Classic Guitar Technique: Supplement 2: Guitar Book

Shearer's supplements are built on decades of teaching experience and a deep commitment to scaffolding theory concepts specifically for guitarists. Rather than borrowing piano-centric theory workbooks, this supplement speaks directly to how theory lives on the guitar neck, making abstract concepts concrete and playable.

Working through this book transforms the guitar neck from a collection of dots into a coherent map of musical relationships. Scales reveal their intervals, intervals become audible patterns, and chord construction shifts from memorized shapes into understood harmony.

This supplement is essential for classical guitar students who have completed foundational note-reading and fretboard navigation. It serves students ready to understand the harmonic logic behind the pieces they play and to approach music theory from a guitarist's perspective.

• Visualize each scale pattern on the neck before playing it; finger the shape mentally first, then physically, so the interval relationships become spatial memory rather than abstract names.
• Sing interval pairs aloud before fingering them; your ear will lock onto the sound faster than your fingers will find the positions.
• Map key signatures to the fretboard by first identifying the tonic note, then building the scale from that root across the strings you'll actually use in pieces.

Assign this systematically alongside repertoire study, completing one section per week so students encounter the theory in pieces they're learning. The supplement works best when students are playing music that demonstrates each concept; studying key signatures becomes meaningful when you're working in those keys.

• Scale construction and fingering patterns across all positions
• Identifying and playing intervals by number and quality
• Understanding and applying key signatures on the guitar
• Reading and voicing basic chord structures on the fretboard
• Connecting fretboard positions to treble clef notation