UNPLANNED DOWNTIME: 12th Oct 23:45
Guitar Teachers - what is your approach?
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I’ve been teaching guitar professionally for about 15 years. It’s been a long learning curve and sometimes I think I’ve cracked it, and sometimes I realise how far I have to go.
I work in school with children aged from 6 - 13, but have taught older teenagers and young adults as well.
In school, we (there are 3 other guitar teachers) tend to start them on classical, with rest stroke technique, reading notation and often then move over to electric after a couple of years, at which point they generally start reading tab and trying to play with a plectrum.
I’d be interested to know what approach other teachers here take, and if any teach in schools? What do you think about starting on classical vs steel string, fingers vs pick, reading vs tab etc?
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I teach hybrid picking from the get go. Not popular I know amongst other teachers but it's the best way to play the guitar in my opinion so it seems pointless to teach them normal plectrum style THEN have to introduce hybrid picking later ...might as well get to it from the start.
I don't allow any tab or even any reference to fret numbers. I teach them the notes on the fretboard and then we do everything in notes.
I don't teach reading because for what my pupils want to do it's just not that useful. Most of them want to start a band, gig covers, write songs and basically be rock stars. Reading doesn't tend to play a part in any of this. In fact you wouldn't be able to read music in any of the gigs I do ... the lights are flashing, you have to move around .. you can't just stand still with a light on the score unless you are a keyboard player really.
Even in the studio doing session work I've never found reading to be necessary. All the original material I've played on has no score, being written quite often by people who can write a good song but have very little awareness of theory or even what key they are in. It's generally been a case of listen to it, chart it Nashville style and improvise. You come up with a part rather than read a part.
There are other situations where reading would be useful though, pit work in the theatres ... proper muso stuff doing film music or something ...
interesting about hybrid picking - I did try that for a while with beginners. Are you therefore teaching this on 1/2 size nylon string classical guitars?
i Agree that note location is crucial…
a jolly good approach ,even though I do like my tab lol
I always work with the learner's musical tastes. So if they're into pop folk music like Ed Sheeran or the crap in the charts chances are its acoustic guitar and capo'd, with open chord shapes with a steady 4/4 beat. Simple chord charts showing the length of chords are done for those though most either don't use it as they know the tune well enough to play it from memory or don't actually use it as they either don't want to slow themselves down or just don't know how to follow it.
If its older teenagers into rock bands then its obviously electric guitar, power chords and all the rock playing techniques like power chord playing, palm mutes and rhythm.
The assumption one should start on acoustic then go to electric is bullshit. Just go with what you feel comfortable with and can see yourself playing every day. Of course there are differences but you don't have to follow one route.
I usually ask them for their favourite artists and songs they might like to play then match it with those. They usually fall into categories so I can use the same songs with several learners. The main goal at the beginning is to get them playing songs they like and recognise. Then further down the line some will want to delve into the theory world and start understanding what they're playing.
A small portion do the graded exams which saves me lesson planning time as the syllabus is already written but its quite strict and regimented and most get to grade 5 then get bored and quit.
I've never ever taught anyone to read music (as in dots on the staves) as I don't think its needed. I think its more important to train the ear to hear sounds and what's good. Not one of my learners come here for lessons to be a pro. Just enjoyment. If they can play a song THEY chose they're happy enough.
I have to admit, I don’t have a set “approach”. My main focus is to ensure that my students leave their lesson a better player than when they arrived. I’m a big believer in just jumping in at the deep end and learning what you want to be playing as soon as possible. I want to make sure that I maintain their interest in the instrument as much as I can.
I don't notate anything, there's no paperwork at all really. If there's a piece that they need to practice then I get them to record it as a video of me playing it so they can see the correct position and the correct fingering I want them to do.
The first thing I want them to do is get excited about playing the guitar. So the first lessons will be showing them where to put their fingers and how to anchor the picking arm. This stage is all about getting them hooked because that's the only thing that makes them practice. This can be hard for younger kids as they are used to the relatively easy path to success playing video games. The guitar is a hard instrument to learn and painful on their fingers to begin with so only those with a real desire to play tend to get anywhere.
Teaching tuning is easier now, they all got tuners on their phones. Once I have shown them a few riffs then we get into learning the fretboard. From then on we talk about notes.
Once they know where the notes are we get into the maths of music, learning how to build a major and minor scale and then start expressing everything as intervals. Now here I find the young kids are better at this than the older people. They have the ability to learn quickly. Once they understand intervals they can see how changing the intervals leads to a different mode and we are then into modes.
I have had some kids who's parents were more into them learning the guitar than they were. They can be challenging. Covid got me out of teaching some of them luckily. I've also been lucky ... I started teaching one kid at 13 and by 16 he was so good we stopped lessons, having completed his GCSE with almost top marks for theory and top mark for performance. Kids like him are few and far between though.
I couldn't teach full time, a few lessons a week is enough for me but it's nice to know you can take on more when other music revenue dries up.
People learn in different ways and at different rates, there is no one size fits all approach so for me, it's important to be flexible and adaptable depending on the situation and the student(s) in question.
As a minimum though, I do try to get a good grounding with basic open position chords, simple single note melodies and riffs but in a student centred way.
Regarding music notation, that can be a bit of a contentious issue. For me, I judge it case by case. Some students it would just turn them off (like it would've done me), some need a little playing time in the fingers first, others really thrive off it if their brains are wired that way. As part of music curriculum in high schools, they may need to read or they'll get left behind in class/band rehearsals. Or if a student is very serious about wanting to play professionally, then I'd definitely advocate learning to read as there's plenty of work I'd have missed out on if i didn't (and I'm not a great reader by any stretch!) That being said, I've taken over students who had been having lessons for a number of years, working through a particular book, yet just couldn't play anything. For as worthwhile learning notation can be, it really can be a cop out on the part of the teacher too.
One thing I've learnt to be comfortable with, is not to expect too much from them or myself. Even the smallest improvement is progress and it all adds up. As long the student has a positive, enjoyable experience in a lesson with the guitar/music, that's a successful lesson in my opinion.
If they aren’t into movies or TV, I move onto video games (super mario, Zelda, halo…you get the idea).
and don't come back if it doesn't move you :-)
Seriously, the guitar isn't an end in itself, it's the music...although to be fair it's easy to get carried away and forget that.
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They wanted fast results and they wanted to sing songs that they knew.
Kid 1 started on Riptide
Kid 2 started on Achey Breaky Heart - that one is only 2 chords. She is averse to practice or any work and it took about 2 evenings.
They both commented that they couldn't understand how their friends who learned guitar at school had been doing it for ages, but still couldn't play a song! To me, that's everything that's wrong with school music.
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But what really can be useful is teaching them rhythm notation, that can really help to play riffs, feel some groove, understand how to play reggae, bossy nova, etc and give some versatility and feel but see some way of documenting that for the future in strokes and rests
Many want to just learn the solo or a little lick that makes up for 5% of the song, the rest of it will be the chords so unless you want to sit there for 3 minutes waiting for one part then you would want to learn the rest.
Also playing consistently to tempo and with groove can be hard, as I see some learners don't concentrate and end up changing the pattern or losing the beat midway.
That said, I have also encountered a fair few guitar teachers of questionable ability teaching at schools so that could equally be a contributing factor…
There's also the issue of parents believing that learning a musical instrument is an important part of a child's development even if the child has no interest.
I lectured in business related things at university and a great number of my students were sent there by parents who thought it was the right thing to do, but the student themselves had no real interest.
https://www.instagram.com/insta.guitarstuff/