MUSIC WORKSHOPS
IN NASHVILLE
Green Hills Guitar Studio offers music lessons to both individuals and groups of all sizes. If you’re interested in an intensive group learning experience to jumpstart your guitar playing and songwriting or work on your skills with like-minded musicians in a cooperative setting, contact us for more information about our music workshops in Nashville.
Guitar & songwriting workshops for creatives, teams, and organizations in Nashville, TN
“Somehow Shane led our group of 7 entrepreneurs, with virtually no musical talent, in writing and singing a complete song! How he accomplished this in just a few hours I will never know, but I am forever grateful. We now have our own song, that we came up with, and I can’t get it out of my head! Shane is incredibly talented, knowledgeable, and patient. He truly accomplished the impossible!” – Eric Griffin
We offer custom workshops for songwriters, teams and organizations. Contact Shane for more information. Check out the offerings below:
Executive & Entrepreneurial Music Workshops
Learn creative thinking, active listening and collaboration skills for today’s workplace in our songwriting workshop. This workshop is meant for groups looking for a team-building experience of collaboration and innovation skills. This workshop is perfect for groups of 6-15.
“Our group of small business owners met with Shane for a songwriting workshop during a retreat. It was so far beyond what we could’ve expected. Shane got vulnerable with us right away, and we did the same with him. He pushed us to go deep into our feelings. We laughed a lot though it was hard. At the end, we have a song we all love and will remember forever.” -Cassandra Bailey
Your team will learn to:
- Create a safe environment to “play” and explore
- Foster and encourage new ideas and innovation
- Overcome fears and inner critics that sabotage the creative process
- Understand, embrace, and work with different ideas and personalities
- Work through conflict with empathy and compassion
- Strengthen collaboration, breakdown hierarchies, and balance leadership
- Identify opportunities and outcomes, set goals, and reveal motivations
Your team will gain:
- A new non-linear and outside-of-the-box approach to the creative & planning process
- Active and engaged listening and communication skills
- Confidence and trust in themselves and others
- Knowledge and solution-based decision-making skills
- Inspiration and motivation
- Success as a group
OUR
WORKSHOPS
We are currently offering several guitar, songwriting and creativity, music theory, and performance preparation workshops. Our music workshops typically meet once a week for 4-6 weeks. A few will meet once per month. We have also been offering one-time meetups on a particular subject. Other group lessons and workshops are being developed and planned. Please sign up for our newsletter and check our events calendar for information and availability.
Playing music in front of others is a skill we all have to work on and develop. Being able to write and create, to play an instrument and sing, is usually not an outcome that just magically comes about. And neither is the ability to do these things in front of others.
So, why doesn’t all of this get talked about more often? Where can you go to work on this stuff? The distance between private practice and public performance is important to navigate in a positive manner. Why is it so difficult to work out? Well, because we usually try to do it alone or in our heads.
Learning to perform is a process. We gain valuable information about ourselves when we place ourselves in the exact situations we may be avoiding or overly confident in approaching. The goal of this workshop is to provide a safe and nurturing environment for members to practice performing and sharing their music. That’s it!
The quickening of the blood, the excitement, the fear, the suddenly warbly vibrato, the too-fast tempo, the shallow breathing, dry mouth, sweaty hands, etc. Yep, that sounds about right! These are all things every performer and artist experiences and learns to accept, manage and deal with. Oh, yeahhhh, I have some great stories of my own!
Becoming more aware of ourselves while performing a task in front of others can’t be achieved without playing in front of others and finding your own way.
We will talk about and address our patterns of:
But the great news is, these are patterns. And this really is great news! If we learn to see and understand our own patterns, we can begin to learn from them and take action to do things differently moving forward. We learn and grow by doing and sharing.
In addition to all of the technical skills and knowledge we need to create and play music, we need skills to deal with all of the mental, physical, and emotional responses that are going on before and during our own musical and creative process.
This workshop is open to songwriters of all ages. We all have that one unfinished song that’s been sitting in our folder. Bring it to the workshop, and we’ll figure out how to move past writer’s block. Let’s finish this song once and for all!
This introduction to guitar workshop gets you familiar with your instrument, both acoustic and electric guitars, and guitar amplifiers. Join us solo or with a couple of your closest friends interested in learning guitar.
Open to all ages and skill levels, this workshop will start from the beginning and build a solid foundation for your guitar playing.
All handouts and music will be provided.
Give us a call today or check our events calendar to see when the next workshop is happening.
Guitars can be provided if you don’t have one. Just let us know in advance!
What you will learn:
- How to hold your guitar and sit comfortably while playing
- Technique exercise to build up endurance, calluses, finger strength, and independence in both hands
- Guitar picking techniques
- How to hold a guitar pick
- How to tune your guitar with a tuner and by ear
- How to change your guitar strings
- Caring for your guitar
- The parts of the guitar and what they do
- How to read guitar tablature
- Beginning to learn the guitar fretboard and the note names
- Learning to read music in the open position
- How to read chord diagrams, open position chords, and fingerings.
- Developing good hand position and strumming technique
- Strategies for smooth chord changes and transitions
- The most common rhythms and strum patterns used in songs
- Rhythm and counting whole notes, quarter notes, and eighth notes
- How to count and play in time
Learning to play with confidence and breaking the stereotype. This workshop is open to females of all ages. We will be learning how to play “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac. We will work on open-position chords, strumming patterns, and dynamics. We’ll also talk about what it’s like to be a woman in the music industry. Please bring your guitar and capo to this workshop. 90-minutes
THE MAJOR SCALE: CONSTRUCTION & PURPOSE
Whether you have no experience at all or have picked up threads of information along the way, we will be starting from ground zero! This workshop is open to everyone!
DOES THE THOUGHT OF MUSIC THEORY MAKE YOU FEEL ANXIETY AND STRESS? DOES IT SEEM OVERWHELMING?
If so, it’s completely unnecessary to continue to feel that way! Learning music theory is important and liberating. You will gain a deeper understanding of melody, harmony, writing and reading charts, communicating your musical ideas, improving your ability to finish songs, spark your creativity, and boosting your co-writing skills.
Learning music theory is not as complicated or difficult as it seems. I have developed my own linear and organized system to help my guitar and songwriting students understand, learn and implement music theory. Just show up with a pencil, notepad, and all the questions you can think of!
Don’t just memorize the information, understand it!!
It all starts with knowing how to construct a major scale and knowing what notes are in each key. This is the foundation of the music. It’s the gateway to understanding the Nashville Number System. Don’t just memorize the information, understand it!!
CHORD CONSTRUCTION
We will learn how chords are constructed. What’s the difference between Major and Minor? What is a diminished chord? Why are certain chords in chords progressions and keys? How do you know which chord to play and what notes to play over a chord?
The next step is putting it all together! We will build on everything we covered in Music Theory 1. This is when it really starts to get fun! Songs and melodies begin to make much more sense. If you are a songwriter, if you are interested in being a better player and musician, or just want to improve your understanding of music theory, this is a great workshop for you!
What chords are in the key? How do you create or play over chord progressions? Which chords work together? We will get you to a place of knowing and understanding their FUNCTION!!
The next step is putting it all together! You will leave the workshop knowing how the major scale is constructed, keys and key signature, how to build the foundational chords/triads, and what chords are in what keys and why. Why do chord placement and choice define sections of songs, like the bridge or chorus?
Along with studying keys, harmony, and melody, we will:
- Look at numerous songs and chord progressions
- Study Nashville Number System charts
- Practice writing your own Nashville Number Charts
- Learn how to construct Dominant 7 & Major 7 chords
- Extended chord construction
- Modulations and tonicizations
- Expanding beyond the major scale – exploring the modes and other tonal centers
- Borrowed chords
- Secondary dominant chords
- Counterpoint
- Re-harmonizing a melody
- Chord inversions
- Understanding and utilizing tension and resolve
Fill out the form below for more information about guitar workshops, or visit our music lessons page to find out more about individual guitar, piano, voice, or bass lessons.
Several people reached out asking for a workshop focused on songs for guitar that can be learned fairly quickly. I decided to put together a workshop that could fulfill this purpose and also expand into a series of workshops to help guitarist students grow and learn in a way that is more than just a one-off workshop. This way, the design is all there, and you can jump in wherever you like!
This series will feature songs by multiple artists spanning several decades. Also, attendees will have input regarding songs they would like to learn as well. This keeps each workshop flexible and unique. Here is a current Spotify playlist: Campfire Songs.
No, you don’t have to have singing experience or be a great guitarist! Just a willingness to show up, have fun and learn some songs!
The goal is to have several of these guitar workshops that help you get better as a guitar player by meeting you at your current skill level, challenging that a bit more, and also learning songs quickly. It is designed to be a series so it is linear and organized and presents music and guitar skills & knowledge that will build on what you learned in the previous workshop. This way, you are learning new songs and new techniques and building a repertoire you feel confident and comfortable playing in a group setting. You will also learn to play with others and learn:
What You Will Learn:
We will start with basic, open-position chords and straight-ahead strum patterns and progress from there. The goal is to give you the skills to learn and play as many songs as fast as possible. It’s not about perfection or performance, but providing you with the material, knowledge, and ability to get the songs to a level you can practice them and then play them for yourself or at a gathering of friends and family.
- Songs, songs, songs!
- Rhythm guitar playing essentials like open positions chords, bar chords, power chords, learning the fretboard, strum patterns, counting, playing in time, and being a solid rhythm guitarist
- Learning how to sing and play at the same time
- Insights and techniques for smooth chord transitions
- Common chord progressions and song analyzation
- Dealing with fear and nerves
- Using a capo – this includes the ability to play along with another guitarist, playing on a different part of the neck with different chords and inversions.
- Fingerstyle guitar – solid and versatile right-hand technique, fingerstyle patterns for pop, blues, folk, and more
- Basic music theory
- How to improvise and play licks and solos over a song so you can jump in and jam along with anyone
All music and handouts will be provided. Just show up with your guitar and capo. Grab some friends and let’s get started! It will be fun!
This beginning blues and rock guitar workshop is open to all ages and skill levels. It will start from ground zero and build from there, focusing on blues guitar skills. If you have played guitar in the past, had some lessons, and need a refresher or are starting from scratch, this class is for you!
Target the “right notes” at the right time
We will pick up right where Beginning Blues and Rock Guitar 1 left off.
You will learn how to play melodic fills and lead licks that are based on chord shapes. If you know and understand what notes are in the chords, you can learn how to target the “right notes” at the right time as the chords go by.
Now, we will start expanding the chord knowledge, chord inversions up the guitar neck. We will also be adding to the scales we learned in Beginning Blues and Rock Guitar 1. Now you will be able to move freely up and down the guitar neck in any key!
This is a really important part of playing both rhythm and lead guitar. For the solo guitarist, this approach is necessary to mix up playing straight-rhythm guitar with guitar licks, turn around, and even solos. It can really make what you are playing much more exciting and dimensional. This is a very musical approach when you are frustrated when trying to improvise, and it feels like you are just playing a pattern and shape that is too “scale-y.”
Steve Jordan explaining The Rock AND the Roll!
We will also cover:
- More blues turnarounds
- Moving between the pentatonic scales
- The “B.B. Box”
- Dominant 7ths & 9ths to play in any key
- Targeting chord tones within the blues progression
- Finding chords on the 6th & 5th strings
- Learning the note names and frets across the guitar neck
- Useful arpeggios to use in your solos
- Sliding rhythms
- Ear training, playing by ear and figuring out songs, and also knowing where to start jamming
- The “spread fingering” for rhythm guitar- Chuck Berry and early Blues Rock
- How to accompany a singer or soloist
- Combining the major and minor pentatonic scales
- Variations on the 12-bar blues form
- The box shuffle
- How to start improvising and constructing your own guitar solos
- New bending techniques – pre-bending, half, full and one and a half step bends
- Classic blues “call and response” technique, allowing you to play a simple blues rhythm and then create fill licks in-between the rhythm phrases
- Muddy Waters Delta/Chicago style blues guitar
- Howlin’ Wolf and Buddy Guy walking bass-style lines
- Going deeper into the use of rhythmic devices – the rock AND the roll!
- Into to open tunings and slide guitar
- Major and minor key blues chord progressions, scales, and licks
- Combining lead and rhythm guitar
- Useful blues licks that you can apply to other songs and transpose to different parts of the guitar neck and to other keys
- Playing guitar and jamming with others: being an effective and musical rhythm and lead guitarist in a band or duo setting
Meant for songwriters and creatives who want to sharpen their creative skills and grow in their collaborative and co-writing efforts, these workshops bring together creative thinking, communication, and songwriting skills to help creatives recharge.
We all get stuck. We all hit a wall. This meetup is about addressing the issues that get us stuck and keep us there.
These workshops are about learning how to build multifaceted skills:
- Writing quickly and postponing the arrival of the judge/critic
- Knowing when to edit
- When is a song done?
- Inspiration & discipline
- Learning to write a tagline or a chorus/hook idea
- Understanding song form and structure, verses, choruses, and bridges
- Basic music theory
- Melodic writing
- Lyric writing
- Picking up on someone else’s idea and offering options and solutions
- Using musical devices (harmony, rhythm, melodic tones to set up and resolve sections)
- Open to anyone wanting to improve their songwriting skills
This isn’t a critique or listening/performance opportunity. This is about the process of writing, exploring, and finishing songs. It will be a safe, constructive, and open environment. No judgment, no anxiety, no pressure.
No guitar or singing experience is necessary. Bring your skills and an openness to trying new things.
Contact Shane for more information on customizing a workshop for your songwriting group.