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Monday, August 31, 2009

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.

Monday, August 24, 2009

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.

Friday, August 21, 2009

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!

Thursday, August 13, 2009

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.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

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.