaction from building and choosing the dream tool
• The anticipation of future progress

And many more… Simply the deep vibration in the belly from the guitar’s sustain is similar to holding a warm living creature on the lap…

My kids’ musical history

I did not think my kids were able to become talanted musicians. My parents always told me that I am not sufficiently talented in music. I tend to love jazz and progressive rock, but I did not like popular music. So my parents interpreted my musical taste as utter lack of musical interests.

Luckily, my kids got a school teacher who spotted their inclination. I did not think that playing guitar in school will be something they want, but they became very interested in their music classes. So I sent them to conservatorium to learn piano and theory. Only they did not like the piano. My girl happens to love piano but not my boys.

After two years of playing the piano, they switched to various kinds of string instruments. They play contrabass with a bow, a bass guitar, flamenco guitar, and different styles of the electirc guitar. Music is just one of their multiple activities, but they spend at least an hour a day playing.

Costs

Music is not a cheap hobby.  The instruments tend to be expensive, the instruction is even more expensive. Since my kids need many musical instruments, I spent a small fortune on the equipment.

It was very important to get the best sound from not very expensive tools, and for two years many of my weekends were dedicated to getting just the right stuff. The focus was on buying inexpensive tools, and then upgrading them to heavenly sound and feel. After two years, I found myself educating my luthier and the electronics expert regarding more advanced equipment.

Even storing all the equipment we use is a challenge. Having 10 guitars, 3 pedalboards, four large amps and other stuff readily available in a small apartment is complex. Currently, my middle kid decided to use his bad for the guitars and to sleep in the living room.

Productivity

Adding activities to the calendar automatically forces us to become more productive. My eldest son started to learn my speedreading and productivity tools http://keytostudy.thinkific.com/courses/keytostudy-speedreading-masterclass.

Currently, he needs to balance sports, music, tinkering, and regular school stuff. He plans every hour of his time, even during the school vacations.  Somehow I see a synergy of different activities. He learns to balance and timing as an aggressive skater and then applies those skills to music.  In music, he is very systematic and learns to be a good team player. Then he is a valuable team member in his robotics group.

I hope one day my kids will join the family business…

Memory

Musicians usually have a very good short-term memory. They need to remember long sequences. Anna taught my kids visualization and memory tricks. With music, they get constant memory training and very good dual coding training. Their grades went from B+ to A+ within two years and they were accepted into prestigious learning groups.

Summary

So far this has been a great experience. My kids have musical interests similar to mine, and we always have something to talk about. This is hard for teenage kids. You can see that my kids enjoy playing. And I enjoy seeing them play and helping them with theory and equipment.

Again, here is the link to the course http://keytostudy.thinkific.com/courses/keytomeaning-guitar-masterclass.