At this stage in your development, you’re beginning to gain confidence, can jam over tunes, and are connecting your ears and hands.
Because of this advancement, this is the most important stage to maintain focus for any developing player.
What tends to happen is that you can rest on our accomplishments up until this point and stagnate your growth in the process.
Keeping a well-balanced routine is very important for intermediate players if you’re to avoid this type of stagnation in your playing.
The following will provide you with a guide of how to accomplish your goals, and move you through the Intermediate stage in your studies.
Intermediate Practice Guide – 60-Minute Sessions
The following is an example of how you can divide your time during each hour of an Intermediate level practice routine.
You’ll notice that there are fewer sections to study, but more time is being spent on these items in your practicing.
Feel free to use the exercises from any chapter in this book during each of these four practice sections, or use some of the suggestions below.
The important thing is to maintain a balanced routine moving into the intermediate level of your studies.
If you want to dig deeper into these items each day, you can practice half an hour each over a two-hour routine.
Or you could do half-hour on each section, with one hour today and one hour tomorrow, alternating over the course of your week.
You’ll notice that free time is not included in this routine.
This doesn’t mean that you don’t have free time.
But, at this stage maintaining focus is key.
So leave free time for days when you have more time, and use it to explore past concepts, new ideas, or other items in your studies.
Lastly, tunes are now central to your studies, so for each section you might want to focus all of your exercises over the same tune.
This would mean working on:
Ø Learning the tune in Repertoire.
Ø Chords, scales, and arpeggios over that tune in Fundamentals, Ø Transcribing a solo over that tune in Transcribing.
Ø Working lines over that tune in Vocabulary.
As an intermediate player, you’ll most likely be finding opportunities to jam with other people.
So working tunes is an essential part of your daily practice routine.
Repertoire – 15 Minutes
Tunes should be learned by ear at this point, both chords and melody.
For those looking for an extra challenge, you can transpose melodies, chords, and soloing over these tunes to multiple keys, all 12 if possible.
This would also be a good chance to explore your first Bebop tune if you can, such as:
Ø Au Privave Ø Billie’s Bounce Ø Donna Lee Ø Confirmation
There’s no rush to learn tunes at this point, and memorization is key.
Spending time to dig deep into any tune you study will help you more than skimming the surface with many different tunes.
So, take your time and go as deep as you can with these intermediate level tunes in your woodshedding.
Fundamentals – 15 Minutes
Fundamentals are still an important aspect of your studies.
Therefore, making time to shore up and learn new concepts in this section is essential to moving forward as a player.
Fundamentals could include running more advanced scales over a tune, such as Melodic Minor, Symmetrical Scales, or Altered Pentatonic Scales.
It’ll also mean not only working on root arpeggios over tunes, but 3 to 9 arpeggios as well.
Exploring playing over chord changes without having the root as a reference point in your lines.
Lastly, 3 to 9 rootless chords should also be explored at this stage, along with voice leading over tunes.
This is where you play the chords for a tune within a 4-fret span on the guitar, and don’t move your hand outside of that space.
Sometimes you’ll feel like you don’t have to work on these aspects of your playing anymore, you’ve moved past them.
But, fundamentals should always be a part of your routine.
You move on to more advanced concepts, but the intention is the same, shoring up your understanding of the guitar in your studies.
Transcribing – 15 Minutes
As an Intermediate level player, you’ll want to:
Ø Transcribe full solos.
Ø Play them along with the original recordings.
Ø Play them with backing tracks.
Ø Play them with a metronome.
Ø All from memory.
Focus will not only be on the notes that you’re transcribing, but in emulating the feel, phrasing, articulation, slurs, etc. of the solo.
You’ve seen examples of intermediate transcriptions previously.
Beyond those solos, you can also explore transcribing other instruments at this stage to expand your vocabulary beyond guitar.
As always, make sure that you spend a month or more working exercises through the transcribed solo.
This’ll ensure that you digest the material in a meaningful fashion.
Vocabulary – 15 Minutes
Intermediate vocabulary will involve more advanced concepts.
At this stage, you’ll want to transcribe all the vocabulary that you study.
This means not learning it out of books or from websites, as challenging your ears is an essential step for any Intermediate player.
As well, the concepts that you would want to study at this stage include:
Ø Melodic Minor
Ø Symmetrical Scale application
Ø Chord substitution for soloing and comping Ø Faster lines, including double-time lines.
If you’re unsure as to what players to study when exploring these types of intermediate vocabulary concepts, you can check out:
Ø Joe Pass Ø Pat Metheny Ø Wayne Shorter Ø Herbie Hancock.
Lastly, singing your vocabulary is something that should be done at the intermediate stage in order to challenge yourself in your routine.