Essential Elements for Guitar Review

Now that I've kind of babied my students with the slower-paced band method, I'm beginning to include some stuff from an actual guitar method. They've already learned E-F, B-C-D and G-A on the first three strings. Now I'm using this book to introduce G on the 1st string. I also thought that it would be a starting point for the numerous new students I've gotten in the last few weeks.

Maybe I won't have to go back to square one completely since it's the "beginning" for this book. We're using the Essential Elements for Guitar book. For those of you familiar with the band method, they're not really comparable. This one's pretty similar to the standard method books with a few refreshing differences.

They begin with chords and note-reading at the same time. You'll have a page of chord-strumming and then a page of note-reading. They kind of alternate between the two throughout the rest of the book. At the beginning students learn 3-string versions of the chords C and G7 and E, F, G for note reading. The lessons progress almost exactly like every other guitar method though some don't introduce chords and notes simultaneously.

The big difference with this book is that it's published by Hal Leonard and they throw in a lot of great pop, country and rock songs. Whereas most method books use inexpensive public domain songs to teach both chords and notes, this one has you strumming Hound Dog, Sweet Home Chicago and Jumbalaya (On the Bayou) to learn the beginner chords. For note-reading you've got "Rockin' Robin" pretty early and later a great duet arrangement of "Can You Feel the Love Tonight". In future posts I'll let you know how it goes in class.