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  • HandoutHandout 1: Supply & Shopping List

    Handout 1: Supply & Shopping List

    Before we get into technique, let's talk gear. You don't need much to move past basics, and I feel like a lot of people overspend on the wrong things and underspend on the one thing that actually matters. Here's my honest list.

    The One Thing That Matters Most

    A proper setup. If your guitar's been sitting in a closet, or you bought it used, or you've never had anyone look at it, get the action checked. High action has quit more beginners than any lack of talent, and I mean that. A setup runs maybe $40-60 at a music shop and it will do more for you than any accessory on this list. Do this before anything else.

    Our dry air up here doesn't help either. Wood moves more than people expect at this elevation, and a guitar that was fine somewhere humid can develop a hump in the neck or buzzy frets after a Utah winter. Worth a check even if nothing feels wrong.

    Budget Tier (get these, they're not optional)

    • A tuner. Clip-on style, ten to fifteen dollars. Don't trust your ear yet, even if you think it's good. I still use mine.
    • A metronome. Your phone has one built in, free. Use it. I'll say more about this in a later lesson, but a metronome is not the enemy.
    • Fresh strings. If you don't know when yours were last changed, they're old. A set is six to ten dollars for steel string acoustic. Change them yourself or have the shop do it once so you can watch.
    • A notebook. Paper, not an app. You're going to write down chord shapes and your own notes, and I feel like paper sticks in the brain differently than a screen does.
    • Picks, a handful of different thicknesses. They're a dollar for a bag. Try them all. You'll land on a favorite and lose it constantly, that's just how picks work.

    Nice-to-Have Tier (worth it, not urgent)

    • A capo. Opens up a lot of songs without new chord shapes. Fifteen to twenty-five dollars, and the pricier ones clamp more evenly, which matters more than you'd think.
    • A proper guitar strap, if you'll ever play standing. Doesn't need to be fancy.
    • A humidifier for the case, especially if you keep your guitar in a room that runs dry in winter, which up here is most rooms. The soundhole kind is a few dollars and it's cheap insurance against cracks.
    • A small practice amp, if you're on electric. I keep mine in the closet at my place because the walls are thin and I'm a county clerk, not a rock star. Headphone jack is worth paying a little extra for.

    Skip For Now

    You don't need a pedal board, a second guitar, or a fancy strap lock system to get past basics. I'd rather you spend that money on the setup and good strings. Gear doesn't fix a bad barre chord shape. Practice does.

    Where to Shop

    Any music shop along the Front Range can handle a setup and will usually do it while you wait or same-day. Big box stores (your Costco, your general sporting goods places) sometimes carry strings and tuners cheap, which is fine for those basics, but I wouldn't get a setup done anywhere that doesn't have a dedicated guitar tech on staff. Ask before you buy — most shops are happy to answer a few questions from a beginner, and if they're not, that tells you something too.

    Bring your guitar to week one either way. We'll look at it together. 👍

  • HandoutCheat Sheet: Guitar Skills Beyond the Basics

    Cheat Sheet: Guitar Skills Beyond the Basics

    Print this, stick it near your practice chair, and check it when you're stuck. It won't replace the class, but it'll jog your memory on the stuff we cover slowly in person.

    Barre Chords — Do It Slow

    1. Thumb sits behind the neck, roughly opposite your middle finger, not wrapped over the top.
    2. Index finger lies flat, close to the fret wire, not sitting back in the middle of the fret.
    3. Roll the index finger slightly onto its outside edge. Flat and mushy won't ring.
    4. Press only as hard as you need to. Squeezing harder than necessary is the habit that wrecks your hand over time.
    5. Check string by string before you ever strum the whole chord. Find the dead string and fix that one thing.

    I feel like most people rush this and build a bad shape that follows them for years. Ten clean minutes on this beats an hour of grinding through it wrong. Heck yes to slow.

    Metronome Settings

    • Start at a tempo where the click feels almost too slow. If you're fighting to keep up, back off 10 bpm.
    • Practice new chord changes at 60-70 bpm before you ever try them at song speed.
    • For strumming patterns, set the click on beats 2 and 4 once you're comfortable — it's harder, and it's closer to how a band actually feels.
    • A metronome is not the enemy. "I can't play in time" almost always means "I've never practiced with time." That's fixable.

    Fingerpicking (Travis-Style Basics)

    • Thumb covers the bass strings (low E, A, D depending on the chord) and keeps a steady alternating pattern, almost like a heartbeat underneath everything else.
    • Fingers (index, middle) pick the higher strings on top of that steady thumb.
    • Fix the thumb first. I taught myself off a book with the thumb on the wrong strings for months, and it sounded fine right up until it didn't. If your picking sounds muddy, it's the thumb, not the fingers, nine times out of ten.

    Action & Setup Basics

    • Action is the distance between the string and the fret. Too high and everything hurts more than it should.
    • Rough check: at the 12th fret, you shouldn't be able to slide much more than a business card under the low E string.
    • If your fingers are screaming and your technique looks right, get the guitar looked at before you blame yourself. High action has quit more beginners than lack of talent ever has.
    • Our dry air out here can shrink the wood a little over a season and shift things slightly. If your guitar played fine in July and feels off in January, that's probably why. Worth a check, not a panic.

    Strumming Pattern Notes

    • Down-up-down-up stays even only if your wrist keeps moving on the "silent" strums too. Don't stop the arm between hits.
    • Watch yourself on choruses. I speed up without meaning to, every single time, and I've been playing years. If it happens to you too, you're not alone. Slow it down on purpose before it happens.

    General Reminders

    • Four clean songs beat forty sloppy ones. Nobody at a campfire is grading you on repertoire size.
    • One correction at a time. If you're working on barre chords and your strumming's a little loose too, fix one thing this week, not both.
    • Play badly but often. That's the whole secret, really.

    🌷

  • WorksheetHandout 3: Barre Chords & Clean Transitions — Your Practice Checklist

    Handout 3: Barre Chords & Clean Transitions — Your Practice Checklist

    Small thing, but I'll say it up front: this handout won't do anything for you sitting in a folder. Pull it out during the week, actually check the boxes. Ten minutes a day beats an hour once a week. I feel like that's the whole secret and nobody wants to hear it.

    Part 1: Barre Chord Shape Check

    Go slow here. This is the one where people build a bad habit and then defend it for twenty years. I'd know.

    • [ ] Thumb sits behind the neck, roughly behind your first finger — not creeping over the top
    • [ ] First finger lies flat across all strings, pressing near the fret wire (not in the middle of the fret)
    • [ ] Second, third, fourth fingers arch — knuckles up, not collapsed flat
    • [ ] Elbow relaxed, not chicken-winged out to the side
    • [ ] Play each string one at a time. Circle any string that buzzes or goes dead:

    E   A   D   G   B   E

    If you circled more than two, don't push through it today. Reset the shape and try again tomorrow. Grinding on it just teaches your hand the wrong version, faster.

    Part 2: F Major (the classic troublemaker)

    • [ ] All six strings ring clean, one at a time
    • [ ] Held for 10 seconds without your hand shaking out
    • [ ] Switched from F to C and back, 5 times, no buzz

    If F is still fighting you, that's normal. Heck yes to sticking with it anyway. It took me longer than I like to admit.

    Part 3: Transition Timing

    Metronome on. Slow — 60 bpm is fine, slower if you need it.

    • [ ] G to C, four beats each chord, 10 times through, no click missed
    • [ ] C to D, same drill
    • [ ] Pick your two hardest chords from class and write them here: __________ to __________
    • [ ] Same drill, that pair, 10 times through

    A metronome isn't the enemy. Most folks who think they "can't play in time" have just never practiced with time. It's not a talent gap. It's a click-track gap.

    Part 4: Self-Check — Be Honest

    Rate yourself 1–5 (1 = rough, 5 = clean and unhurried):

    • Barre chord shape: _____
    • F major specifically: _____
    • Chord-to-chord transitions without looking at your hand: _____
    • Keeping steady time without speeding up: _____ (I still speed up on choruses myself, so no judgment)

    Part 5: This Week's Goal

    Write down ONE thing to fix before next class. Just one. Not five.

    ______________________________________________

    I'd rather you nail one clean chord change than half-learn five. The four-songs-clean player does just fine at a campfire. The forty-songs-sloppy player does not.

    A Note on Your Guitar

    If you're still fighting buzzy strings after checking your hand shape carefully, it might not be you. High action has quit more beginners than bad technique ever has. If you're not sure, bring your guitar in and I'll take a look before you blame your fingers for something the setup is doing. 👍

    See you next week. Bring the checklist back.

  • HandoutHandout 4: Troubleshooting Guide

    Handout 4: Troubleshooting Guide

    Every one of these showed up in my own hands at some point, so if you see yourself here, you're in good company. Fix the small thing now and it won't turn into a ten-year habit.

    1. Buzzing strings Nine times out of ten this is action that's too low, or a finger not pressing quite hard enough right behind the fret. Press just behind the metal, not on top of it. If you're pressing right and it still buzzes, heck yes for good technique, but get the guitar looked at. High or low action isn't something you fix by trying harder.

    2. F chord (or any barre chord) won't ring clean I feel like everyone wants to muscle through this one, and that's exactly how you build a bad shape that follows you for years. Slow down. Roll your first finger slightly so the bony edge does the pressing, not the flat pad. Check each string one at a time before you strum the whole thing. Ten clean minutes of that beats an hour of grinding through buzzy chords.

    3. Chord changes are slow and clunky Almost always the fingers are lifting too far off the strings between chords. Keep them hovering close. Also — find the one finger that stays in roughly the same spot between the two chords (there often is one) and let it be your anchor.

    4. Strumming speeds up during the chorus I still fight this one myself, so I won't pretend it's rare. It's a metronome problem, not a talent problem. Practice with the click even when it feels tedious. Most people who "can't keep time" have just never practiced with time.

    5. Fingerpicking sounds muddy or rushed Check your thumb before you blame your fingers. The thumb carries the bass line, and if it's wandering onto the wrong strings, everything above it sounds off no matter how careful your fingers are. I did this wrong for months off a book. Fixing the thumb felt like starting over, but it was worth it.

    6. Sore fingertips Normal for the first few weeks. A callus is coming, and honestly I'm a little proud of mine (Heather remains unimpressed). Short, frequent practice sessions build calluses better than one long painful one.

    7. Can't tell if the guitar is in tune Use a clip-on tuner, don't guess by ear yet. Also — dry air up here can pull strings out of tune faster than you'd expect, especially in winter with the heat running. Check before every practice, not just once a week.

    8. Strumming hand sounds stiff or robotic Usually this is a death grip on the pick, or an arm that's doing all the work instead of the wrist. Loosen the grip. Let the wrist do most of the motion.

    9. Overwhelmed trying to learn too many songs at once Small thing, and it's just my preference, but I'd rather you play four songs clean than forty sloppy ones. The person who can play four songs well is a lot more fun at a campfire than the person who half-knows forty.

    10. Frustrated because progress feels slow Play badly but often. That's not a throwaway line — it's the only reason I play anything at all. My father never once apologized for a wrong note. He just kept going and landed somewhere close by. Do that.

    If something on this list doesn't resolve after a few weeks of honest practice, bring the guitar in and I'll take a look. Sometimes it really is the instrument and not you. 👍

  • podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 1

    Audio coming soon — show notes below.

    RAYMOND: —and that's really the whole problem right there. High action. Not the player, the guitar.

    JESS: Wait, back up, you cut me off mid-sentence and I don't even know what we're talking about yet.

    RAYMOND: Sorry. Sorry, Jess. I get going.

    JESS: You do. That's fine, that's why I'm here. Okay, for anybody just pressing play — this is the podcast that goes along with Raymond's class, "Guitar Skills Beyond the Basics," here through Utah Community Learning. Episode one. Raymond, introduce yourself for the three people who don't already know you from the ward or the trailhead.

    RAYMOND: I'm Raymond. I play guitar poorly but steadily, and I've been doing that long enough now that people ask me to teach it, which I find a little suspicious, honestly.

    JESS: You say that every time and it's never true, you're good.

    RAYMOND: I'm competent. There's a difference. I play at sacrament meeting twice a month and nobody's asked me to stop yet.

    JESS: Yet.

    RAYMOND: Yet. I keep waiting. 👍

    JESS: Okay so — high action. You cut in on that. What were you actually thinking about?

    RAYMOND: I was thinking about my first guitar. I bought it used off a guy up in Lehi, years back, and I didn't know anything, so I didn't check the setup. The action — that's how high the strings sit off the fretboard — was set so high you could've slid a nickel under the strings at the twelfth fret.

    JESS: That sounds miserable.

    RAYMOND: It was miserable and I didn't know it was miserable. I just thought guitar was supposed to hurt. I played that thing for a full year like that. My fingers still remember it, honestly, there's a kind of ache I get sometimes that I swear is just memory.

    JESS: A whole year.

    RAYMOND: A whole year, Jess. And I feel like that's such a common story for self-taught players. You assume the difficulty is you. Sometimes the difficulty is the instrument.

    JESS: Okay, that's actually a great tip for somebody who isn't even taking the class — if guitar has felt like a fight the whole time—

    RAYMOND: —get the setup checked. That's it. That's the tip. Any guitar shop can look at the action in ten minutes. Doesn't have to be expensive. Cheap guitars are fine, I'll say that plainly, I'm not a snob about the instrument. But a bad setup is not fine. High action has quit more beginners than any lack of talent ever has.

    JESS: I love that you have a strong opinion five minutes into episode one.

    RAYMOND: I have opinions on most of it. I'll try to space them out over the semester so I don't use them all up.

    JESS: Please don't, we need the content. Okay — so this class, "Beyond the Basics." Who's it actually for? Because I think some people hear that title and get intimidated.

    RAYMOND: It's for somebody who already knows some chords, maybe took a beginner class or taught themselves off videos, and now they've hit a wall. Usually the wall is a barre chord, or their strumming falls apart the second there's a chord change, or — and this is a big one — they've built a habit early on and it's calcified. I want to gently interrupt that.

    JESS: Gently.

    RAYMOND: Gently. I'm not going to embarrass anybody. I just, if I see something, I'll say something. Kindly. I can't really help it.

    JESS: That's very on brand. Okay, before we wrap — what's session two?

    RAYMOND: Barre chords. The slow, correct way. I feel like most people muscle through the barre chord, build a bad hand shape trying to force it, and then that shape follows them around for years. Ten clean minutes of doing it right beats an hour of grinding through it wrong.

    JESS: You're going to make people go slow.

    RAYMOND: Heck yes I am. Slow is the whole method. I approach it kind of like genealogy, actually — I spent a decade tracing my family back to Switzerland, and somewhere in there I noticed I check a barre chord the same way I check a census record. Slowly. Twice.

    JESS: That's either the nerdiest sentence I've heard all week or the most useful one.

    RAYMOND: Could be both.

    JESS: Could be both. Alright — bring your guitar next session, bring patience, and apparently bring a genealogist's mindset. Raymond, thanks.

    RAYMOND: Thanks, Jess. Play something badly this week. That's homework. 🌷

  • podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 2

    Audio coming soon — show notes below.

    RAYMOND: —and that's the thing, the shape doesn't care how you feel about it. The barre chord just sits there being correct or not correct.

    JESS: Okay, wait, back up, we're recording now.

    RAYMOND: Oh. Sorry, Jess. 👍

    JESS: You're fine, that was a good place to start actually. You were talking about barre chords again.

    RAYMOND: I feel like I'm always talking about barre chords. It's the one everybody wants to skip past and it's the one you really can't.

    JESS: This is episode two of "Guitar Skills Beyond the Basics," by the way, for anyone just joining. I'm Jess, I run the podcast side of things for Utah Community Learning. Raymond teaches the actual class, Tuesday nights.

    RAYMOND: Six weeks. We're in week two now.

    JESS: Right. So last time you talked about setup — action, intonation, that whole thing. Today I want to hear about a mistake. Something that went wrong for you personally.

    RAYMOND: Oh, I've got one that's still with me, literally. You want to know why I have this callus?

    JESS: I do want to know why you have that callus.

    RAYMOND: It's on my index finger, right here, and it never fully goes away. Winter, summer, doesn't matter. And I'm quietly proud of it. I feel like it's the one piece of physical evidence that I actually practice.

    JESS: Does Heather appreciate the callus?

    RAYMOND: No. Forty-one years married and she has never once been impressed by the callus. I've shown it to her probably two hundred times.

    JESS: That's very married of both of you.

    RAYMOND: It is. But here's the connection to today's lesson — that callus came from years of fighting a barre chord the wrong way. I built the muscle before I built the technique, if that makes sense. I was pressing so hard, for so long, trying to force the F chord to ring, that my finger just gave up and toughened.

    JESS: So the callus is a monument to doing it wrong.

    RAYMOND: Kind of, yeah. Heck yes, actually, that's exactly what it is. A monument to doing it wrong for about a year before somebody showed me the better way.

    JESS: What is the better way? Give us something a listener at home can actually use.

    RAYMOND: Okay. Small thing, and it doesn't matter much for anybody who's already got this — but I feel like most people rush the barre. They slam the whole hand down at once and then wonder why three strings are buzzing. What I have folks do in class is isolate just the barre finger first. No other fingers involved. Lay it flat across the strings, thumb behind the neck like you're gently squeezing a tube of toothpaste, not gripping the neck like you're trying to strangle it.

    JESS: Toothpaste, not strangle. Got it.

    RAYMOND: Right. And then check, one string at a time, which ones are ringing clean and which ones are dead. Usually it's the same one or two strings every time, and that tells you where your finger's rolling or where there's a gap. Ten minutes of that, slow, checking each string — that beats an hour of just grinding through full chords and hoping.

    JESS: Ten clean minutes beats an hour of grinding.

    RAYMOND: That's the whole opinion, yeah. I say it a lot in class. People get tired of hearing it probably.

    JESS: I don't think they do. Okay, so somebody listening right now who isn't even taking the class — they can try that tonight. Just the barre finger, isolated, string by string.

    RAYMOND: That's it. No guitar class required for that one. 🌷

    JESS: I like that you throw in a flower emoji for a chord tip.

    RAYMOND: I don't always know why I do it. Felt right.

    JESS: Before we wrap — what's coming next Tuesday? Give people a reason to show up.

    RAYMOND: Next week we're doing Travis picking. Thumb-first, which is going to surprise some people because everybody wants to fix their fingers and the truth is the thumb's doing most of the damage. I've got a whole story about learning it wrong off a book for months, which I'll probably tell in class, I'm saving it.

    JESS: A teaser.

    RAYMOND: A teaser, sure. But bring a guitar that's actually in tune, that's my one ask. I spent fifteen minutes last session just getting people's E strings to agree with each other.

    JESS: Noted. Guitar Skills Beyond the Basics, Tuesdays, Utah Community Learning. Thanks, Raymond.

    RAYMOND: Thanks, Jess. Go press on a string for ten minutes. Heck yes. ❤️

  • podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 3

    Audio coming soon — show notes below.

    JESS: —okay but you can't just leave it there, what happened to the amp?

    RAYMOND: I moved it into the closet. That's the whole story.

    JESS: That's not a story, Raymond, that's a real estate decision.

    RAYMOND: Fine, I'll give you the story. When Heather and I moved to Downtown Apartments, I brought the electric setup in like everything was normal. Plugged in, played maybe four bars, and I could feel it through the wall. These are not workshop walls. These are apartment walls. So now the amp lives in the closet and I play acoustic in the front room with the window cracked.

    JESS: And nobody's complained?

    RAYMOND: Nobody's complained. I keep waiting for it, though. I'm a county clerk, not a rock star, but I still half expect a note taped to my door someday.

    JESS: This is the guy who used to have a whole workshop, everybody. Table saw, the works.

    RAYMOND: Guitar traveled better than the table saw did. That's the honest truth. I miss the shop more than I thought I would, but the guitar fit in the new place and the saw didn't, so here we are.

    JESS: Okay, so, session three. What'd you actually cover this week.

    RAYMOND: Barre chords. Which I say every time like it's a fun surprise and it's never a fun surprise. Nobody comes in excited about barre chords.

    JESS: They're hard!

    RAYMOND: They are hard, and I feel like most people got there the way I did, which is wrong, fast, and stubborn about it. I bought my first guitar used off a guy up in Lehi, and the action on that thing was so high you could've slid a nickel under the strings at the twelfth fret. I played it that way a full year before anybody told me that wasn't normal. My fingers still remember that guitar. Not fondly.

    JESS: So the barre chords were basically impossible on it.

    RAYMOND: They were a fight every single time. And here's the thing I want listeners to walk away with, whether they ever set foot in the room or not — if you are wrestling a chord and it will not ring clean no matter what you do, check the guitar before you blame your hands. Get the action looked at. High action has quit more beginners than any lack of talent, I'm convinced of that.

    JESS: That's the tip. Write that down, people.

    RAYMOND: And the second half of it — if the guitar's fine and it's really a technique problem, go slow on purpose. Ten clean minutes of a barre chord done right beats an hour of grinding through it wrong. I know that's not exciting advice. I don't have exciting advice. I have "check the setup" and "go slower than you want to."

    JESS: You did tell the class about your own barre chord, though. The confession.

    RAYMOND: Oh, the B minor. Yeah, still can't get it to ring clean on the first try every time. Some days it's there, some days it's not, and I genuinely don't know why some mornings my hand just knows and other mornings it doesn't. I've stopped pretending I have an answer for that one. I just play it again.

    JESS: Small comfort for the room, though, right? Instructor doesn't have it all figured out either.

    RAYMOND: I think it helps people relax. If I've got a gap I'm still working through and I'm not embarrassed about it, maybe they don't need to be embarrassed about theirs either. Heck yes to that, honestly.

    JESS: Alright — next session, what are we doing.

    RAYMOND: Fingerpicking. And I'm going to say the thing I always say, which is that everybody wants to fix their fingers first and the actual problem is almost always the thumb. Thumb's the foundation. If the bass line's a mess, the fingers never had a chance.

    JESS: You learned this one the hard way too, didn't you.

    RAYMOND: Taught myself Travis picking off a book, thumb on the wrong strings, for months. Sounded fine right up until it didn't. Fixing it felt like starting over from zero. Worth it, but I won't tell you it was fun, because it wasn't.

    JESS: So bring your guitars, thumbs specifically at risk.

    RAYMOND: Bring your guitars. We'll go slow. We always go slow.

    JESS: That's session four. Thanks, Raymond.

    RAYMOND: Thank you. 👍

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