GAMA video

I posted a link earlier referencing this but I wanted to test out this new video feature. This is the Guitar and Accessories Marketing Association Video on the growth of guitar programs in secondary education.

This should inspire anyone involved in guitar and music education especially at the pre-college level.

Links Related to Music Education and the Guitar

I originally promised some links related to guitar in the music classroom. Most things that come up in searches are for on-line courses and lessons. There are also method books you can download or order for your classroom. Some of these look interesting but I'm not going to go through a bunch of commercial sites right now.

One site that's non-commercial that I keep coming back to is the MENC site on guitar in the classroom. This one is definitely worth checking out if you're introducing guitars into the music classroom for the first time. They focus heavily on getting non-guitar-playing music teachers to introduce guitar in music class.



This video is awesome! Very exciting for guitar teachers. It's from the "Video" section of the Discover Guitar site. It discusses the growth of guitar in the music classroom. It's produced by a group for marketing in the guitar industry. It features a school system in Nevada with an incredible guitar program. More about it at classroomguitar.com.


I also just found this book. It's from a series often referred to as the "Berklee books". It's interesting if you're looking for something that's different than the typical E-F-G, B-C-D methods. It starts with the C major scale in first position.

I think it's a little too fast for average students without prior musical experience but it's interesting in that it's different. He also dives straight into triads using the notes in that C scale. You can look at sample pages at Amazon.

1st Division Guitar Method Samples

These are the first couple of pages I use to teach note reading. I've pasted on guitar fingering diagrams to replace the sax fingering diagrams when introducing new notes.

Note the simple repetition used in these exercises. These are really accessible, even to 6th grade students. Notice that on the first few tunes there are whole rests between the notes to give the students time to think about the next note.

They allow for the teacher to walk around and check for proper technique which is very important in the beginning. Also, the Solo/Class and Duet pieces hold interest, keep the students focused and allow the teacher to better evaluate what individuals are doing.

You could use any old band book your school may have available. Just use the Eb instruments to have it already transposed to the correct key.

Why Guitar Method Books Are Weak part 3

In a couple of previous posts I stated some reasons why guitar method books are much weaker than methods for other instruments.

This time I'll talk a little bit about what I use and why I think it is more effective.

I basically use what I call the First Division Guitar Method. I've taken some old First Division Band Method books that my band director wasn't using anyway and use them to teach guitar. I use the Eb Alto Sax books because they transpose to C/G which are very guitar-friendly keys.

(Mine don't really look as nice as this pic. I've got the really old ones.)

With this method, we begin by learning D, C and B on the second string with whole notes. When we add the note E on the third page we've now got a great list of beginner songs that the student will immediately recognize. Also, the student is only playing two fretted notes. They can then play Mary's Little Lamb, Au Claire De Lune and Hot Cross Buns.

The main difference, however, is the pace. I really think that the technique required to play the guitar well requires this kind of slower pace. Since it is a beginner band book, it's designed to teach one hundred or more 6th graders to play many different instruments all at the same time. The first two pages are dedicated to learning just those first three notes. They begin with whole notes and add quarter notes on the second page.

To keep things from moving too slowly they mix in several pieces with Solo/Class options and two line duets. These are really good if you have a large class and want to evaluate what each student is doing. You just get different kids to play the solo. We also do a lot of "Boys play # 5 and girls play #6" on the duet lines. I can walk around and see what each person is doing.

They also don't get as bored with the repetition required because the Solo adds interest and they want to see how others are doing. It also provides a great incentive for them to work harder since they know that they may be next.

For the rest of the book they add one or two notes at a time and have a lot of repetition. Also, after they introduce new notes they emphasize them for a couple of tunes and then go back and focus on those few core notes. The emphasis really seems to be on learning to read well rather than just learning "all the notes". The "real" guitar methods out there really seem to be about getting all the notes learned as fast as possible.

Any other band method would probably work just as well. I just happened to have old first division books here. But they're all designed to teach large groups of students at a reasonable pace. (Just remember that the Eb instruments are already transposed to guitar-friendly keys.) I think that this offers a great starting point for thinking about a new way to teach guitar.

Anyone who has ever played or taught Piano out of the Thompson books knows what a vast improvement the Bastian series is for beginning learners and so on with newer methods. For guitar instruction not only do we not have a "Bastien" type method, we don't even have a "Thompson". I really think that we are light years behind other instruments in the area of beginner instruction in note-reading.

I think that the main reason for this is that the guitar is generally taught by "strummers" like me. Learning to read notation is just kind of an afterthought. However, the stereotype that guitar players can't read music may not only be about players and teachers' interest and attitudes about reading music. It may also have something to do with the way we teach it.

Thirty Days to Music Theroy

This is the theory book I'm using this year. It's not perfect but it's reproducible. I just give them a few days worth, hole-punched, and they clip it in. You can't play the guitar the whole class period anyway.


We do a little theory, a little note-reading, some chords and sometimes a little improv at the end of class using 12-bar blues and a simple open position minor pentatonic scale.

Why guitar method books are weak part 2

In a previous post I talked about the need for a new guitar method which corrected some of the problems found in other methods.

The three problems I mentioned were:

1. They move too quickly.
2. They teach new notes in groups of three according to string tuning rather than adding one or two at a time.
3. They begin with modal music that sounds funny.

These problems are interrelated and I'll try to explain my thoughts on these. Let's start with the way most methods begin.

Most methods begin by teaching E, F and G on the first string. They teach these with little modal songs which begin and end on E (Phrygian) or G (Mixolydian). I really don't have much problem with this part. This is fine a fine way to start and is very logical in relation to the instrument's tuning. It's also consistant with other methods. It's what they do next that irks me.

After playing a few simple tunes with these notes, the student is then asked to learn 3 new notes, B, C and D, on another string. Usually the same or very similar modal pieces are used to teach these notes. They just transpose them to the keys to fit B, C and D.

Next, after learning to play these simple pieces, they throw all 6 notes into one song. This is where I've found I lose people. At this point they kind of give up. They had really been thinking high, middle, low for the three notes on each string and now they're asked to do something much more difficult.
I think that a much simpler and rational approach would be to add one note at a time. After a few years of searching, I found one method that kind of does this. Everybody's Guitar Method, which I linked in the other post, adds a note at a time after the first 3 notes are taught. Honestly, it still moves a little fast but at least they've taken a step in the right direction.

The only method for guitar that I've ever seen that does a good job with the add-a-note-at-a-time method and isn't modal is the First Act method that comes with their First Act guitars. That's right, the Wal-Mart guitars! Say what you will, but they start with G and the guitar is basicaly a key of G instrument. They add A, B, C and D progressively.

Think about it. When you learn G, A and B you've learned to read 3 notes of which only one is fretted, you're able to play simple tonal (non-modal) beginner songs found in every other instruments method book such as Hot Cross Buns, Au Claire De Lune and the simplified Mary Had a Little Lamb.

They stay a long time with those first three notes, which is consistent with methods for other instruments. The student learns to read well with different rhythms and develops a level of self esteem. Let's face it the technique required to play the guitar is confounding enough without having to also deal with an instruction method which is actually harder than other instruments.

My problem with the kids' First Act method is that it is very short. It doesn't go beyond those 5 or 6 notes. Maybe there's a 'book two' or maybe a similar edition for older students. So I actually use something different in class. I think I've arrived at something which may be about perfect. It allows students to move at a pace which is slow enough to not frustrate. Also, it's tonal and the songs are immediately recognizable .

The best part of it is that I didn't have to make the whole thing up myself (or even transpose it). It was right there in front of me! I'll talk more about it next time.