Join John Kozicki (Michigan Rock School and RockSchoolProprietor.com) and Mandy York (Music Time of Milford) on the this episode of the Rock School Proprietor Podcast as they introduce John’s new book, “Complete Guitar Strumming.” This episode delves into John’s journey of writing a book that concentrates on building rhythm and timing skills for beginner to intermediate guitar players.
Discover the inspiration behind the book as John and Mandy discuss the importance of focusing on the often-overlooked right hand in guitar playing. Gain insights into teaching methods with the accompanying instructor companion guide, which equips teachers with effective techniques to help students master strumming and chord transitions.
Don’t miss out on the opportunity to get your FREE copy of “Complete Guitar Strumming” and its instructor guide by leaving a review and reaching out. Tune in for this informative and inspiring discussion that’s perfect for educators and players looking to enhance their musical skills.
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Episode Transcript:
John Kozicki (00:01.108)
On this episode of Rock School Proprietor podcast, I make a big announcement. I wrote a book. It’s called Complete Guitar Strumming. It’s a focus on rhythm and timing for beginner to intermediate guitar players. Mandy and I discuss why I wrote the book and the origins and how listeners can get a free copy plus the instructor companion guide that lays out best practices for use with students.
John Kozicki (00:31.518)
Welcome to Rock School Proprietor podcast. My name is John Kozicki. Mandy, why don’t you tell me you’re telling me this earlier about when you started learning ukulele? Yeah. How long had you been a musician? When you decided you were going to learn
and I’m Mandy York.
Mandy York (00:52.344)
pick up the ukulele. Yeah. gosh. I mean, do we have to talk about decades? Yeah. Okay.
Long enough long enough you had enough experience with singing Woodwind instruments
Yep.
Yep, I was out of college when I picked up the ukulele.
You had some piano when you were younger. So all of those. never stringed instruments.
Mandy York (01:19.99)
No, never played a string instrument. Nope. I’ve talked about my dad. I’ve he played guitar, still does all the time. but I played wind instruments. played the flute and, sang, but when I got into early childhood music, I wanted to occasionally have something to pick up in the classroom. I will play the flute on occasion, maybe for a lullaby, but that’s not
can’t sing and play the flute at the same time. ukulele is great for the early childhood classroom. So it seemed simple enough to use. I can read music. I’m a musician. This is great. So I bought a ukulele. I bought a method book and I, you know, quickly went through chapter after chapter, figured out how to play the chords. It really wasn’t difficult. It was like kind of what I expected. Okay, cool.
Put your fingers on these strings on these frets. Yeah. That’s you make chords, left hand stuff.
Exactly. And I hadn’t read tab before, but I kind of, mean, I knew enough to figure that out and could read it. And, I didn’t honestly work hard enough to like stretch all my fingers to get every single chord. Right. But I could play, you know, several chords and there were several songs that I could play using those courts. Cool. Okay. I’m ready to go. but I couldn’t figure out what to do with my right hand.
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (02:49.896)
Right? So that was tricky for me. Like wind instruments, my voice, I’m working with melody, right? Yeah. But I didn’t think about this picking up the ukulele. Like what do I do with my right hand? You know, I just don’t like downstream every chord. mean, that’s how it was learning a song as I was learning the chords, but it was like, wait, how do they do this? I don’t know if you remember, I even asked you.
That was a, it was a long time ago. Right. It’s like, John, what do I do? Kind of looked at me. What do you mean? You know, and you gave me ideas and, that’s, you know, that’s what I needed. I just needed those patterns in my right hand to figure out how to.
playing song. So I think that I think that the right hand, the strumming hand is often, I don’t want to say neglected, because it’s not neglected, but it like so much focus is on the left hand when it comes to guitar and ukulele. When I started teaching guitar, I
I think I’ve mentioned I’m I learned how to teach by jumping in, you know, my, my philosophy, like I remember going into my very first day of teaching guitar, no training, you know, I wasn’t given any training. I was like shown where the room is. My philosophy was like, all right, well, I guess if I stay one week ahead of the student, I’ll be good. And so I was that green and in the first good probably year of
maybe a little bit more teaching guitar. I tried a ton of different method books because I thought like, all right, well, I don’t really know what I’m doing here. But when I started guitar, I had was given a method book early on when I took piano lessons, I was given method books. So I figured, all right, well, let’s try a method book. I tried tons of method books, but I always felt that they were so focused on the left hand.
John Kozicki (05:02.294)
And then when it came time to strum, when it came to strumming and coordinating left hand chord changes with your right hand strumming and things like timing, there was almost nothing in those method books. You’d get a little bit of this, the symbols for downstream upstream. but I just felt like, man, this is
It’s just not really giving students what they need. It’s not giving me what I need as as an instructor. I was taking some drum lessons. And. At one point, I was probably teaching a little little over a year and I was taking some drum lessons and it’s all focused on rhythms and it’s all very repetitive and it’s all about coordinating your limbs, right? Your right hand, your left hand and.
then all of a sudden it just sort of clicked with me. Why don’t we treat the rhythmic aspect of playing guitar like drum instructors treat playing drums? Because it’s kind of the same thing. It’s heavily focused on rhythm. You’re coordinating right hand, left hand, as well as your feet. So what I did was I said, all right, well, I’m gonna now approach
teaching strumming and teaching timing, just like I was taught to play drums. And so I started focusing a ton on the right hand because I mean, like honestly, think about when you’re strumming your ukulele. put your left hand on a chord.
and the left hand just sits there like what a measure two measures maybe but your right hand is just moving away and then all of sudden you can move your left hand right but you’re still your right hand that’s where all the action is so it’s kind of weird that why aren’t we focusing on right hand right
Mandy York (07:14.21)
Yeah, that was my experience exactly.
You may not even be able to remember this, observing enough beginner students, what I also noticed is they’ll stare at their left hand when nothing is going on with the left hand. If they’re playing a chord, Like intense focus on that left hand, but the right hand is moving like crazy. you know, what I’ve, what I’ve done with, with students over the years is, you know,
I tell them, look at where the action is, right? Focus on wherever you need your visual focus to be. So if you are changing chords, then focus on the left hand. If you’re not changing chords, well, you can focus on your right hand, but you don’t have to like stare at that left hand until it’s time to stare at the left hand. So over time, I created all these exercises.
And then I expanded on them. I started sharing them with other instructors I was working for at the time. I’ve since, you know, over the years shared all of these exercises with instructors that worked for me in my studio. And I wrote a book and long, I sort of buried the lead on that one. Surprise. Yeah. So I wrote a book, a strumming book that’s focused on
Yeah, you do.
John Kozicki (08:45.75)
just what we’re talking about, focusing on strumming and timing and rhythms. So I thought we’d talk about it today because one, since I wrote a book, I want to sell the book. But I mean, like most of the time I’m selling it for the most part to students at the Rock School, but I do want to make it available to any other instructors who
might be in that similar situation where they’re thinking like, man, why aren’t these method books focused on strumming and timing? So I figured we’d talk about that today.
Cool, let’s do it.
So now you’ve looked through the book.
Yeah, I did. I have a copy.
John Kozicki (09:33.87)
We haven’t even talked about this. am curious what your first impressions or maybe thoughts are on it. Does it suck? Is it horrible?
No, I love it. No, actually my husband and I went through it together too. It’s great. the, each part is really clear. Someone like me, you know, I, with my ukulele history, you know, experience in mind, went through it and yeah, I was like, why, why, why wasn’t there, why hadn’t I found this, you know, when I was trying to learn, learn the instrument.
Very clear. I like it. And the cover is super cool too. I like the cover.
We did talk about the cover on one of our previous episodes. So the book is, I mean, it really starts from beginners, but some of those, I don’t know if you looked at any of the rhythms in kind of the near the end. Cause it starts at whole notes, right? It starts very basic. Like here’s how you create a chord. Here’s how you play a whole note. Here’s how you strum a whole note. Here’s how you coordinate.
yeah, yeah.
John Kozicki (10:46.35)
chord changes using whole notes. But when you get into kind of the end of the book, because it goes through an eighth note strumming, which you’re utilizing like downs and ups and then sixteenth note rhythms. When you get to the end, those rhythms are like pretty complex.
Yeah, no, that caught my eye at the end because that, mean, everything else in the, those beginning chapters, like you said, are easy. And then at the end I was kind of air strumming, like, how do I do that? Okay, cool. Yeah. Satisfying trying to learn those more difficult rhythms.
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (11:21.516)
I would guess you probably, you know, look through it in like a day or something like that. Whereas with students, oftentimes it takes, I mean, it can take months or to get to the 16th notes. but the idea is that it really builds on itself. So starting from a whole notes, and focusing on that right hand and then working on chord changes with whole notes.
Thank
John Kozicki (11:51.55)
and mastering that stuff before then moving on. And there’s, the first section is all whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, and then rests in there as well. So mastering that stuff before going to eighth notes. And by the time you get to eighth notes, I don’t have any songs in the book, but there’s a big section on, like, these are some real rhythms that…
students and musicians use for playing songs. So I highly recommend doing songs and that’s what I’ve done with students. But in addition to just the book, which I think is helpful for students, because I started sharing these exercises with other instructors and instructors that work at my studio, really what I then looked at is like, well,
This stuff is great, but how I think how you teach it is also important because I don’t want it to be just mechanical. I want it to be, I want students to be able to like number one, obviously strum and change chords, translate that to songs, but I want their knowledge to kind of build.
so that they understand when they go from playing quarter notes to eighth notes, they understand how to count. That’s a big, I guess pet peeve of mine when it comes to guitar tabs. So you mentioned you looked up some tabs when you were playing ukulele. There’s almost like so often there’s no
rhythm associated with it. You know, it’s like, are the chords and you get this messy like online tablature and on almost everyone. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed this, but it’ll say something like, just look at this, listen to the song, put it together. Right? So it’s that lack of, of understanding, note value and counting and rhythm.
Mandy York (13:49.878)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (14:19.678)
and so that’s kind of what I, I, I needed to really express to the instructors I was giving these exercises to was like, yes, you’re using these exercises to teach the students the mechanics of it, but here’s what we can do to make sure that one, they’re understanding how to count rhythms. So as they progress that counting isn’t
hang up because when you get to like 16th note rhythms. Yeah.
A lot of guitar instructors will focus on saying like down and up, right? Down, down, up, up, down, up, down, down, up, up, down, right? Which I think when you’re in eighth notes, you can do that. but then you transfer to 16th notes and you’ve got potentially 16 places in a measure where you’re either strumming down or you’re strumming up or you’re hitting the strings or you’re missing the strings.
And like all of those downs and ups just sort of get lost. So being able to count a 16th note rhythm so that then you can translate it to what you’re supposed to play on guitar. I mean, in my opinion, it’s like almost impossible if you’re not counting.
Yeah. Counting is important. And I think that’s a great thing you do in this book. Like you said, you’ve started with the basics and you do a really good job of scaffolding that knowledge as they go through chapter to chapter.
John Kozicki (15:54.306)
Yes. Yes. so what I also put together for the book for instructors to use is an instructor companion guide. It’s almost like a training. And I mean, this is what I’ve given to my instructors. the other thing that I wanted to, to kind of impress upon instructors when they use this is in sort of analyzing how I’ve always taught students.
I realized over time, because so many students learn different ways, I needed different ways to make sure that they understood these concepts. So almost organically, I developed kind of this three-part process, and that’s laid out in the companion guide, and I even call it the process. So.
The three parts, and this is not actually in the book, but the three parts for the process that is in the instructor companion guide. The first one is visual. And I think that’s a couple different things. One, it’s making sure the student sees the notes, right? They see the rhythmic value of each one of those notes. But the visual aspect of the process is writing
the counting underneath the notes, right? So if you have a whole note, you’re writing one, two, three, four, circle the one, because that’s the note you’re gonna strum on. If you’re strumming whole notes, or sorry, half notes, one, two, three, four, line up the one under the first half note, line up the three under the second half note, and you circle those, because those are visual cues for the student to latch onto. So that’s first part of process.
Second part of process is audiation and that involves getting the student counting. Right? I mean, I know you’re big on that. yeah. Getting the student counting that rhythm with you so that they’re, when they go to translate to that playing on their guitar, they’re already kind of hearing it in their head.
Mandy York (18:14.85)
their head. Yeah, they have to hear it in their head. Yep.
And then the third part of the process is kinesthetics. Now I’d say like this is light because we’re not getting up and, you know, jumping around. But there’s a, there’s a mechanical and a physical aspect of it where your right hand has to be moving. Right. And you, you, what I’ve always known with students is I get that right hand moving and I make sure they’re counting. Right. So they have those three aspects. They’re seeing what’s on the page.
they’re counting it out, so they’re encouraging the ideation, they’re hearing it in their heads, while they’re also moving their hand. When I work with students, I have them do all of those things before I even have them strum. So they’re going through the motions and building up the muscle memory and connecting the dots on all of that stuff before they’re even strumming.
So I love that. I really appreciate the three different styles. Like that’s great because we’ve talked about this before, you know, I’m really visual. If I’m having trouble with a musical passage, I got to see it. Right. So some student might be seeing those half notes as they’re strumming and that helps them. They see it in their head, right? Yeah. and shoot, if you do have a more kinesthetic learner,
have them stand for a second and put it in their feet if you want or something or airstrum to get that in their right hand, right?
John Kozicki (19:52.406)
And I think with many students, especially if you’re starting with a beginner, you don’t know what their learning style is. And having all these bases covered, the likelihood that you’re going to hit on something that resonates with them and gets them to understand it, I think is higher than if you…
kind of always teach something the same way. Right. And students don’t always advocate for themselves.
No, yeah, absolutely. Especially the younger ones for sure.
They don’t always say, I don’t understand it or like, I, know, I’m having a hard time understanding how you’re explaining this in this way. But if throughout all of this process, you’re explaining it three different ways in many different ways, they’re more likely to pick up on whatever it is resonates with them and gets them to understand it.
And even when they understand it, they might not even be able to articulate like, I didn’t get it when we were writing it out. I didn’t get it when we were counting it out loud, but man, when I moved my hands, that’s when I got it. Like they won’t, they might not even say that.
Mandy York (21:12.152)
Feel it.
Mandy York (21:16.512)
It may help you as the instructor to start to learn what their learning style is.
Bingo, right? Because when you have them do all this stuff with you and you become the observer, then yes, you can start to pick up on what it is about this process that does resonate with them and how you can then get them to to strum the way you need them to strum, right? And it’s all about momentum. When you hit on that,
aspect of their learning that they understand, then they can build on it.
Yeah, I love that. Yeah. You learn how they learn. And it’s my opinion that you wouldn’t, focus on just one, you know, if they’re, if they’re more visual than kinesthetic, you wouldn’t do everything visually. You’d still provide all three approaches, but lean more heavily on the one that clicks with them.
Yeah, because I think two things happen, right? One, you’re going to pick up on what works for them. So that’s good. like you said, lean into it, but like how they learn is also evolving. So if they understand how to, I mean, we’ll take it really simply. If they look at a whole note and just instinctually, they’re like, sure.
John Kozicki (22:40.588)
I know how to do this. It’s a whole note. I see it. It’s right there and they play it. That’s fine. As they progress and their learning evolves, they may start to, you know, they may need audiation when they get to the eighth notes. So I think by giving them all of those options, their learning can evolve and it can build on itself. Right. So
If one style resonates with them, you don’t want to ignore the others because the others are going to reinforce also what’s going on. And there are the, I do put the down and the downs and the ups, but like I still focus on the County. Right? So instead of like when, when we were talking about the downs, like down, down, up, up, down, up, down, up, down up one, two, and, and four, and one, two, and, and four. And that’s how I do it. So
The downs and ups are on the page so that they can visually see which way they’re supposed to go. But the counting is going to help them to keep track of where they are. Because when we do add chord changes, if a student is so focused on downs and ups, well, what differentiates one down from another down, right? But if they know that the chord changes on the one.
than when they have that one come up. They know that’s when I change from my D to my E minor or whatever the case is.
Bye.
John Kozicki (24:22.732)
Do you think, I put this in my outline, do you think you’d be able to teach someone guitar? If I gave you all of this? I mean, if not, that’s like, that’s fine. But I’m just curious.
I love a good instructor guide. What you provided here, this companion guide for instructors is pretty great. I…
I don’t know you’re putting me on the spot. I don’t know if I could teach someone or not.
about having you try to teach me guitar. my gosh.
Don’t do that to me, John. Everything is here. If I had like really limited guitar skills, I mean, this would totally set me up to teach guitar. Like, absolutely. If I, if I could play anything on the guitar, which I can’t, I can play nothing. I, you know, this, this is really great. And I think this instructor can be in companion is, yeah, is it.
Mandy York (25:32.984)
You line. Yeah. I love the way everything is lined out in here so that you just, and it’s not too long. I mean, this isn’t, this is. You’ve got it’s concise, but it takes you through, you know, the, the first, they’re not really chapters, but the first section, know, establishing your process process with visual and audiation and kinesthetic and,
Yeah, I will say that the instructor companion guide is it’s it’s it borders on redundant. But I did that on purpose. It borders on redundant because
I’m big on reinforcing that process so that the students expect like, okay, first we’re going to write out the rhythm, then he’s going to make me count it out loud, then we’re going to move our hand while we’re counting and then we’re going to get to play. So that’s the case from when you start with whole notes all the way through when you’re doing these complex rhythms into sixteenth notes. Every time you have a new rhythm, you’re going through that same process.
So that’s why the instructor guide is so redundant because I go through each one of those sections and say, here’s what you do to visualize. Here’s what you do to audio. Here’s what you do for the kinesthetics. so I think the instructor guy, it’s like, I think 14 pages, 15 pages, something like that. It could be much, much shorter if you realize like, yeah, it’s redundant. I’m just doing the same thing. I mean, I,
I could have, I probably could have scaled it back to about five pages.
Mandy York (27:19.662)
I like this though. I think this is great because it’s, it really takes the instructor step by step. I mean, I redundancy, I get it. Repetition is good. Repetition is good. Repetition is good. And you are, you, you’re emphasizing that like you’re establishing these habits at the beginning. Whole notes are easy. Yeah, we get it, but you’re going to need these processes by the time you get to 16th.
Well, yeah, and I did go back and forth on when I was writing the companion guide. Do I make it redundant like this? Ultimately, I did because I know when I’ve given this stuff to my student instructors who are kind of brand new to teaching, they need that redundancy as me training them to teach.
so that they provide that redundancy for students when they’re learning. Yeah, some more experienced instructor maybe doesn’t need to go through as much, but I’m literally giving this instructor companion guide and the book to some of my instructors who are 17 years old and starting to teach kids. never, you know, they’ve never taught before. They’ve been taught. So they see how their instructors do it, but
you know, something gets lost in that photocopy of a photocopy. So I wanted to make sure that I can give this to any of my instructors, whether they’ve been teaching for five years or whether they’ve never taught before. And they feel confident in how they can go into that lesson and teach, teach a kid how to strum and ultimately play songs and work on their chord changes and their timing.
So that’s why it’s the instructor companion. I feel like this has been a long commercial. I didn’t want it to seem like a commercial. but what I do want to do for, for listeners is I’m going to, I’m going to give away books to listeners. I’m going to give away books and these instructor companion guides. so
Mandy York (29:19.527)
I think that’s smart.
Mandy York (29:25.164)
No, it’s interesting.
John Kozicki (29:47.54)
any of our listeners who wants copy of the book and a copy of the instructor companion guide. I’m going to game it a little bit though. I’m going to make them give us a review. Okay. I’ll them give, I’ll make them give us a review on Apple podcast or Spotify. Then send an email info at rockschoolproprietor.com and you know, say hi in the email too. Like, Hey, I gave you this review. I teach here. Cause I’d love to
Yeah, there you go.
John Kozicki (30:17.576)
from the instructors and then I’ll send them copy. And I should say, I can’t do this indefinitely, right? So I think what we’ll do is this will be through the end of July 2025. So as you’re listening to this, through the end of July 2025,
Perfect. Yeah.
John Kozicki (30:46.124)
Give us a review or rating on Apple podcast or Spotify. Send us an email info at rockschoolproprietor.com. Say hi and then tell me where to send the book and the companion guide and I’ll send it. I mean, and obviously my hope is if people love it, cool. I’ve got more and, I’ve, you know, instructor discounts will be available if, if people want to use it.
that.
John Kozicki (31:15.17)
with students so that then they can sell it to their students or the materials fee or whatever and they’ll make a little bit of money for themselves. I am working on video training for this as well. I realized with my instructors, some of them need the video training in addition to the instructor companion guide. So that’ll happen. But for now, you know.
the book and the companion guide. Okay, well thanks for joining me for this commercial man.
Awesome.
Mandy York (31:50.382)
No, it’s great. It’s so good and so generous. Email us. us. John will send you a book.
Yes. Cool. That’ll do it then. Awesome. this episode, we’ll see you next time. Alright.
Take care,
John Kozicki (32:25.408)
I’m at rock.school.proprietor on Instagram. If you’d like to connect with me there, you can also find me on LinkedIn and Blue Sky as John Kazicki. If you’ve enjoyed the show and gained insight from our conversation, then we count that as a win. All we ask in return is that you pay it forward, share the show with someone you think needs to hear
