When diving into the world of harmony and chord progressions, one concept that stands out for its ability to add color and excitement is the secondary dominant.

While it may initially seem tricky, once you understand how secondary dominants function, you'll find they can dramatically enhance your music by creating tension, surprise, and smooth movement between chords.

In this blog post, we'll break down what secondary dominants are, how they work, and explore practical ways to use them to create more dynamic and compelling harmonic progressions in your compositions and performances.

The pentatonic scale is a fundamental tool for guitarists, celebrated for its simplicity, versatility, and expressive power. From its ancient origins in global music traditions to its pivotal role in shaping blues, rock, and jazz, this five-note scale has influenced countless players and genres.

In this post, I explore the fascinating history of the pentatonic scale, its major and minor forms, and how legendary guitarists like Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King, and Eric Clapton used it to craft iconic solos. Discover its unique role in modal improvisation and substitutions to create fresh, dynamic sounds.

Whether you’re just starting or looking to expand your musical horizons, the pentatonic scale is your key to unlocking creativity and versatility on the guitar.

When learning guitar, the concepts of satisficing and maximizing guide your progress.

Satisficing helps beginners by focusing on achieving basic skills, like learning a few chords and simple songs, without aiming for perfection. This builds confidence and keeps motivation high.

As you improve, maximizing takes over, encouraging you to refine techniques, master more complex pieces, and deepen your musical understanding.

Together, these approaches create a balanced path to mastery, combining early enjoyment with long-term growth and skill development.

Imagine yourself sitting with the guitar, confidently playing a piece that you once thought was impossible. The applause rings in your ears—not just from friends or family, but from yourself.

You’ve earned that pride.

This is the kind of journey graded music exams offer you: A path to becoming the musician you’ve always dreamed of.

Learning music is a multifaceted journey that involves much more than just playing an instrument.

To truly develop as a musician, it's essential to focus on a range of interconnected skills, including theory, technical exercises, repertoire, sight-reading, ear training, and improvisation.

Each of these aspects plays a unique role in shaping your musicality, and together they create a well-rounded foundation for creative expression and technical proficiency.

In this blog post, we'll explore these core elements of music learning, breaking down their importance and how they work together to enhance your musical abilities.

Taking a graded music exam with RSL Awards offers a structured and rewarding way to track your progress as a musician.

Whether you're aiming for a formal qualification or simply want to develop your musical abilities, RSL exams assess key skills through practical performance, technical exercises, and theory. From choosing the right pieces for your exam to understanding the differences between performance and grade exams, there’s a lot involved in the preparation process.

This blog post explores what you can expect from an RSL exam, including tips on song choice, the importance of technical exercises, the role of theory, and how long it typically takes to prepare. Plus, with the flexibility of video recording submissions introduced post-COVID, taking an RSL exam has never been more accessible.

It all begins with an idea.Off course, you can just pick up the Guitar and just play. There is simply no way that you will not learn at least something.

However, to ensure that you learn optimally and continue to learn, you need to plan your learning. It needs measuring, adapting, applying and measuring again.

Over years, experience and science has taught us the best ways of doing this. A few of these ways that apply to learning music and the guitar are:

Effective guitar practice is the key to unlocking your potential as a musician.

In this blog post, we’ll explore what to practice, how to structure your sessions, and how much time to dedicate to playing—whether you’re a beginner learning basic chords or an advanced player mastering complex solos. We’ll also emphasize the importance of following your teacher’s advice, creating clear goals, and building a consistent routine to ensure steady progress.

Ready to take your practice sessions to the next level? Let’s dive in!

Approaching a new piece for the first time can be intimidating. It should be stimulating, but not daunting.

If you have a clear way to approach a new piece every time, you have a template for success—every time. The whole process happens in four steps. This oversimplifies things, but it gives us a quick overview.