Spring Guitar Concert

Well, we had our spring guitar concert a few weeks ago and it was a resounding success! This year,I really beefed up the program with more music, had our high school counterparts perform as our special guests and even had Jacob Jordan, a local friend who is a professional classical player, close out the program.  He's pictured above with my daughter, Claire.

At the suggestion of the high school guitar instructor, we held the concert at a local church. This allowed us to use the church sound with a combination of the church's choir mics and our own condensers/mic stands. Additionally, the choir loft risers ensured that students were more easily seen by parents. The acoustic sound in the church was great too. Thanks for the great idea Mr. Cole!

I ended up having sixty kids on stage, but I should note that it would not have been possible to have that many kids in the years previous when we weren't using footstools. Footstools save a lot of horizontal real estate by having the necks of the guitars at a 45 degree angle instead of straight across.

Here's our program:

Summer of ’59
The Sounds of Jazz
Woodstock
Song Tune...arr. Bill Swick
A Minor Study # 1...arr. Bill Swick
A Minor Study # 12...arr. Bill Swick
St. Anthony Chorale...arr. Jerry Snyder
Some Kind of Sunset...arr. Jerry Snyder
Strawberry Moon...arr. Jerry Snyder
Achy Breaky Heart

The first three tunes are super easy and come from Everybody's Guitar Ensembles. Part one is E, F & G on the first string using only whole, half and quarter notes.  All of my special ed kids can play these and that's their purpose on the program.  We also did three tunes from Bill Swick's ensemble series and three from the ensemble edition of Jerry Snyder's Guitar School.
  

If I could go back, I would have planned for more easy music that was kind of in between the first three and Song Tune in difficulty.  The way the program was laid out, I had everyone on stage and as we got to the more difficult stuff, some kids would take their seats in the audience while others adjusted seating on stage.  By the end, we were down to an ensemble of about eight kids with me playing along. 

Achy Breaky Heart was something that I transcribed from a beginner band arrangement earlier this year.  It was for a beauty pageant performance whose theme was "Boot Scoot'n Beauties".  I know...


Anyway, it turns out the beginner band arrangements I've transcribed in the last three years have been well worth the effort.  Easy, beginner guitar ensemble music is just kind of a newer thing.  Meanwhile, there are tons of beginner band arrangements out there.  They've just been doing it longer.  They always end up being the coolest thing on the program.  Achy Breaky Heart is a pretty cheesy tune, but this a great arrangement.

In preparation for this concert we spent the second semester with the kids passing off ensemble music assignments after they had passed off all the textbook material.  We did some chords, rhythm strums, bass/strum patterns, learned the twelve-bar blues with a blues shuffle and basic improvisation.

I was very pleased with everything we did this year and felt like we grew a lot from the previous year.  I even talked to the curriculum guy at the state department about doing a pilot guitar program for the state and getting Guitar on the books as an actual course listing.  I was trying to be optomistic and plan as if things weren't changing, but this has been a rough year for education in the state of Mississippi.  I found out a after the concert that my program had been cut, along with two other music teachers, a band director, two art teachers, a gifted teacher, a PE teacher and various other special ed and and part-time positions.

So, I will probably be in a church or something next year.  I'm still really appreciative to have had the opportunity to teach guitar.  General Music went from being a chore, taught between "real music" performance classes, to something that I really looked forward to every day.  I'm working on doing guitar classes in conjunction with the local store this summer.  I'll also be working on possibly relocating. 

On a lighter note I had a "blues epiphony" after an early morning jog a few weeks ago.  I'll post more on teaching the blues in another post.  Also, in another post I'll discuss what you, as a teacher, can do with 50 minutes (or more) in a guitar classroom.  Someone asked me about that a couple of months ago, and it's really a great question.  Believe me, I was in the same boat a couple of years ago.

Blessings,

Matt Jones

Repost: Guitar In the Schools Video from GAMA

This is primarily an industry marketing video, but I always thought that it was very cool.  It also features a mentor of mine, Bill Swick, and his program at Las Vegas Academy.  We used his curriculum when I was teaching at Lafayette. For whatever reason this has been yanked from the interwebs.  It's somehow still stuck here in blogspot limbo.  Enjoy while you can:

http://classroomguitar.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2007-10-01T16:00:00-07:00&max-results=7&start=35&by-date=false

justinguitar.com

I wanted to take the opportunity to recommend this site which I've been using quite a bit lately for my personal jazz study.  I'm sure that it would be a great reference for any classroom teacher as well.  His site is probably the most comprehensive free guitar lesson site I've seen.  While most sites with this much information are a little dry, Justin's is a lot of fun and he's a great teacher.  He has a real gift for thorougly presenting a topic while keeping it as simple as possible.

The material is sequenced and grouped in a logical way that defies the tendancies of most of us musical/creative types.  There are beginner and intermediate methods on the site with text and video.  You'll also find intermediate/advanced material covering various styles such as blues, reggae and jazz.

His presentation of the CAGED system with it's corresponding chords, scales and arpeggios is the best that you'll find on the web. If you're a teacher, the graphics for his chord grids and scales are a great reference. 

All of this material is presented free.  So, donate or buy something.

Updated Class Grading Rubic/Grading Sheet

This is the grading sheet I use when students play something for a grade in class.  It has all the technical stuff I always tell them.  So I can just circle the things they need to work on and give them a grade.  That way it's not so subjective, but I don't assign a certain number of points for each items.  So, in that sense it's not a strict rubric. 

I format it in the document so that it's two per page although the google doc doesn't support this.  I do it front-and-back to save paper and time copying.  I punch holes in it and they put it in their binder.  Then they've got four weeks worth before I have to give them another one.  Click the "Open in a New Window" icon above to print this version, or click here for the link to a Word doc which you can save and edit.

If you're looking for ideas for a rubric or syllabus, check out Bill Swick's backward assessment models at classroomguitar.com.  If you want something to use in grading students that has specific things to check off as the student plays, the guys in Austin, TX at guitarcurriculum.com have a great sheet in their curriculum.  It's classically focused if you want that, but even if you don't, it's really helpful in the way it breaks down the technique.  It can be difficult to assess certain bad technical habits or find the correct phrase or imagery to help a student fix them.  Their grading sheet is excellent and I've incorporated a lot of their ideas into mine.  Both of these sites are linked in the bar to the right.