Online Lessons with Steve Kaufman

Steve's Been Teaching Since 1976.
This picture from a workshop at Acoustic Vibes Music Tempe, AZ

Join Steve Kaufman For Online Guitar Lessons Each Week From The Convenience Of Your Own Home Or Anywhere Around The World.
Each Week, Steve Will Demonstrate New Concepts And Exercises Along With A New Tune (Plus Bonus "Add In" Materials For The More Ambitious Student) To Help You Improve Your Guitar Technique, Make Better Use Of Practice Time, Get More Familiar With Bluegrass, Old-Time, Celtic, Folk And Gospel Music And Have More Fun Playing Music On Your Own And With Others.

We Will Have Four Main Classes In The Online Series: Rhythm, Beginner Lead, Intermediate Lead And Upper Intermediate Lead

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Lead Flatpicking for Beginners and Early Intermediates - a 101, 102, 103 Series: Tuesday Night
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Lead Flatpicking for Intermediates a 201, 202, 203 Series: Wednesday Night
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Ongoing Upper Intermediate Flatpicking Guitar (Students should have been through Steve's Intermediate 201, 202 and 203 Online Classes): Thursday Night

We will use various household bluegrass favorites and fiddle tunes as vehicles for improving technique, learning the fretboard and working toward creating variations and improvising.

Steve believes that there are a minimum of three levels to each level. In some cases there are more. So each course is broken down into three sections or levels and progress through the timeframe of the classes. It is suggested for all beginner students to start from the 101 class and all intermediates to begin with either the beginner 102 or 103 class or the Intermediate 201 class. It never hurts to review.

The Lead Flatpicking 101-102-103 level course are designed to help the guitarist at the beginning level improve the fundamentals of his or her playing and his or her ability to improvise, while expanding repertoire along the way. This three-tier class will bring you from the beginner level into a solid intermediate guitarist level.

The Lead Flatpicking 201-202-203 level course is designed for the guitarist at an intermediate level to help them expand on improvisational concepts, learn more about the fret board and push their playing to the next level. This three-tier class by design will bring the student from the early intermediate level to the crest of advanced.

Ongoing Upper Intermediate Flatpicking Guitar:
Students Should Have Been Through Steve's Intermediate 201, 202 And 203 Online Classes. We Will Continue Where The Lead 203 Class Left Off And Will Be Ongoing In Six-Week Segments Of Increasingly Difficult Techniques And Pieces. Loads Of Frustrating Fun!

All Courses Will Focus On A These Main Areas:

Improving picking technique to improve tone, rhythm, volume and speed.
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Improving knowledge of the fingerboard through tunes, licks, some scale work and Steve’s guidance on how the fingerboard works.
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Working toward improvisation using all of the above tools.
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Expanding your repertoire of bluegrass and fiddle tunes.

All sessions of the class will be video recorded, so that students may revisit the sessions as often as they would like, and students who were unable to attend the live sessions will be able to view them at their own convenience. This is done through an unlisted YouTube Channel. These recorded classes are great because you can review and take notes. Things go past you pretty quickly in class so it is nice to be able to review and highly recommended.

During the live sessions, students can ask questions via a built-in chat window. All student microphones are muted during the session. Student cameras for much of the session are not visible. We find there is too much noise and distractions when everyone's mic. is open.

All students will also have unlimited access to short recorded videos of all of the material played at a slow tempo, PDFs of all material in both standard notation and tablature, and mp3s of all of the tunes at slow and medium speeds that they can practice along with. These pdfs and mp4s are put in a Dropbox Folder and the link sent to the student before class. You are to download these and keep on your hard drive.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the training.

What You Will Need To Participate

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We will use ZOOM for the classes. You will want to download the ZOOM app for your device. You will want to download the ZOOM app for your device. When you register, you will get a receipt emailed to you. In that receipt will be instructions for using ZOOM in an attachment or a separate download item.

A desktop or laptop Mac or PC computer, iPad or Internet-connected mobile device in order to view the sessions, plus a good internet connection. Outdated, Dinosaur computers seem to have some trouble and require updating.

An internal microphone and speakers on your laptop or desktop computer, or a phone to listen and speak (if desired) during the sessions. Instructions for participating by phone are included when you register for the course (long distance charges may apply).

During the course, you have the option of contacting Steve with questions at steve@flatpik.com. You can also set up a 15 minute private time lesson via the web. Additional Cost of $25 per 15 minute segment. This is more than enough time with Steve to isolate an issue and resolve a picking problem.
The fee for each Six-Week course is $185.

Students taking two courses simultaneously (in the same week) $25.00 discount.

If you are interested in taking two courses, One Rhythm and One Lead, email steve@flatpik.com to make sure you get the discount. Questions about the courses can also be emailed to steve@flatpik.com

About Steve

Steve has been teaching guitar throughout the world since 1976. Private lessons, group lessons and now internet lessons. This is the best way for Steve to share his talents with you and you to learn from one of the best educators in the world in the style of Flatpicking Guitar.

Flatpicking Style simply means we will be using a flatpick to play but we are not limited to only Bluegrass. Through continuing classes, we will work on Traditional Fiddle Tunes, Folk Guitar, Celtic, Swing, Gospel and much more. We may even dabble in a little fingerstyle in the intermediate classes at some point.

You have probably taken one of Steve’s workshops or private lessons or worked through one of his many, many books and DVDs. You know his smooth and defined method of teaching delivers the point to all levels and all backgrounds of students. You can and will learn guitar from Steve.
Students from all over the world are now studying from Steve - Live. That is so cool.

Here's What our Students are Saying

SS from Kingston, Australia

My project over the last three months or so has been trying got get down fiddle tunes from your first parking lot pickers Book and CDs, then play along with your bluegrass play-along CD (Four-Hour Bluegrass Work-Out). I really enjoy it and have 15 down now but I can only play the slow versions. I crash at 180-190 BPM. My long term goal is to get up to 240 so I can play fiddle tunes at speed. I nearly fell off my chair when you said you can play at 400 BPM!Of course now I’m trying to concentrate on the proper technique, I've slowed down but I guess someones you need to slow down first to speed up. So it’s good to go back to the simple songs and picking exercises to get the technique correct.

SS - Australia

Just thought I’d share my initial thoughts on the online training.I think it’s working great. I really appreciate being able to get the insights of someone of your calibre as far away as Australia. One of my great frustrations over nearly forty years of struggling with guitar is that it is very hard to find someone who structures their instruction in a logical and progressive way. I like your 101-102 approach. It helps me feel like I will progress if I follow the course and practice every day.

PG from Rome, GA

Steve- I've really enjoyed the lessons. I thank you for all of your work! The lessons were well presented, thoughtfully progressive and a great way to learn from the comfort of my own cluttered computer room ! I would and have recommended you guitar series . Thanks

NB from AZ

HI Steve. I just wanted to thank you for going into the detail about diminished chords. Besides practicing the songs you are giving us I am trying to see how I can incorporate them into other music I play. I am excited to learn about these chords and how to use them. I am also keeping up with the tunes from the lead classes. Life is full and rich with so much music to enjoy. Thanks.

Nancy B from Tucson, AZ

One of the things I really appreciate about this instruction is that there is so much support. The you tube video as well as written tab and standard notation for every song was a real plus.When you gave us “add ons” you helped us document the ideas. This relieved tension related to needing to remember everything at the moment and made the class much more relaxed. I was able to absorb more at the time as well as go back and refresh from the video. In all it was a very good experience and I look forward to the next class for rhythm guitar and lead guitar. Best wishes,

LP from Ontario, Canada

I really like the classes. At first thought it might be too basic (I've been playing for quite some time) but am discovering that your course material is deceptively difficult. And I've also come to realise that knowing chord shapes and 'noodling' around is NOT the same as actually knuckling down and learning a song. Already I feel that my strumming is much better as I'm much more confident and sure ‎with my right hand. The flicking water technique is very good.

KL

I'm really enjoying the classes! Loving the song choices, too. Looking forward to continuing in 102 classes.

KH from Waleska, GA

Thanks again. I love this song (Kentucky Waltz). But it is harder than it sounds! I am really enjoying these online lessons. I have most of Steve's books and have been to one of his workshops (Townsend, TN), but for some reason, these online lessons seem to be helping me more than anything I have done. I guess it is the focus and having the lesson on youtube to view several times during the week. But also, these audio files you send are great to play along with over and over. Thanks again and again,

JS from Mechanicsville, TN

Just finished the second of Steve Kaufman's online video classes. Great stuff!. It's not really like a workshop, but more like one on one with Steve. It's in real time and you can ask questions in real time but you can still have the video on file as a reference. Very enjoyable.

John

It’s amazing how fast the sessions go and the information comes at us quick if you include all the extra gems you give us during the lesson. Like the others do I am sure, I am sometimes frustrated that I can’t practice more and learn every bit you show us but then when I realize probably a bit over a year ago I would get a nose bleed past the 5th fret and now play up the neck comfortably at least on the tunes I know. It is really remarkable how far we have come since Lead 102.Keep it going. This is my “Thursday night picking with the boys”.Thanks for all your effort!

JM from Reno, NV

Great class tonight. I really appreciate how you show us where else these substitutions could fit, i.e. E blues, etc. One of my many challenges is that when I hear a song, especially if I like the break, everything else sounds “wrong”. You are really helping me break out of that closed-mindedness. Thanks.

JM from Davis,Ca.

I'm looking forward to Lead tonight. I've never heard Jesus is Coming Soon. What a great beginners tune with chord variety etc.Thanks and I must say thus far your online classes have been Home Runs!

JM from Bowmanville, Ontario

I'm really enjoying the lessons. I like the way you are using the tunes as vehicles to teach us concepts that we can then use universally in our playing rather than teaching a particular way to play a particular tune. I have already signed up for the next set.

JK from Delta, UT

Just wanted to let you know how much I have enjoyed and learned from your class. You are the best! I have taken lessons from several teachers over the years but none have specialized in bluegrass. I felt like I was being bogged down with a lot of material that really didn't relate to bluegrass. It was so refreshing to see that all the material you taught was spot-on for bluegrass. I can play all the material pretty well now but need to work on increasing the speed and memorizing it all. Excited to see that I will end up with a great collection of tunes I can play with and for family and friends.

J.C. Dallas TX

Steve, thank you, thank you!! I have learned so much! I have TONS of books that I have accumulated over the years, but haven't even come close to "getting" what you have shown us in 6 weeks! Now I will use the summer to absorb from the videos all the neat things included in them and will be really looking forward to September!