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As I said I have already started using this approach with some of my students and they all immediately nailed the first part. After going through the module already I can see the same type of success with adding the additional notes.

A couple of my more advance students who already know the notes on the Low E and A notes pretty well I was able to start from their and take the next step and they picked up on it very quickly.

I'd say it's a very simple way to learn the notes on the neck whether you are a total beginner or and advanced player. You will still need to work at it but it's an easy concept to understand!

I found the link in the music theory section under rock and blues guitar academy. I'm a bit beyond the stuff presented right now but after reading some of instructors post I'm looking forward to getting to the advanced courses.

I really started it because I was curious how he taught his students. I'm kind of addicted to courses, books and things like that. I have probably hundreds of instructional books which I only look at about 10% of them. As far as Sean's (Instructor) course I'm really enjoying the journey even though I already know the material. I have already been using his naming the notes exercises with some of my students.

I took a look at Troy's book and it's all in there so I won't repeat everything again. Between that and what Instructor wrote should cover everything pretty well. You also seem to understand how to assign the chords in each progression with roman numerals already so I'm not sure exactly where the problem lies. If you could be more specific where you are having troubles may we could help.

Don't know if this could help or not but I first teach students to look at the minor chords in relation to the major key.

Major key-    C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, Bdim,
                     I   II-   III- IV  V  VI-  VII dim

Minor key-    Am, Bdim,  C, Dm, Em, F,  G
                    VI-  VIIdim  I   II-   III- IV  V

As you can see all I did was start on the 6th chord of the major key and spell it out from there. The chords in the keys of A minor and Cmajor contain the exact same chords. The next thing you want to do is rename the Am as I-, Bdim as IIdim or II-  (Bm commonly subbed for Bdim), C as bIII and so on and follow all the same explanations presented by Troy and Instructor.

Don't know it that helps at all. The only other thing is take all the info you have and create some progressions of your own. If you are able to assign the correct roman numerals to the progressions in Troys books then you should be able to take the chords and a create progressions using the same exact formula. Again not sure what exactly you are missing here but try this out and post what it is exactly you don't understand. By the way when I write I- what I mean is one minor. It's a more contemporary way of writing it out as opposed to the classical based lower cased ( i ) way of labeling minor.

Yes I agree you need to be careful not to go too far off track. At the same time you need to be careful not to loss the chance to explore deeper into a certain area and take advantage of a chance where the student is sucking up everything you are teaching. In one class I took in music school the teacher from time to time would go way off of what we were supposed to cover in that class because a student had a question. He said he actually really enjoyed these classes because everyone was really learning. Had he gave a simple answer and got back to that days material we would have lost out on an opportunity to really learn something substantial.

On the same count I totally agree that if a student keeps coming in every week with new random questions you need to put a lid on it. Each student is different and you need to use your best judgment as to how you will deal with each individual.

Yes I am one of your students. Very cool stuff. I finished the first module and can't wait to get started on the next! Even though I know the stuff presented already I'm learning some very new and innovative ways of looking at things. Good stuff!

First I'll say that learning to read is not a bad thing by any means. Anything new you learn is a good thing but each person needs to figure out if all the effort is really worth it. If time is limited then concentrating on something else may be a better choice.

First the pro's and con's of both. Reading music shows you what notes to play and the rhythmic value. The cons is it does not normally tell you where to play these notes. On very rare occasions if it is written for the guitar it will tell you the position.

Tabs shows you exactly where to put your fingers. No questions at all as to where they should be! Tabliture is much more guitar friendly.  The negative is that it does not tell you how long to play these notes.

So what I do with my students that have no interest in reading music is we use tabs and I teach them to read the rhythms in the standard notation. This way they are able to figure out how exactly the piece of music is played rhythmically and they know exactly where they are supposed to put their fingers.

You may say well you will learn the names of the notes by learning to read music but there are other ways of doing this also. There are tones of memorization methods out there that are easy to learn.

The thing with most students is that reading standard notation is going down a dead end. If you can keep their interest beyond the first few strings you can possibly get them to learn the first position. After that only the students that are getting into jazz, classical or going onto music school will learn the other positions. Most students that are into rock styles will never bother with reading standard notation beyond the things they read in the note reading books.

Since most students want to jam and have fun playing their favorite songs using tabs and teaching them to read the rhythms will improve their playing alot more then teaching them to strictly read standard music. I also teach them what notes are on the lines and spaces on the staff when teaching theory. Yes I teach them both aspects of reading music but when they are put together most students will resist and will not practice it. So why bother if they will not practice it? It makes more sense to teach them something that they will absorb and actually work on.

What they will be more willing to work on is playing their favorite songs by tabliture and instead of working on pretty simple rhythms and learning to sight read the first position I can teach them to read very complex rhythms and learn to analyze the songs from the bands they actually want to learn.  They end up enjoying themselves more which in turn they end up advancing much more quickly doing it this way. On top of that if they ever really want to learn to read music they have the tools to do it.

To end off I'm not putting down standard notation. If you are going to be a jazz, classical or studio musician it is a must. If you have a yearning to learn to read then by all means go for it. To learn how to play the guitar or even become a professional musician learning to read music is not necessary. Their are tons of very skilled and talented players out there that can't read stitch of music. Actually the only time I ever use it is when I'm teaching kids to read music. Even then this is extremely easy note reading. I'm glad I learned it but I've also been playing for around 30 yrs and I'm a guitar teacher.

Yes that is the usual way it happens. People are just busy with vacations and other things during the summer. After school starts up it starts to pick up again and yes Christmas brings on a rush of new perspective students.

100% agree with above statement! I give a free introductory lesson and after that they pay for the upcoming months lessons. Nobody ever has problems with this. Most are actually ready to pay me for the first free lesson. Their pretty happy when I inform them the first lesson is free!

My policy up till this last month was 24 hr notice for cancellation. If they gave me 24 hrs notice they will get a makeup. I also allow them one makeup per month. If they were sick then would still allow the makeup. Of course some people would then just call up saying they were sick when I know they were full of it.

What I now have in place it 48 hrs notice for a makeup and if they are sick I will do a homework assignment for them during the time they were supposed to be there. Again only one makeup or homework assignment per month unless they inform me that they have a flu or something like that. I'll then decide whether I will give homework assignments or just not charge during this time.

I also charge by the month and in the beginning they give me an extra 2 weeks deposit. This way if they decide to ditch lessons and not tell me when payment is due I'm covered. Too many times I've had people show up at the beginning of the month informing me they will give me payment next week. Next week comes and another excuse. Next thing you know I gave them a complete months worth of lessons, they contact me telling me they are quitting and never bother to send me payment for the lessons I've given them.

Now I'm covered for the first two weeks of the month and if I don't receive payment by the second week they receive no additional lessons until I'm paid up to date.