Ensemble Book Reviews and Spring Concert Plans

I wanted to share my thoughts on some of the ensemble music I'm using. After doing my first Christmas concert a couple of weeks ago, I really want to gear up for our spring concert and do some real music. I plan on hitting the ensemble stuff pretty hard after Christmas. Right now my average student is finishing up study with the 4th string. I estimate that in 3 to 4 weeks I'll have 80% who've passed off the 6th string material. Then, they'll graduate on to the ensemble music.

Right now the plan is to have a few ensemble pieces that all of these students work through and pass off. Then, I hope to have several small ensembles of 3 to 6 kids to better fill out our Spring concert program.

Also, I've got students of pretty widely varying levels of skill. I've got a couple of 'nerds' who just are reading and technical machines. They have no previous musical experience but just freakishly adhere to every musical and technical suggestion I make. And they just can't get enough guitar.

I also have the band kids who can already read music. Then there are the students who have been in my class a previous year and are a little ahead. I say "a little" because this is the first year that I've actually done guitar exclusively in my General Music classes. So, we're basically almost a semester ahead of last year already.

Then there are my special education students. Of these, I've got three who will never be able to read beyond the first strings even with letter names and/or fret numbers written over the notes. Then there are probably another 8 to 10 who are "struggling" with 2 to 3 strings. For these students, I've had to find ensemble music that accomodates these challenges. I'll address this issue in my reviews of the books.

My main considerations in finding ensemble music for first-year middle school guitarists are ease of playing and quality of arrangement.  I guess I'm looking for the highest "quality of arrangement" to "ease of playing" ratio in these pieces.   Honestly, there is plenty of material out there that is good quality.  It's just more difficult.  I also was looking for some of the arrangements to be more rhythmic and contemporary.  There are tons of classical arrangements to be found, many of them free.  There is a definite need for lighter concert material to mix in with the classical arrangements.

I'll review the four ensemble books I got from the GAMA workshop this summer and also the other sources I'm using for the concert. There are a lot of other sources out there and I certainly haven't seen them all. I'm just giving my thoughts on the few that I've seen.  All of these books are companions to method books of the same title.  Some of them even let you know at which point in studying the method the ensembles can be used.  (Purchasing any of these products through the links provided here supports my blog.  Thanks.)

21st Century Guitar Ensemble

This is book one of the ensemble companions to the popular "21st Century Guitar" method series.  I haven't used the method book yet.  So I can't really compare it to that method.  This one I found to have the lowest ratio of the two afore mentioned factors.  Many of these short pieces have substantial measures of rest for one or two parts while the others begin alone, almost canon style.  I don't think you can easily hold student interest with many measures of counting rests in such short musical works. 

The arrangements didn't really do anything for me either.  I know that's very subjective, but I don't have the book in front of me.  I'm not using any of the pieces from this book and don't foresee using them in the future.  I think there are better options out there.  Again, if you want something more difficult, why not just do something which is also of more interest and quality.  I will say that the 21st Century Ensemble Series has a large number of books in publication.  Some of the other books in the series for specific styles and themes have good reviews at Amazon.com.  If you're looking for something different or a specific theme (like Peter Gunn), they may be worth checking out. 

Bill Swick's Guitar Class Ensemble Series

This is an ensemble companion to the material I use daily for classroom instruction.  I used "Song Tune" last year for my spring concert, and it was by far the best thing we did on the program.  It is the simplest tune, using mainly whole, half and quarter note rhythms, and each part has notes on a couple of strings each. 

This year I've given a few kids who are finished with the classroom materials the next two ensembles which are a couple of Paganini studies.  These have some eighth notes, a few high A's on the first string and some accidentals if I remember correctly.  The pieces in this series are all from classical compositions and have pretty basic rhythms for beginner guitar students.  The pieces become gradually more difficult as you work through the book with the last few including notes in upper positions for students who are a little farther along in their study.

Everybody's Guitar Ensembles

This is the companion ensemble book to Everybody's Guitar Method, which I used for several years in private lessons.  It's pretty much what the title indicates, very simple and graded to be easy enough for anyone to be able to succeed.  It's funny because I had already picked 3 or 4 of these pieces out for our spring concert and was calling them our "everybody" songs before I remembered the title. 

We're doing the first 4 arrangements which are very simple and probably way too easy for high school or what you might consider "normal" even for middle school, but with the large number of special education students I have these are great.  They're good sounding arrangements and are very short.  This book would definitely be good for use early in the year. 

Part 1 on these first few pieces is first string only and very simple quarter, half and whole note rhythms.  They also have 2 to 3 additional parts with optional chords.  Some of the lower parts include notes as far down as the 6th string.  This book also has arrangements which are limited to the first three strings or so, two of which we used for our holiday concert. 

These were My Dreydl and Jingle Bells, which were very nicely arranged and simple to play.  We put them together in all of two weeks time.  I had a couple of second-year kids strum chords which really filled the sound out.  The arrangements become slightly more advanced as you go through the book, but overall this is probably the simplest of the books.  These pieces are mostly lighter numbers which can be hard to find arranged well like this.  This book is highly recommended, especially for Middle School.

Hands On Training Guitar Ensembles

This is the companion to the H.O.T. method books.  It contains very nicely arranged pieces which are simple to play if you have some kids who are reading on all six strings.  It says in the description on their website, "no sixteenth note rhythms".  There is a very tasteful use of dynamics as well as other guitar sound effects and optional percussion parts on some pieces .  This book has several American and international folk song arrangements.  This book is a good value and contains a wide variety of styles.

Jerry Snyder's Guitar School Ensemble Book

The Jerry Snyder Guitar School series is probably one of the more popular methods for classroom instruction and with good reason.  It is very well written and if you don't have a copy for reference in your classroom, you should get it.  The companion ensemble book is also excellent, having the best arranged pieces of those reviewed here.  When playing through these, you can really tell that these were arranged by someone who has played a lot of guitar and knows his instrument. 

Most of these arrangements are a little more difficult, but many are entirely appropriate even for middle school students performing an end of the year concert.  This book has the best balance of classical and contemporary arrangements of the books reviewed.  There is also a wide range of difficulty to be found from piece to piece.  Definitely don't overlook this book.  It deserves a place in your reference library. 

How They're All Going Together

For the final concert, I plan to have 3 to 4 "everybody" pieces which should take up all of 5 minutes,  3 or 4 pieces that most of the other kids play together and then a few small ensemble pieces for the kids that just need something a bit more difficult.  Then we're having our high school counterparts play a few pieces as our special guests. 

Last, I've arranged for a buddy who is a classicaly-trained professional guitarist to come perform a short set for us.  I think we're going to end the concert with him, the high school guitar teacher and myself playing as an ensemble for the kids.  I though they would get a kick out of seeing the old guys play with a pro.  I'll update as we get closer to the concert.

Right Hand Technique for Middle School Guitar

I thought that it might be good to address the issue of right hand technique since it is something that I really struggled over at the beginning of the year.  I went to the GAMA workshop and was inspired by a couple of people who had gone beyond picking with thumbs and were doing finger alternation.  Of course this was on the high school level, but I really wanted to do something more than just using the thumb. 

I began with teaching alternating "I-M" rest strokes while we were learning the first string.  Then, we started the second string.  When we finally began approaching the point of putting them both together, I realized that I would have to deal with the issue of string-crossing.  If you've never played classical guitar, this has to do with avoiding awkward fingerings when going from the 1st string to the second and so forth.  The idea is to alternate so that you're not playing with the same finger on two consecutive notes. 

The problem is that sometimes in order to alternate you have to:

1. Make an awkward crossing to a higher string with the lower finger while moving the entire hand parrallel to the strings and try to keep the angle.
2. Incorportate the "A" finger and plan out string crossings ahead of time.

When I was in college, I learned a set of general principles for avoiding string crossings and wrote in the R.H. fingerings in tricky places using the "A" finger to avoid awkward "I-M" crossings.

I just really thought that this might be way to difficult for Middle School kids.  So, I emailed a few people I really respect in the field to ask what they would do on the Middle School level.  One was a friend of mine who is a professional and he recommended I talk to his buddy who works with Middle Schoolers out in Austin, TX.  They are the guys with the Austin Guitar Society who run the guitarcurriculum.com site.

I really like their philosophy of emphasizing technique and ensemble playing from the start.  I spent a couple of weeks looking pretty hard at their stuff and have incorporated some of the ideas, but it becomes obvious pretty quickly that the techniques don't fit with a traditional guitar method.  They've begun with the idea that the methods are the problem, and I whole-heartedly agree.  So they wrote their own curriculum from scratch. 

I just couldn't do a whole new curriculum a few weeks into the semester.  I think that if I'm still doing this in a couple of years, I'll probably be using this.  I would definitely like to do some of their training.  It's a very comprehensive but is definitely a "next level" concept for someone who wants to really train up players. 

I also talked to Bill Swick from Las Vegas Academy Guitar Program.  His is program is probably one of the most prestigious in the country and the entire county out there has a huge guitar program.  (Check out the GAMA video.)  He teaches high school but told me about the technique he used when he taught middle school. 

It involves simply assigning a finger to each string: A - 1st, M - 2nd, I - 3rd and P to 4, 5 and 6.  I thought this made a lot of sense and decided that it would be a good step in the right direction after thumb-picking for a couple of years.  I pulled a couple of pages from a classical book that involve playing open-string patterns and worked them with the kids for a week or so using the meticulous attention to technique suggested by the guitarcurriculum.com method. 

Then, we went back to our method book and played all of the 1st string notes with the A finger and all of the 2nd string notes with M.  Most kids grasped this pretty well, and we are using it with a good deal success to this point.  I do have to note that when you use this technique with a traditional method you begin with the 1st string which is the A finger.  This inherantly makes proper technique more difficult to reinforce. 

I've got the technique principles written on their rubric/grading sheets and consistently try to reinforce them, but I know that all of this would be easier if you could start with playing P, I and M on open strings the way the Austin guys do it.  You would just have to have a curriculum written to that goal.  Well, they do and again that's why I think that eventually I may go that direction. 

For now, the kids are using footstools, sitting in a healthy seated postion, and they're playing with PIMA using reasonable technique.  This is a great improvement from what we were doing a year ago and I think that it also gives us a lot more range in the difficulty of literature that they can perform without having to worry about string crossing.

Christmas Guitar Concert 2009

Tuesday night was our Christmas concert, actually my first Christmas concert for guitars. I had 53 of 58 students show up which is very good for our rural school. I was very happy that there were enough instruments for everyone to play especially since a few kids didn’t bring their own after having said they would.

At our school, all of the kids can’t provide his/her own instrument. I have about 25 guitars that we use at school every day. We made up the difference for the concert with about fifteen kids bringing their own instruments, using a few baritone ukes that were here when I first came to the school, old guitars that I have here at school, and using a few of my own personal instruments.

All went well, and I had each class play its own piece sitting at the front of our seating arrangement. When they finished, they moved back to their permanent seat and the next group came and sat in front. When the third group had finished, we had everyone sitting on stage together. We played the nine pieces I listed in my previous post minus Joy to the World, which we didn’t have time to finish rehearsing

Tuesday night was the first time all of them had played together. That being said, it went pretty smoothly. I did learn several important lessons from this performance which I will be glad to share with you.

First, for a guitar performance, sound reinforcement is a very high priority. The day of the concert, I found out that the sound system I used for last year’s performance no longer worked. There was another PA in the auditorium but it only had one speaker and I didn’t have a lot of time to set up a new PA. I honestly thought, “I’ve got almost twice as many players. I should be good.”.

I knew that we wouldn’t be heard over the air conditioning (imagine a 747) without sound reinforcement. But I had run into the air-conditioning man in the hall that day. He showed me how to turn the fan off and said that he would program the unit it from his computer to turn off in time for the concert. Well, I didn’t get it done correctly and the folks in the back couldn’t hear much. Next time, I will definitely have my condenser mikes set up and have sufficient amplification.

Second, there comes a time when one must sacrifice aesthetics and acoustics for practicality. We were really too big for the auditorium. It was darker at the back of the stage and parents can’t see kids back there anyway. Besides, with the loud air-conditioning factored in the acoustics weren’t any better than the gym. Our next concert will be in the gym. It may sound worse and look cheesier to this musician, but Momma will be able to see Sweetie Pie from the audience and that’s probably all she cares about anyway.

Third, I would begin rehearsing the ensemble music earlier and lose the expectation of having everyone play everything. I spent a larger portion of the beginning of the school year just playing the stuff out of the book and really started working ensembles about three weeks before the concert. They did really well with this because of the simplicity of the music we did, but my students that were already way ahead could have been working on some more challenging pieces for a smaller ensemble performance.

I kind of geared this beginning of the year concert toward what everyone could do. My special needs students could play one of the parts on most of these pieces. Then, they kind of struggled through other pieces. When a couple of players are “off”, it makes the whole thing sound less professional.

For my spring concert, I’ve already chosen my “everybody” pieces. Then, I’ll have a few “average” pieces that all of my regular ed. kids will perform. Last, I plan to include many more small-ensemble pieces for my students that are more advanced. I think this will help fill out the concert more and give exceptional students a chance to really shine.

Finding music on this wide range of skill levels can be a challenge without just buying a ton of music to check it out. At the GAMA Teaching Guitar Workshop, this summer, I got five or six ensemble books. So, in my next post I’ll give reviews of the three ensemble books I’m using and their appropriateness for different skill levels.

Christmas Concert

Well, it's that time of year, and I'm preparing for my first Christmas Guitar Concert. It's set for December 1st. I'm trying to get thirty extra footstools made because right now I only have a classroom set. I'm also trying to figure out how I'm going to seat 50+ kids on the stage when they won't have all been together at the same time until the night of the concert.

I've got each class divided into 3 parts and we're doing all 3-part music. I'm also trying to account for an ensemble group I'm putting together for my advanced kids. I want to seat them in the front so we don't have to move people around during the concert.

The music is pretty simple because it's early in the year, it's middle-school and most kids don't have their own instrument at home. Therefore, all the practicing happens in class. I introduced all the pieces we'll be performing about three weeks before the concert.

We're doing trios from Bill Swick's Beginning Guitar Class Sumplementary Materials and Yamaha Band Ensembles (Alto Sax edition)I use. We're also doing a couple of arrangements from Everybody's Guitar Ensembles . (Purchasing through the links provided supports my blog.  Thanks. )

All the notes from the Swick book and Everybody's Guitar Ensembles are on the first three strings and are pretty simple; simple whole, half and quarter note rhythms. The Yamaha ensemble book is mostly on the first three strings when played on the guitar and is also very simple. Although, one song has some eighth notes.

Here is the program:

Lightly Row - from the Bill Swick book

A Wrinkle in Time
Shadow of the Bull
Marianne
These three are also from the Swick book. My 1st, 3rd and 6th period guitar classes will each be playing one of these as a class ensemble. These are simple to learn and I thought this would be a great way to fill a concert program without everyone having to learn a lot more music.

My Dreydl - from Everybody's Guitar Ensembles

Up on the Housetop - from the sax ensemble book

Joy to the World - This one is my ensemble for my more advanced students. These kids have some band or piano and/or have taken my class in a previous year. (I don't have a multi-year program at this point.) The piece is from volume 2 of the sax ensemble book. It has low and high F# but is otherwise on three strings. It also has dotted eighths and sixteenths in the rhythms.

O Come All Ye Faithful - from the sax ensemble book

Jingle Bells - from Everybody's Guitar Ensembles. This one is probably the most "arranged" sounding of the pieces and part one is simple enough that most of my special ed students can play most of it.

I know that this sounds hillarious, but I'm hoping that this program will run about 30 minutes. Most of these tunes are only about 16 to 20 measures each. We're doing a repeat on everything just to make them a little longer. I figure that if I talk a little between a couple of these that we can stretch it into a 30 minute mini-concert.

I really do think that it's important for them to have the opportunity to perform during the first semester. With my choirs, it's pretty easy for me to take them to a nursing home or hospital to sing during the holidays, but it's much more difficult to squeeze 50 guitar players into a venue like that. I think we will probably go play at the elementary school down the road the following week just to give them another performance opportunity.

One thing to note, I used a lot of different sources for ensemble music. It's really difficult to find holiday music arranged for beginning guitar ensembles. There were other arrangements of Christmas songs in the Jerry Snyder ensemble book, but they're a good bit more difficult. They might be more suitable for second year students or high school.

Well, the concert is scheduled for December 1st and we just got out for Thanksgiving break. So I'm looking forward to some family time. Then, when we get back we'll have two school days to set up chairs and rehearse a little more for the concert. I'll try to post some pictures and video after the concert and let you know how it went.

Guitar Curriculum.com and the Austin Classical Guitar Society

Several weeks ago a friend of mine referred me to these guys when we were discussing guitar curriculum. They're with the Austin Classical Guitar Society and have put together a killer website. They've started from the ground up and have written a comprehensive classical guitar curriculum. It's got daily lesson plans and a whole repertoire of graded music. The site is pretty new and they're still adding to it, but already it's really an overwhelming amount of material.

This method takes highly inovative approach to teaching in the classroom setting. First of all, they start with ensemble playing on the first day. (Dude, I know!) They divide the class into three sections like a band or chorus and teach the "set up" for classical sitting position. Then the students learn basic right hand free strokes on open strings.

Ah, open strings... This is where I start glazing over in the Noad book and think, " I could never do this for weeks with Middle School kids", but here's where I think they're onto something. It's ensemble music. The teacher teaches simple parts by rote, incorporating a couple of left hand notes and the kids are playing an ensemble. This first song is called Spy Tune and is a great first day guitar class activity whether or not you are sold on the whole ball of wax. The best thing is it's really fun.

The first few weeks are focused on the right hand and learning to read the open strings. The curriculum maintains interest by emphasizing dynamics, rhythm and mixing in some left hand notes which are taught by rote.

I think the repertoire alone is worth looking at this program, and if you're like me and have tried this thing on your own for a few years and really want to get down to the technique stuff that you may already teach private students, this is a great place to start.

In the past, I've always thought, "I can't wait until we learn enough notes to play some ensemble music". Consider that in band methods students learn 5 or 6 notes and immediately sound like an ensemble of some kind just because of the different registrations of the instruments. Well, with the guitar, you can get two full octaves if they're playing arrangements using the six open strings. Why didn't I think of this?

Starting with the open strings and focusing on the right hand is the consensus in the standard classical methods. Because of the technical nature of classical playing there's really no way around it. They're just really repetitive and may lose high school (and especially middle school) students' attention quickly.

Not only does this method put great ensemble music in your hands for even the most beginning groups in guitar class, but it uses this element, combined with emphases on dynamics, rhythm and percussion effects to combat the tedium of most classical methods' early and lengthy focus on the right hand.

You should know that this method is very detailed and comprehensive. Without training or some private lessons, it may be inaccessible to teachers who have no previous classical experience. A year or two ago, I read an article at the Guitar Foundation of America's website that stated the serious need to do more in the area of pre-college training for classical guitarists. I think this program addresses that need pretty well.

Guitar classes in general are increasing in popularity at a rate that is really exciting. So a method that seeks to make technical study fun? That could be really cool.

Right now they're offering the curriculum as an annual subscription. You can click "Contact" on the Guitar Curriculum home page for more info.

Guitar Storage and Maintanence Issues

I now have 18 classroom instruments and I'm trying to figure out how to store them. I went down to the 'unclaimed furniture' room at our school and got a couple of small tables to get all of the instruments off the floor. I've got three full-size guitars coming from the music store later this week. So I need to have a place to put everything.

Until I can get more permanent cases for the guitar I'm taping the boxes they came in. I've always used clear packing tape for this but have recently decided to give duct tape a try. After seeing a couple of duct tape guitar straps, and a duct tape cowboy hat and wallet, I figured that duct tape would work for taping these boxes. I'm taping the edges and corners where they usually tear up first.

The main issue is finding the time to do all of this maintenance. Well, I was passing by study hall today and noticed kids in there doing nothing and thought, "dude!". I got about five girls and trained them in the delicate art of taping guitar boxes. We implemented the Bush Doctrine and taped up the three newest boxes first. I'm really curious to see if this slows down the classic box deterioration.

I've also got four 3/4 size guitars that I got from the elementary teacher.  These came in gig bags and sit on a multi-guitar corner stand.  This is pretty convenient for storage, but would be hard to use with the humidifiers I make for the guitars.  If I could get some smaller guitar humidifiers, gig bags and some hangers, this gig-bag and stand/hanger combination would be really appealing.  Right now, I use home-made guitar humidifiers that go in the boxes and they'd be a tough fit in the gig bags.  Probably the best long-term option would be to have a system to accurately control the room humidity.
 

It's important to control the humidity in the winter months when you start running the heater.  If you live in a dry climate such as Arizona, this is not just a winter issue either.  Right now I'm using home-made guitar humidifiers using the instructions that I found here: http://www.thepodium.com/t-makinghumidifier.aspx

If you can afford it, the Oasis humidifier is probably the easiest to deal with.  It's easy to use, small enough to fit in a gig bag and doesn't drip.


For the guitar I play in class I've got a String Swing hanger.  These are really handy, and I use it during the school day.  However, as I said, I don't hang guitars overnight out of the case in the winter months.  I live in Mississippi, and when the heat is off it's actually good to have them out on a stand or hanging.  Do some research on humidity and guitars for your climate.  A couple of years ago, I found out (the hard way) why it's important.

Beginning of the School Year Two-week Update

Well, I've finished two weeks of school now and things are going well. I've got classes that are a good bit larger than last year (20, 21 and 23 I think). I've got my room rearranged kind of like a funky orchestral/band setup accept it's with my little desks. Music stands are next on my list.

We've got three 3/4 and three full-size classical guitars ordered and the music store has now received them. He's setting them up today for me to pick up after school. Woo hoo! I've had quite a few kids playing baritone ukes the last 2 weeks.

This year I've also started out the year exclusively playing guitar. I usually do a lot of theory worksheets and more General Music type stuff. When I first started I just didn't know enough to do guitar all period and keep them focused.

Footstools
I started the year off making my students use a footstool and sit in classical position. I did this just because I was inspired at my summer workshop and "wanted to get my life right" as the preacher would say. I expected to see some long-term pay off for this later on in the year. But honestly, I've been shocked at what a difference it has immediately made.

Everything is better: left hand, right hand, not bending the neck to see the fretboard. It also makes it incredibly easier for me to see what they're doing because their left hand is not behind a desk/music stand.

Set-up
I've set up my room with a couple of risers at the front of the room. One of them is pretty high, and I can actually sit on it and show them how to adjust their sitting position. From this higher seat I can play, see what their hands are doing and point at my posters behind me (my rubric and 3 ft. high Scott Tennant "3 points of contact" poster), all without leaving my seat. Sweet! I've also got my dry-erase board right there within pointing distance.  The Scott Tennant illustration is from his Basic Classical Method 1.










Methods
I've learned a lot about doing this at the classroom level from experience over the last 3 years, but I've got to say that a lot of the big improvements this year came from my week at the GAMA workshop this summer.

Besides the footstool idea, I picked up on a lot of simple phrases and ways of teaching things that have made my life easier. Probably the biggest one is to not stopping playing everytime you want to tell the kids something.

This really worked well yesterday when I was working with 4 or 5 Special Ed students in one of my classes. We just started picking E quarter notes. Then, I'd say something like,"Now, when I say 'ready, go' we're going to put our first finger on the first fret and say 'F'. Remember to play with the tip of your finger. Ready, say 'F, F, F, F'."

While picking F I'm talking them through G. "Now, we're going to put our third finger on the third fret, bird-man in the air, skipping over the second fret. Lorenzo, bird-man in the air, skip the third fret."

Before I would have stopped and moved fingers. Gotten everyone adjusted and then tried to start over. This simple technique really works great. I probably worked with those kids for 3 or 4 minutes and you wouldn't believe the looks of relief that they were actually getting it because they were completely lost with the general class instruction. If you worked with Special Ed students you know that look of frustration.

Just the phrase "bird-man in the air" is beautiful. I've probably said, "This is the only class where it's OK to have the bird-man in the air" probably a hundred times this week. But if you've taught any amount of guitar you know how hard it is to get some kids to not play G with their second finger. This phrase has ended all of those lectures.

GAMA Teaching Guitar Workshop Plug
By the way, all of this came from Jim Nancey at the workshop in Atlanta. This is from a guy who is a piano player with a background in choral music who couldn't even play guitar much until he went to a GAMA workshop. I gained a lot and I've played and taught private lessons for 20 and 10 years respectively.

Bottom line: anyone could learn a lot from the workshop, even if it's just a few teaching ideas or phrases from seeing other people teach. Get to a GAMA workshop. You won't regret it!

Working on sitting position

I took my home-made footstools to school and have introduced the students to a classical playing position. This has been very difficult to do in a large class setting. This year all three of my classes are over twenty kids. You quickly realize how much more difficult something like this is when you see 24 middle-school students in front of you doing it incorrectly.

I thought, "Now, what?". I really struggled with this yesterday and couldn't quite figure out what the problem was. I finally realized that most of the problems were coming from the students trying to sit so that the guitar and both feet were facing forward. If you're holding a guitar correctly in classical position the front of the guitar is basically facing the direction of your left foot, but your hips and other foot are facing a different direction.

This was easily resolved by simply getting them to turn their chairs at an angle and point their footstool toward their music stand. This way they could more easily visualize the sitting position and face their music. This is just one of many things that you never think about in a private lesson. You simply have the student make a couple of adjustments. But when there are twenty people in front of you doing it incorrectly, you really have to think about what it is you actually do.

I've also made a huge poster of Scott Tennant and his "3 points of contact" from his sitting position diagrams in his method book. I made it using Publisher. It's pretty funny to walk in and see a 3-foot Scott sitting there. It's really good way of simplifying the process and talking about it during class. "Sternum, inner thigh, leg", I think it is. Also, "the weight of your left arm holds the instrument in place". That's another book we got at the workshop. Nice, Scott. It's called Scott Tennant's Basic Classical Guitar Method.

Make Your Own Guitar Footstools

This weekend, my 17-yr-old and I made 27 footstools for my guitar classes at school. This simple and economical design is based on an idea I got from Suzanne Shull at the GAMA Teaching Guitar Workshop in Atlanta a couple of weeks ago. The most basic design is 3 8-inch 2x4's screwed together. This makes for a foot stool aproximately 6 inches tall.

If you turn it on its end you get a footstool that's approximately 8 inches tall . So you have two heights in one footstool. I also used some extra wood to make about five of the footstools 4 blocks high. This is a little more stable than the 3 blocks turned on end.

I also made one footstool that's a 4x4 block with a 2x4 attached. I only made one of these. The 4x4 is what we got at the workshop one day as our footstool. I just screwed a 2x4 to it to make it a little taller.

This year I'm going to have my students actually sit in classical position with footstools. I haven't in the past because I didn't have a way to purchase footstools for an entire class. I thought the wood block idea was pretty good and it's inexpensive. So, I'm giving this a try.

The total cost for the lumber and a box of screws was just under $25.00. Sweet. It also helps to have a teenager to help put them together. Thanks, Matthew!

August 18: Since I posted this, I've had the opportunity to use them in class for about a week. I think the flexibility of the 3-block high version is great. Four blocks is too high for many of the taller kids playing the full-size instruments and also for smaller kids with 3/4 size guitars.

I like the both-sizes-in-one flexibility of the 3-block. I don't have to swap footstools out. I have three different classes and I need both height options at each seat. I'm thinking about taking a board off the 4-block version.

GAMA Teaching Guitar Workshop: Day 5 and Workshop Review

Friday morning we were all getting ready to leave. I know that everyone had at least one extra load to carry with them because of all the stuff that we got. A few people in our group were flying or driving to other destinations and had to have their stuff shipped. But what a great problem! Thanks again GAMA members for the donations.

We had a morning session where we worked the barre-chords some more. "Sittin on the Dock of the Bay" I think and some other things that I don't remember because I didn't have my notebook. it was packed up already.


We went over to Spivey Hall and performed our ensembles with our groups. It was really nice. The Spivey hall folks set up the stage for us between groups and dimmed the lights when a group left the stage. It made you feel like a pro. It was a lot of fun. My group, "Kathy and the Boys" performed "Some Kind of Sunset (Tango)" and "St. Joshua Infirmary" from the H.O.T. and Jerry Snyder ensemble books. Actually, "St. Joshua" was a medley of our own making because we liked "Joshua Fit the Battle" and "St. James Infirmary" so much.

Afterwords we took the workshop photo on the Spivey Hall staircase with our guitars and headed back to our classroom one last time. We packed up our stuff and wrote thank you letters to GAMA and to a manufacturer. I wrote my manufacturer letter to the company that makes Aurora strings. They're multi-colored. Your female students will think they're really pretty and I think that they have a lot of potential as an instructional aid for beginners.

Overall, I thought that the workshop was fantastic. I've played the guitar for 20 years, taught private lessons for 15 and taught classroom guitar for 3 and I still had plenty to learn. Teaching guitar in the classroom setting is just a different beast. It was great to have a week of just seeing what others are doing.

If you teach a guitar class already I think you'd get a lot out of this workshop if only to preview and play through all the guitar books we received. If you don't play guitar yet but would like to teach it in your classroom, then this class is especially geared toward you. A large portion of the workshop is focused on getting inexperienced teachers some guitar skills.

I never found much on the web about the workshops except for their site. So, I tried to be pretty thorough with my review. If you have any questions about the workshop feel free to comment below and I'll try to get back to you.

Suzanne, who is the workshop chair, said they're working on revamping the website. It's linked here. They are also forming groups on facebook and myspace.

In my future posts I'll review some of the books we got at the workshop.

Gama Guitar Workshop Day 2, 3 & 4

On Tuesday we arrived and there was a stack of 4x4's cut into 8" sections. These were our footstools. It wasn't really high enough for me but it gives you a good idea as to what you can do with some homemade foot stools. Suzanne told me she usually does them in 3 different heights. She takes 2x4's and cuts them into 8" sections. Then she screws two of them together for some and three together for others. She then has 4, 6 and 8 inch footstools because the stacks of 3 can be turned on their sides to give you the 8 inch height.

Suzanne also overheard Thad and me playing jazz in our dorm room Monday night and asked if we could play for the group. Thad called it jamming. I called it a lesson from Thad. I have never actually played jazz in front of anyone. We set that up for Thursday around lunch time.

During our afternoon break-out session with the high-school people we talk some more room set-up. Hand sanitizer is necessary for kids using school instruments. One of the guys mentions that Finger Ease is good for "acid hands'.

We do more methods stuff with Suzanne on rhythm strumming. We start with the Left Hand muting and working on "missing" strums to create different rhythms. Jim introduces new chords. (He calls D7 "Dog Seven" to not confuse it with E7 when he says it over students' playing.)

He introduces the idea of "divide and conquer". Some of us are having trouble changing chords. So he divides us up into 2 or 3 groups. "You guys make sure you cover this chord every time. If you can get some of the others great, but make sure you're covering this chord". We learn that "guides slide".

We work power chords, root-5th bass patterns, pima, rest strokes and free strokes. Suzanne introduces Travis picking and teaches us "Dust in the Wind". We work E-form and A-form barre chords and learn the "Chaconne" (Am G F E).

After class we all went to Guitar Center because a
lot of the folks in the class had never been to a guitar store. Then we went to Maple Street Guitars, the place to go if you're ever in Atlanta. They're much smaller but have a lot of great guitars and sheet music. We finished up Wednesday with a meal at California Pizza at the mall in town. I ordered the Jamaican Jerk pizza. Good Stuff!

I got to meet my dad for lunch on Thursday. Then Thad and I played Autumn Leaves, Black Orpheus and Pride and Joy by Stevie Ray Vaughn in Spivey Hall for our group. We also had Mike, a Jazz woodwind instructor from a college in NC play tenor sax and flute with us. His wife was in Atlanta taking the class with us. Both of these guys are pros and I was glad to get to play with them.

In the afternoons Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we worked on our ensembles. We were preparing for a Friday mini-concert in Spivey Hall, a very nice concert hall at Clayton State. The groups were supposed to be of mixed ability levels and our was pretty well balanced. I had Gene and Kathy in my group. Kathy had a good bit of experience growing up with guitar but had not played in a while. Gene was pretty new to the guitar.

I'll try to close out the week in my next post.

GAMA Workshop Day 1 continued

Day 1 consisted of our getting a 1-foot high stack of books and being asked to choose a guitar to try out. They told us that the guitar raffle would happen at the end of the day and at each break we would put back the guitar we had been using and choose another. By the end of the day we had used 5 or 6 different instruments. Then we each took a number and when our number was called we got the pick of the guitars that were left. All of them were nice instruments.

There were four or five sessions each day, and for each session, we played through lessons in several books. The taught us in the same way that they would teach beginning students and many of the teachers were beginners. A portion of every segment was aimed at working on the guitar skills of the workshop participants, but it was still great to see other people's methods for introducing things and the kind of terminology they used to teach.

There was a little bit of time when others were practicing their skills and those of us that were already players had to find something to do. There was one participant who has a couple of studios full of students in private guitar lessons back home. He was the real player. Then there was me and a band director who played pretty well already. There were others who had varying degrees of experience in playing. Overall, I was very pleased with the methods content and my fears that most of the workshop would involve teacher's skills on guitar were unfounded.

Later in the week, Suzanne told a great story of a workshop participant who was a professional classical player who brought a left-handed guitar and learned to play that way to avoid being bored and learn from a beginner's point of view. Now why didn't I think of that? She said he also performed with his ensemble right-handed-upside-down. I generally tried to save these times for questions I had wanted to ask about the instructors' programs or how they approached particular problems. I also played some chord melody, combined parts, played in higher positions and improvised. This was encouraged by the instructors and was a lot of fun.

On Monday Jim gave us a segment introducing chords. Jim's predominating phrase in this segment was "keep strumming". This quickly became the recurring joke during the week, but it really is genius. He would say things like, "I'm going to move my fingers down a string, but I want you to just watch while you stay on the chord your on now. ....and your going to do what? That's right. Keep strumming!"

This seemed crazy at first but, then I started thinking about how much time I spend saying, "Put your guitar in resting position.", "Your hands should not be on the strings while I'm talking" and similar phrases that I use while I'm talking. Maybe one way to to deal with kids not stopping is to have them not stop as often. He might have something there. Jim kept talking and we kept strumming as we learned new chords. Hmmm!?!

I was also very interested in Jim's philosophy for introducing groups of chords. He groups chords by fingering similarities rather than by key. He teaches Em first; then Am and E because they have what the H.O.T. (Hands-On Training) books call "EZ movers; fingers that easily move from one chord to the next. Then he teaches the easy move from Am to C; then Am to D7; from D7 to G and so on.

H.O.T. books at Amazon

All the while he's using the "bun" technique. Begin with an easy chord, introduce something new and back to the easy one again. (The meat is the new material you want to introduce.) Cool.

We had sessions with Suzanne on playing 'bass' where we played along with popular songs on CD's using notes on the 5th and 6th strings. These are fun for students and introduce notes on these strings that will later be used for power chords and barre chords. We also introduced note-reading and improvisation. Suzanne taught a blues segment and explained why she prefers using closed position minor pentatonics because A-blues shuffle patterns and chords are easier to play and because the improv pattern is movable. She also stated that she thinks not having open strings is somehow less confusing to younger students.

Then we had break-out sessions with elementary teachers going with Suzanne and High-Schoolers going with Jim. We talked curriculum, class-room set up, tuning guitars and other mundane but necessary things to know about in teaching large numbers of guitar students.

When I got back to my suite at the dorm in the evening I discovered that my buddy Thad from the workshop had moved into one of the rooms. This was the beginning of a week of jamming, as Thad is an excellent player in a variety of styles. He also is a private-lesson instructor with a ton of students. So we had plenty of great conversations about that end of things too.

In future posts I'll wrap up the week and try to do some reviews of the excellent classroom guitar books that we received.

GAMA Teaching Guitar Workshop: Arrival and Guitar Raffle

I've decided to post a day-by-day description of what we did because it was a week long and I think that will be the easiest way to get my head around it.

Sunday, I drove out to Atlanta from Oxford, MS right after Sunday morning services. On the way, I had to stop and change a fan belt that went out. I just happened to pull into a gas station across from an O'Reilley's Auto Parts store. After 45 minutes I was back on my way. The rest of the trip went smoothly.

In Atlanta I was set up in a nice suite at Clayton State University's new dorm. Very nice and $35.00/night. I had a whole suite to myself which I didn't really like because I like to go to things like this to meet people. When I went back to the room later, I found that I had acquired a new suite-mate. He is a monster guitar player and plays jazz really well so I got a lot of jam time with him during the week.

Day 1
Our class was to start at 8:30 and I arrived a few minutes early to check out the "stuff". I had heard that there was going to be a lot of material for us and that the guitars would be given out in a raffle. So I kind of scoped out what I wanted so I'd be ready when they called my number.

There was a wide variety of guitars from different manufacturers. Off the top of my head here's what I remember being available: There were 2 baby Taylors and two 2 baby Martins. All 4 had nice gig bags. There were three silver Fender acoustic-electrics with strat-style headstocks. I think these may have come with gig bags as well. There were entry-level Breedlove and Tacamine acoustic-electrics; one each, with a nice hard-shell case. There were 3 Aria steel-strings with nice hardshell cases, a yamaha nylon-string with hard case, an Ibanez electric with practice amp and a Hohner steel-string acoustic. I think the Hohner was the only one that didn't have any kind of case, but besides the babys (and maybe the Breedlove) it was the only one with a solid top.

A lot of very nice choices. My number came up late in the raffle. There was still a baby Martin and a couple of the Arias left but I decided to go with the electric because I've been borrowing my son's nappy old one for to long.

We met our instructors for the week, Suzanne Shull and Jim Yancy. (Sorry, Jim. I feel like I probably called you Tim a couple of times.) I thought it was interesting that both of them come from a choral background. It gave them a great perspective to teach from with an "anyone can learn to teach this" mentality. Jim was kind of interning and Suzanne has tought with the workshops pretty much from the beginning. Suzanne has taught guitar in the middle school setting for many years and now volunteers at a local school. Jim has built a successful program out in Phoenix that has outgrown his choirs, and has had a group perform at a national convention.

More to come...

GAMA Teaching Guitar Workshop Materials

Well, I said I would give an update on the Teaching Guitar workshop in Atlanta. I'm back and will post more later, but here's a quick look at the sample materials and gifts the manufacturers provided for us.