🎓 The tonebase course that changed your playing
tonebase has 116 guitar teachers in the library, with hundreds of courses across technique, repertoire, and interpretation. Some of them have probably said something to you that lives rent-free in your head. 🎸
💬 Tell us:
- Which course (or single lesson)?
- What specifically clicked — a technical adjustment, a musical idea, a mental shift?
- How long ago did you watch it, and is it still influencing your playing?
Could be a flagship course you came to tonebase for. Could be something quieter — a single masterclass moment, a workbook chapter, a 2-minute warmup video that rewired your right hand.
For newer members: this thread is the highest-signal way to find out what's worth your time in the catalog. Scroll the replies before you pick your next course.
8 replies
-
I signed up in April 2020 just as Covid was in early raging days. The first livestream I took in was an early Mircea session on, well, I just can't remember, but it was fantastic. EVERY Mircea session has been most excellent. ESPECIALLY the ones on RH planting, which I already used heavily, but his explanation, rationale, and humor were fabulous. LH stretching also, just every Mircea session is great.
Others: Rene on Brouwer etudes and warmup approaches, TY on warmup and AMI, Anton Baranov on AMI, barre, and Matt Palmer on AMI.
You didn't ask which course aren't so useful. private feedback available if desired.
-
Several lessons regarding the damping of bass notes. Rather important stuff: if you don't damp the bass note and let it ring you'll get an entirely different chord. I never learned this but it made a lot of sense.
And a lot of other lessons also ; even if I'm not working on the piece that is on topic I try to get something useful out of the lesson.
-
There were several things by Borbola Seres, but I can't remember if the information came from one of her courses, her livestream, or the two-week intensive she did.
- Most importantly, it's much better to play simpler pieces well than higher-level pieces sloppily. You can move people with a short etude or prelude played beautifully, but you'll never do it with something out of your range.
- How you can use interpretive techniques like articulation and dynamics to create interest and tell a story. You can play all the same notes, but completely change the mood of a piece.
- How to create a storyline for a piece. It won't necessarily come through literally to your audience, but it will help shape your performance (and it's kind of fun).
-
I have particularly enjoyed and found helpful the lessons and livestreams of Emmanuel Sowicz. I particularly like his emphasis on how fingering choices reflect interpretation. It wasn't a new concept to me, but he put it more in the forefront of my process. I find myself thanking him every time I make my own fingering choices.
-
So far, Practice Principles by Łukasz Kuropaczewski. I didn't realize how much I was rushing everything. I tried to learn quickly and often ingrained mistakes. Now I do my best to take my time. And I still don't go slowly enough in the beginning.
I think I watched outtakes on YT before I ever watched the full course. Then my TB coach recommended it, so I watched it in January of this year.
-
I think most of the guitarists shared the same passion for playing the guitars. Basically I do not have any preferences for any guitarists featured in Tonebase. They were wonderful guitar teachers. I like to see more about flamenco guitarists feature in tonebase so that we have different flamenco guitarists and classical guitarists to learn from the famous professional musician. I also love to learn someone can teach us some guitar ensemble performance and orchestra including the aural listening skill which most guitarist is lacking. Besides, there also more lesson or masterclass on how we can arranging non guitar music to be part of the guitar repertoires and also the art of music composition. A great guitarist is also a great musician. How do we know guitarist is a great musician? Just look at some of the guitarists composers like F. Sor, M. Guiliani, D. Aguado, Agustin Barrios Mangore, etc. You can be a great guitarist like A. Segovia but he was not a good composer and a great guitar music promoter. Actually I prefer to listen and watching the old generation guitarists such as John Williams, Julian Bream, Pepe Romero, Paco de Lucia, Nicola Hall, Ida Presti, Uros Docjinovic, etc. The new young guitarists may lost some of the charm in creating new guitar repertoire