Hands On Guitar: Beyond Beginner

You already know how to tune a guitar. You already know several open position chords and maybe a couple of moveable barre chord shapes. You know a few strumming or picking patterns, can keep fairly good time, and have a small handful of easy songs under your belt. You can even play a few single note lines and licks. But you just can’t seem to take your playing to the next level…

Welcome to the club! Everyone who has ever picked up the guitar has been exactly where you are. Crossing that bridge between beginner and intermediate player is one of the biggest challenges we face as guitarists. There’s plenty of beginning guitar instruction and plenty of intermediate guitar instruction available, but there’s almost nothing that bridges the gap between them. That’s why Susan Mazer’s Beyond Beginner is your express ticket, over that bridge, to the bountiful and very musical world of intermediate guitar!

Susan has organized the Beyond Beginner course into eight sections, Each section contains a series of lessons focused on an essential skill you’ll need to cross your bridge to go beyond beginner…

“I’m going to help you develop the eight essential skills you’ll need to go beyond beginner. You’ll expand your open chord vocabulary to the 25 chords needed to play thousands of songs. You’ll learn how to use chord substitutions, extensions and embellishments. We’ll work on movable barre chord forms so you can play any of your tunes all over the neck. You’ll learn 30 strumming and picking patterns so that you can choose the perfect groove for any song. I’ll show you how to incorporate bass lines and slash chords in your playing. You’ll learn how to hold your own in any blues jam. You’ll learn how to solo a little and play a few single line fills. And finally, I’ll teach you how to play songs in any key to best match the singer.”

Your first stop on Susan’s bullet train will populate your chord vocabulary with all of the chords that you hear being played in your favorite songs but just haven’t found on your fretboard yet. You’ll learn how form the Major 7th, Minor 7th and Dominant 7th chords that are so popular across almost every genre of music.

You second stop introduces you to those cool Sus4, Sus2, Add9 and 6th chords that all of your favorite singer-songwriters use all of the time. You’ll also learn how to use embellishments like hammer-ons and pull-offs while strumming chords to add even more interest to your rhythm playing.

All aboard and onto your third stop where Susan passes on the fretboard magic of moveable barre chords — your gateway to using the entire neck of the guitar for both rhythm playing and soloing. Even if you already play a few moveable barre chords, tune in here for more insight!

Learning 30 new strumming and picking patterns is next: 10 strumming patterns in 4/4 time, 10 strumming patterns in 3/4 time and 10 finger-picking patterns in 4/4 time. You’ll never be at a loss again to come up with an appropriate rhythm guitar part with these 30 patterns at you fingertips.

Next stop, Slash chords and Bass lines. Susan will show you how to incorporate slash chords and bass lines in your playing to create more textures and movement in your rhythm guitar parts.

Grab your electric guitar for the next stop as you learn to play and jam on the blues (although you can use electric or acoustic for any of the lessons and skills being taught in this course). The 12-bar blues is probably the most frequently played progression in contemporary music. Susan will show you a few different ways to play rhythm guitar parts for the 12-bar blues and also give you the tools to play it in any key.

Just two stops to go! On this stop, its time to start playing a little lead guitar. Susan shows you how to solo using movable and sliding major and minor pentatonic scales — the most important scales in popular music. You’ll also learn to add a few riffs to your rhythm playing.

On the last stop across the bridge, Susan ices the cake of your new musicality with a series of lessons focused on identifying keys and tonal centers, and how to approach changing keys to best match the singer’s voice, whether that’s you or the singer in your band.

You’ll play your way through the course, applying all of the skills as soon as you learn them by working with the playalongs and jam tracks that Susan prepared for the course. Susan also includes lots of charts and diagrams, and many of the examples will also be tabbed and notated, plus you’ll also get all of the rhythm tracks to work with on your own.

Grab your guitar and hop aboard, you’re headed way beyond beginner guitar!

Rating Distribution

• 1 stars: 2 votes
• 2 stars: 1 votes
• 3 stars: 10 votes
• 4 stars: 38 votes
• 5 stars: 79 votes

Frequently Asked Questions

How long do I have access to the course materials?

You can view and review the lecture materials indefinitely, like an on-demand channel.

Can I take my courses with me wherever I go?

Definitely! If you have an internet connection, courses on Udemy are available on any device at any time. If you don’t have an internet connection, some instructors also let their students download course lectures. That’s up to the instructor though, so make sure you get on their good side!