Adventures in Classroom Guitar Instruction

Private Group Classes

2011-08-20T11:02:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd share a little about my teaching outside of the school system. Currently, I'm teaching a beginner guitar class with the Yoknapatawpha Arts Council, here in Oxford. On Tuesday, I'll the last lesson in an eight week class that I did for them. I have students of different ability levels in this class, although they would all consider themselves beginners. It has been a good exercise in planning and really thinking about what to teach in groups where you know that you'll have to simplify for some and enrich the material for others.

This has involved things such as simplifying or adding complexity to rhythm elements as we play chords, having beginner students omit certain chords, or simplifying chords for beginners. Chords can be embellished for more advanced students, and more specificity can be required in things such as picking/strumming technique, or muting in the left hand fingers etc.

I'm also currently signed up to teach a few classes for the Oxford Park Commission and First Baptist Church of Oxford. I'll update more on these once they're underway.

It's been fun teaching classes even if it's outside the context of a school environment. For those of you who teach private lessons in addition to your normal school day, teaching private lessons in groups, whether it's in pairs, trios or larger groups, can greatly free up your already busy schedule and greatly increase the value of your after-school time. For the student, it also provides interaction that individual lessons can't provide.

I've also launched a business website for my private teaching. You can find it at OxfordGuitarLessons.com.

Teaching the Blues Part 5: Putting It All Together

2011-04-05T07:09:00.000-07:00

The final and most important thing in teaching the blues is to put all the elements together while playing an actual song. "Keep Your Hands to Yourself" by Georgia Satellites is probably the definitive beginner play-along song. It's in the key of A, uses the beginner structure, and has a straight-eighths feel. Chuck Berry Songs such as "Johnny B. Goode" and "Roll Over Beethoven" also have straight eighths and a simple structure.

I'd also encourage you to listen to the Blues "greats" as a class. Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Eric Clapton are just the beginning of list of some great Blues singer/guitarists. Learn some songs in the keys of A and E to start, and then, branch off into other keys. In teaching the real songs you'll get students singing, and you'll pick up some classic solo licks and accompaniment styles. You'll also hear variations, such as blues that are longer or shorter than 12 bars, minor blues, and numerous variations in accompaniment styles and feels. Playing the form doesn't really mean anything without an actual song to play anyway.

Then, have the class write their own blues. Start with, "I woke up this morning, [insert lamentation here]". Repeat the first line, and close it out with a one-line "hook" statement which rhymes with the first line. This is just one simple example. You could have students do this individually as a project after you've done it with the whole class. One of these class creations could easily be performed at a final concert with kids soloing between verses. I promise it'll bring the house down, and Johnny's parents will be blown away that he can play an improvised guitar solo.

In closing out this conversation on the Blues, I'll throw in this bit of fun. Follow this link to "How to Play and Sing the Blues". It's is a great read. Among other things it has the "Create Your Own Blues Name Starter Kit". Have fun with this stuff!

http://www.sou.edu/music/pdf/blues.pdf

justinguitar.com

2011-01-04T07:28:00.000-08:00

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.

Teaching the Blues Part 4: Elements of Improvisation

2010-12-17T07:51:00.000-08:00

In "Teaching the Blues Part 3", I described how I introduce the pentatonic scale and improvisation on Day One of improvisation lessons. In subsequent lessons I introduce the notes on the other strings, introduce new rhythms, introduce variations to the blues accompaniment patterns covered in Parts 1 and 2 of my Teaching the Blues posts, and have them individually improvise solos for the class using the phrases we've learned so far. In the days and weeks following, I introduce new material in three general areas: melodic phrasing and fretboard positions, rhythms, and accompaniment patterns. These are built upon gradually and across all of the areas simultaneously.

For example, on Day 2 I might simply teach them that the first string fingering is the same as the second string and have them practice soloing on the second string and alternating phrases on each string. Day three might involve teaching them a new rhythm using eighth notes. In another lesson I might teach them chord or blues shuffle variations to use in accompaniment.

I break up my instruction on Melodic/Rhythmic Phrasing into two parts. I teach the class whatever new notes/rhythms I want them to learn through the call-and-response method described above. Every few days, I'll introduce a new rhythm or notes from a new string into this exercise.

Then, I go around the class and have the student individually improvise a solo. Each student gets twelve bars to solo, and I encourage him/her to incorporate the new element .

At first, they may say that they don't know what to play, and you have to encourage them by reminding them that they can simply play the phrases written on the board in a different order until they're more comfortable with the process. It's a little like paint-by-numbers, but they're learning a "vocabulary" with which to "speak the blues language."

At the same time we're working on learning the entire scale. "Second string, same as the first.", "Fingers 1 and 3 on the next three strings", and "Sixth string, same as the first". After the first couple of lessons, I usually teach them the whole scale this way.

The class plays the scale as notated in the tablature at the top of this post, but in half notes with me playing a blues accompaniment. Now the scale's a song! In succeeding lessons I have them play it in quarter notes, eight notes, and triplets.

So, each day we're doing a few things:

1. As a group, the class echos my call-and-response phrases employing whatever notes/rhythms we're working on.

2. Half of the class plays these phrases from the board, simply written as numbers as a tune whille the other half of the class accompanies with chords or a shuffle-pattern accompaniment. We switch and let each side side have a turn with the other element.

3. Repeat the process from # 2 using the entire scale as the tune while the other group accompanies.

4. Go around the room letting each student solo for 12 bars.

All of this material is just to get you started. Find some instruction books, videos, and web lessons on The Blues. There’s a ton of material out there. And listen to the blues! My next post will be on putting it all together.

Teaching the Blues Part 3: Improvisation

2010-12-17T07:24:00.000-08:00

Let me begin by saying that there are a myriad of guitar lessons and articles on the pentatonic scale and guitar improvisation on the web. I'm sure many of them are more effective for teaching the adult student than my blog post.

So if you're a new guitar teacher wanting to learn the blues for yourself first, check out some of these other resources as well. The real purpose of this post is simply to present the methods I use to present this material to students of widely varying ability levels in the guitar classroom.

I begin by presenting the notes of the pentatonic scale (here in A minor) by playing something like the following for them:

Here is the Pentatonic scale presented as a guitar chord grid. (I got it from justinguitar.com. His site is an awesome resource for players at any level. Tons of blues lessons too. Check it out!) Place your first finger on the fifth fret for this position:

Then, I might play and sing some blues, inserting scale licks between the sung phrases, so that they get an idea of where we're going, but my purpose is not to intimidate or give them the impression that this will be incredibly difficult.

Next, I introduce scale notes on the first string only. I instruct them to place their first finger on the fifth fret, and we pulse that note until everyone is there. Then, fourth finger, 8th fret. Leave the first finger down for this one (at least to start).

After going over this for a couple of minutes, we do a call-and-response exercise using a simple quarter, quarter, half note rhythm. I say finger numbers, but fret numbers would work as well. I play and say, "One, one, one" etc. They repeat in rhythm. Then, "Four, four four". We spend a couple of minutes here playing combinations of the two notes on the first string.

Now, it's time for a break. Using this three note structure, I ask them to tell me combinations of 1 - 1 - 4 that we could play, and we'll list them on the board. I say, "The first one's '1 - 1 - 1'." Here's where the analytical, creatively-challenged kids will breathe a sigh of relief, and some of their panic will subside.

By the end of this exercise you should have something like the following written on the board:

1 1 1 1 1 4 1 4 4 1 4 1
4 1 1 4 1 4 4 4 4 4 4 1

Then, we play this as a "song" with the quarter, quarter, half note rhythm I talked about earlier and including a measure of rest in between each phrase. I like to count it, "One, one, one - . Rest, rest, rest - ."

The measure of rest is key. Without it, inexperienced musicians have trouble playing anything which sounds like real phrasing. At this point, if you've taught them a 12-bar blues shuffle pattern, you can divide the class in half and have one section accompany the other. This can be pretty easily done even with very young students.

The real musician in you may cringe at the thought of breaking down blues phrasing in such a methodical way and essentially removing most of the creative aspects of improvisation, but you're not just teaching improvisation on Day One. You're teaching the scale and some basic elements of phrasing. This is their beginning blues "vocabulary".

You're also quickly getting the class playing non-notated music as a two-part ensemble. When the kids hear both parts together, they'll be really pleased with the result. Of course the most important consideration is that you can’t improvise a single note solo as a large group. This exercise gets them all playing together.

Continued in part 4...

Teaching the Blues Part 2

2010-11-30T07:11:00.000-08:00

Armadillos Taste Like Chicken

Last year I had an epiphany during a morning jog. I was trying to come up with an easier way to teach the 12-bar blues structure. For me the problem is that the pattern repeats within one measure. So, it’s sometimes difficult to teach students to count four bars when they’re actually saying the fret numbers 2-2-4-4 twice per measure. It dawned on me that if I had an eight-syllable phrase to go with the shuffle that it would be easier to remember. Then, I thought, “What if it was a phrase beginning with ‘A’ for the A spot and so forth.

What I finally came up with was:

“Armadillos taste like chicken”, “Don’t you know they’re finger lickin’”, “Everybody loves to eat ’em”. If you sing it over the following changes you get the highly singable last four measures, “Everybody loves to eat ‘em. Don’t you know they’re finger-lickin’. Armadillos taste like chicken. Armadillos.”

A A A A
D D A A
E D A A

It makes for a great ending. It’s funny because the kids think of it as a real song. I had immediate success with this. I even taught it to a 9-yr-old in a private lesson to memorize “Johnny B Goode”. She doesn’t even practice but came back the next week still able to play it. I’ve never had that kind quick retention with a young student and the 12-bar blues shuffle.

Here's the pdf of the tune as sung while learning the pattern.

Swing and the Palm Mute

I usually introduce the blues shuffle to beginners with a straight-eighth feel. Many rock and country songs use this straight feel and it’s easier to teach. However, to get a real blues sound it needs to swing. Swing is usually indicated in notation with something like this:

This is an oversimplification of what is really a “feel”, but is probably the best way to notate what is desired. Listen to some real blues music! The long-short, triple feel is a big part of it.

Another important technique for getting a good blues sound is the palm mute. Here is a pretty good video explaining it. Pay particular attention to the blues shuffle sound he gets at the beginning of the video. That’s the muted sound you often hear with the blues.

Chords and Other Variations of the Shuffle Pattern

One way to vary what you’re doing with the blues is to have some students play a chord accompaniment while others play the shuffle and improvise. There is great section on the blues in Jerry Snyder’s Guitar School. He introduces the basic seventh chords used to play over blues changes as well as some chord variations which can make the chords sound more like a real accompaniment. He even includes a chord shuffle pattern. Snyder’s mute-strum pattern which is taught in the preceding lessons provides a great resource for teaching a real blues rhythm feel.

He’s got versions of the 12-bar blues in the keys of A and E with standard notation and tablature. These are common variations of the really basic one in my first blues post and include a V chord turnaround. There are numerous other books on playing the blues if you’re interested in learning the many variations of the12-bar blues' structure, solo licks, shuffle pattern variations, and blues turnarounds.

Jerry Snyder's Guitar School is reviewed in a previous post and comes highly recommended. It has a notation section in the back, and in the front section he fully integrates rhythm playing into learning an ample number of basic/intermediate chords. This one's a must-have for the guitar classroom.

In my next post I'll discuss blues improvisation and how I teach it to very young beginners.

Teaching the Blues

2010-11-30T07:01:00.000-08:00

Teaching the Blues

Learning to play the blues is essential in the guitar classroom. Kids love playing it. It's easy to learn, doesn't require reading skill and easily leads right into improvisation. I have found that often kids who have trouble with note-reading, such as special education students, can have success in playing a blues shuffle and especially with the corresponding improvisation lessons.

Also, it's a great way to get everyone performing together again when you reach the point in the school year where kids are at different levels. With the shuffle and the improvisation component, there are ample opportunities for remediation and enrichment while still playing together as a class on the same piece. You can pretty quickly get three groups playing, with one on a shuffle pattern, another playing a chord accompaniment and the last group playing simple patterns which will make up the “vocabulary” for later improvisation.

Finally, it can’t be overemphasized that the blues offers perhaps the best answer to the question of what to do to keep students engaged for 50 minutes (or longer). With its simple structure, abundance of recognizable song examples and endless variation, the blues offers a fun alternative class activity. It can be used as a laid back end-of-class activity and even as a reward to encourage students to work harder on other daily studies.

Basic shuffle Pattern

It is common practice to teach young guitarists the blues shuffle in A. The reason for this is that the shuffle patterns based on the I, IV and V chords can all be played in open position and using the same fingering. Also, a basic moveable minor pentatonic scale is easily played in A at the 5th fret. For the I Chord, which I call “the A spot”, I teach them the pattern below by rote.

Then, the two other positions, the “D and E spots”:

Teaching the Structure

There are many variations of the 12-bar blues, but at the beginning, I usually go with one which is structurally very simple. The following is my beginner blues structure with each chord symbol representing one bar or measure:

A A A A

D D A A

E E A A

If you are a musician, this sounds a little simple, but most students aren’t as familiar as you are with the blues, and this structure is simple enough to be immediately memorized. I usually just write on the board like this:

A 4x
D 2x
A 2x
E 2x
A 2x

I strongly urge you to resist the temptation to notate all of this for students, especially if they’re younger than high school age. It’s the blues, after all. Besides, it takes the focus off of the overall structure and encourages a note-to-note perspective which may be distracting for beginners. Later, it may be helpful to have some notation or tablature when introducing variations of the shuffle.

When students are comfortable with the basic version, I introduce this common variation:

A A A A
D D A A

E D A A

There are many more variations especially when you include turnarounds. It’s probably most effective to teach them in the context of songs which have a 12-bar blues structure.

In my next post I’ll discuss memorizing the structure, variations and including chords.

What to do with 50 minutes

2010-08-20T06:40:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago someone sent me a message commenting on the difficulty of keeping a classroom full of guitarists on task for fifty minutes. As some one who has done it for several years, let me just say that I understand, and yes, it does get easier.

My first 3 years I taught my class as a general music class and had written work for all or part of class several times a week. That's how I dealt with it because I didn't know what to do either. By the third year, I was getting irritated with "wasting time" on busy work because I was pretty much able to fill the entire class period.

I generally broke my class up like this:
Students practice their piece of the week as I take roll and do other beginning of class tasks.
Note-reading whole-class instruction
Individual practice time
Note-reading review with whole class
Bonus activity such as playing the blues, playing chords or working on a cool riff. Later in the year this is often ensemble rehearsal time.

This is just a general idea. Second semester I spent a lot more time on chords. So the chord instruction actually replaced the note-reading time and we were working ensemble music at the end of class.

Teaching methods
I have found that the most important factor in being able to keep students engaged for an entire class period is the way you teach. Having taught years of private guitar lessons, I kind of approached classroom teaching the same way, and it was really difficult. The method of explaining, asking them to perform it while you move their fingers, stopping them and explaining again like you might be inclined to do in a private lesson is slow and frustrating.

The incredible thing about the guitar is that you can talk while playing. For example, if you're introducing the note E on the first string, just start playing it on a pulse of quarter notes. Instruct them to play with you and that no matter what, you're not going to stop pulsing. You can walk around the room and correct things, taking time to look at what each student is doing. Then, while you continue to play as a class, you say something like, "Now I'm going to show you how to play the note F. I'm going to move my finger to F, but I don't want you to move until I say, 'F, ready, go'."

Then you show them how you finger F, taking note of the position of the thumb and other fingers. Then you tell them that when you say, "F, ready, go" you're all going to play it. When they change to the new note, half of them may be doing something wrong. This is the point where I used to stop the entire class and say, "Wait, wait. Look. It's this.... I said, 'Stop playing!". It's much easier to let them continue pulsing the new note while you go around and move fingers, give verbal instruction and/or instruct everyone to look at their neighbor and make sure she's doing it correctly.

I know I've posted something about this before, but I used this technique all year and it greatly reduced my stress in teaching guitar. I learned it at the GAMA workshop and give proper credit in the posts about that workshop. At this moment, I can't remember the instructor's name, but he wasn't even a big guitar player. He was a choral music guy who basically learned to play so that he could teach some guitar.

Individual Practice Time
During this time I generally walk around helping students who are having trouble and give enrichment assignments to students who are ahead. I had a lot of skill levels in my room of 6th, 7th and 8th graders and by the end of the first 9 weeks of school they were on many different levels including special education. I used this practice time to walk around and give students their assignment for Piece of the Week, marking it in their book.

Of course, in doing this, you eventually get to the point that kids aren't equally engaged in the whole-group instruction time. You'll have kids that are lost and kids that are a litttle bored. That's why it's important to have efficient classroom teaching practices that can help keep these times short and sweet. Then, at the end of class, supplement with something such as blues improvisation or a new riff so that everyone is on more equal footing.

In a future post I hope to cover teaching the blues. The blues and improvisation are great ways to fill time and are essential for any classroom guitar teacher.

Private Guitar Lessons in Oxford, MS

2010-08-19T10:15:00.000-07:00

Oxford, MS Guitar Lessons

If you live in Oxford and want to learn to play guitar, get started now.

Visit my teaching site OxfordGuitarLessons.com.

Keywords:
University of Mississippi Guitar Lessons 38677
Ole Miss Guitar Lessons
Guitar Lessons in Oxford, MS 38655

Spring Guitar Concert

2010-05-15T19:17:00.000-07:00

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 a local friend who is a professional classical player close out the program.

At the suggestion of the high school guitar instructor we had it the concert at a local church. This allowed us to use the church sound with choir mics and other condensers and mic stands. Additionally,the choir loft risers made sure that students were more easily seen by parents. The acoustics in the church were 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 beaty 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 nsemble 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 passing off ensemble music assignments after the students had passed off everything in the textbook. 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 talked to the curriculum person at the state department about doing a pilot guitar program for the state and getting Guitar 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 couple of weeks after the concert that my job had been cut, along with two other music teachers, a band position, two art teachers, a gifted teacher, a PE teacher and various other special ed and and part time positions.

So, Matt will probably be in a church or something next year. I still am really appreciative to have had the opportunity to teach guitar. General Music went from being a drugery to something that I really looked forward to every day. I'm working on doing summer guitar classes in conjunction with the local store this summer. I'll also be working on finding something to do and relocating my family.

On a lighter note I had an "blues epiphony" after an early morning jog a few weeks ago. I'll post more on teaching the blues in a later post. Also, coming in a later post, I'll discuss what you 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. More posts to come once the school year's finished.

Blessings,

Matt Jones

Updated Class Grading Rubic/Grading Sheet

2010-01-30T09:17:00.000-08:00

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.

Ensemble Book Reviews and Spring Concert Plans

2009-12-12T18:55:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-05T10:54:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-05T09:43:00.000-08:00

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 the concert was over in less than thirty minutes. 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

2009-11-20T16:11:00.000-08:00

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

2009-08-31T18:04:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-24T17:32:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-21T03:47:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-13T17:46:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-09T18:29:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-28T18:09:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-28T07:11:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-27T18:19:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-27T11:28:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-24T20:23:00.000-07:00

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.

Going to Atlanta!

2009-04-25T12:03:00.001-07:00

Today, I received my acceptance letter from Dusquesne University for the GAMA/NAMM/MENC 2009 Teaching Guitar Workshop. I was reading it to my wife and my son overheard the part about receiving a free guitar. He immediately started in with, "Well, if that guitar is nicer than your guitar can I ...?" I stopped him short and told him I wasn't giving him another guitar and that I had no idea what kind of instrument they would be giving us anyway.

In addition to the guitar, you recieve 3 Graduate credits from the University, and they give you "new teaching materials and guitar accessories" with a total value of $1800.00. I'll let you know what that involves when I get there. I'm just excited about getting my contiuing education credits in something cool, this time. I'm also relieved that I can do this in Atlanta, where I have family that I can stay with and won't have to get a hotel for 5 days. There was a possibility of this location being full and me having to fly and get a hotel for the week in another location.

I'm also taking blogger's post-by-email feature for a test drive today. I'm using it at home today but I wanted to see how it works because I can't log in from school anymore. It's a shame because that's where I take pictures of what the kids are doing and stuff. So, I've kind of layed off the blogging thing this year. I'm hoping that with this feature I'll get back in the swing of things.

I've scheduled a bonafied guitar concert for my 30-something middle school general music students for May 4th. We're doing two easy 3-string trios from the Bill Swick method with everybody. The songs are Lightly Row and Ode to Joy. My special education kids can pretty easily play part 1. Then we're doing one trio from Book 1 of Bill's Guitar Trios series. I've also got a quartet playing "What'd I Say" which is my revoicing of a band arrangement. That one really sounds great. I might also get a smaller group to do another, more difficult trio, but we don't have much time.

I really don't intend for it to be too big of a deal this year, but i felt that it was important for them to have something to showcase what they've done this year for their parents.

On the Home Stretch

2009-03-14T07:01:00.000-07:00

We're approaching the end of the school year and just got out for spring break. I don't remember the daylight savings switch happening the week before spring break last year. I think it just about killed me. Juvenile spring fever doesn't mix well with teacher sleep deprivation.

I've got 4 or 5 kids who've worked all the way through the 2 quarters of Bill Swick's guitar method book. I've started them on Christopher Parkening's classical method. They're kind of ahead of the other kids I teach who are all over the place in terms of progress.

I took 3 days off of school right after my choir got back from festival. So, I had about a week of them not really playing the guitar while I was out. It has been difficult to get them back going strong.

I also realized a few days ago that less than half of my students are at the point in the book where they're reading eighth notes. This is making teaching them Don't Cry for Me Argentina and What'd I Say nearly impossible. We're doing our crash course in eighth notes, but I don't know if we've got enough time. They're pretty big arrangements. I know that if I'd started with this method book at the beginning of the year instead of a couple of months in, we'd be rockin'. Next year I'll have a lot bigger head start with this stuff.

At the very least I'm going to have a select group perform to open up our spring choir concert. I really think I need to have something for all of them though. They've done a lot this year and I want their parents to see their progress. I also want them to have the experience of working toward a performance again. (In December I had them perform at the Hospital.)

Another thought I'm having at the end of the school year is about returning students. If I have several students who are wanting to take my class again, I may have the opportunity to divide them into different class periods and actually teach the more advanced students together. Exciting thoughts!

Later,

Matt

Gama Guitar Workshops

2009-02-14T07:12:00.000-08:00

I decided a few months ago that I was going to get my continuing education credits in guitar this year. So, I registered to get on the GAMA Guitar Workshops' "hotlist". Supposedly I'll be more likely to get a scholarship and have my tuition paid for.

They sent a link with the application a couple of weeks ago. I wish I'd gotten it off sooner because the scholarships are on a first-come-first-serve basis. We'll just have to see. I think it's $150.00 to register. You also have to be an MENC member and I wasn't. It costs $92.00 to sign-up in Mississippi. So, I've already spent more money than I like to for CEU's but usually they're for something lame and this is in 'guitar'! I'm going to try and save some money by staying with my brother-in-law in Atlanta for the workshop.

The website says that they give you hundreds of dollars in merchandise and materials for teaching guitar. Read about the program's success in boosting guitar sales and you'll see why they offer so much free stuff. The course is actually pretty inexpensive too. If you haven't seen it yet, watch the GAMA video I have linked to this page. Also check out the workshop here.

Arranging ensemble music for beginner middle school guitar students

2009-02-14T06:40:00.001-08:00

It's getting close to the end of the year and I'm aiming to have my general music kids play guitar at my spring choir concert. I share a concert with our high school choir. So I'll have to keep it short.

We're working on a couple of things I've transcribed from beginner band arrangements. We're doing "What'd I Say?" by Ray Charles and "Don't Cry for Me Argentina".

The top two parts are mainly the first three strings of the guitar, the bottom part is the more difficult to read bass range stuff and the 3rd part is somewhere in between. I've got a 5th part written for Don't Cry for Me, Argentina that is a symplification of the 1st and second parts for my special ed students. I've made it mostly whole, half and quarter notes and have taken out most of the rests. I've also limited it to the first 3 strings.

I did the same kind of thing at Christmas. We performed a 3-part arrangement of Jingle Bells that I arranged, O Come All Ye Faithful and Up on the Housetop transcribed from a Sax trio book and Little Drummer Boy which I transcribed into 4 parts from a beginner band arrangement. Little Drummer Boy was so nice that I decided to do a couple for the spring concert.

We performed in the lobby of the hospital in town.

I really should be doing some of Bill Swick's Guitar Trios for first year but I'm out of money and can't purchase them now. The samples at classroomguitar.com looked perfect for a concert.

Right now I'm registering for the summer guitar workshop from MENC and GAMA. I'll try to post links later.

Bill Swick's Beginning Guitar Class Review

2008-11-25T12:59:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted anything for a very long time, mainly because they now block blogging at school. My last post (about a year ago!!) dealt with my continuing frustration over the impossibility of trying to teach guitar in an inclusion classroom. I was about ready to give up and just go back to pure theory, history, etc.

At the beginning of this year I tried a new guitar method from Bill Swick out in Las Vegas. This method has proven to be a lifesaver for me. It's the most "graded" method I've used. This allows you to individualize the lessons without having to write something easier for slower students or find something more advanced for students that are ahead.

I'm particularly impressed with how well my Special Education kids are doing. I have kids reading music who I never thought would be able to at this level. Last year I had the majority of the lower performing students doing one-string TAB because I just didn't have time to write a whole separate curriculum for them.

One great feature is that the book is reproducible. I sent him a purchase order from my school and he emailed me the pdf. I really wouldn't have guessed how much I love having the materials in pdf. About once a week I assign a new piece for them to pass off for a grade based on their progress and ability.

Since it's reprodicible I'm free to mark everything in the student's book. I date when it was assigned and make notes for things they should be working on. This is the only way to work if you've got kids working on different levels. You can't go around saying, "What are you working on?"
Coincidentally I have my more advanced students in the same class as my inclusion kids. Some are on p. 20 while others are on p. 70.

I will say that this method isn't a stand-alone method for self-instruction. For self-instruction you would probably want to use this as a supplement and get another method that covers things like What a Whole Note Is, How to Tune the Guitar, or What a Fret Is. This book assumes you have a teacher in front of you to show you technique and teach you basic music theory.

December 12, 2009 Update: Bill now has a teacher's edition for this material. Here's the description from his site: "The Teacher's Manual offers a step-by-step method for teaching classroom guitar. Ideal for first-year teachers or for the non-guitarist music teachers. This package offers 2 quarters of weekly instruction, 18 lesson plans, 2 curriculum maps, 2 backward assessment models, 6 pre-tests, and more to make your beginning guitar class run smoothly from day 1. This manual will make the above methods a stand-alone program." He's also updated the original material. M.J.

I got 2 quarters which is 102 pages for my school for $99.00. You can separately purchase the first or second quarter for $45 and $54 respectively . Having used it for a couple of months, this is a great bargain for a substantial reproducible guitar curriculum.

My biggest problem with it being reproducible is kid's taking a page home and forgetting to bring it back the next day. Every day in class isn't enough?
But this is a great problem. They're excited about playing the guitar and can't get enough.

This is the best method I've seen for classroom use. After reviewing a bunch of other methods, some of which I've used throughout 12 years of guitar lessons, I'm going to give this one my official endorsement (for whatever that's worth). It's what I'm using now and I'm no longer searching.

Check out Bill's site, classroomguitar.com for more info or order the books here. I've linked to his site before but he's got some new video clips of 1st and 2nd year students improvising using his Swickster fingerboard sticker system. Check it out!

If you've never seen the GAMA video from Discover Guitar it feature's Bill's guitar program in Las Vegas and is awesome!!!

Rethinkining Dick Bennett

2008-02-12T14:25:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been a long time since I've posted anything. I think I gave up since I had about 6 new special ed students added to my classes in December. I really don't know what to say about that except that I'm individualizing the guitar part of my curriculum at about 3 different levels now. So it's kind of difficult to do a quick post about what I'm teaching.

I've got about 15 inclusion students playing one-string songs. (They're doing This Old Man this week.) I've got another 15 or so who've been with me the whole year who are playing the more advanced stuff on three strings. And finally, there are about 5 to 10 who have transferred to my class at different points mid-year.

I really just have to look at where everyone is and assign many different pieces depending on who's in the class. For example, in my 6th period I've got one kid who reads well that's way ahead, four 'normal' kids who've been with me all year, three 'normal ed' students who just transferred to our school in January, two special ed students who were only added in January to my class and one kid who's a talented musician but has reading problems and is playing some tab. And my other classes are just as diverse.

In terms of the 'regular' curriculum I started with at the beginning of the year, the kids who are on that track are doing great, considering. It just makes me sad to think about where I could be with them musically, if I wasn't individualizing so many lesson plans and teaching everybody something different.

These students are now playing out of Dick Bennett's Standard Guitar Method, which I have really come to appreciate. It's funny to read my last post from November and see what I thought, then. Now, I use this method almost exclusively.

Because of my unique situation, I have seen the benefit of his systetmatic, approach to teaching the students to play chords in standard notation. The chords are integrated into many of the songs, while others have a notated accompaniment underneath the melody. They can really work at their own pace while I'm helping other students who need special attention.

Simplified Chords in Musical Notation

2007-11-15T11:51:00.000-08:00

I think that the title of that lesson is just hilarious. It's the name of the lesson I'm using from the Standard Guitar Method by Dick Bennett in my classes. It sounds very cerebral. I guess it really gives away the book's 1965 copyright. I'm not a big fan of the method but I do like the way Dick breaks down the simplified three string chords.

He notates little chord-building exercises in standard notation. For example, on C and G7 chords:

E E E E - - - - - - - - E E E

- - - - C C C C - - - - C C C

- - - - - - - - G G G G G G G

These have been pretty effective even with my really struggling 6th graders. It's at least an easier way to teach a whole class chords without walking around and manually moving 6 or 7 students' fingers.

Hal Leonard Guitar Method

2007-11-14T06:56:00.000-08:00

I found this old Hal Leonard Method Book at the school yesterday . While looking through it I discovered that it has a lot of the same exercises found in the Essential Elements Method I wrote about in a previous post.

The Essential Elements includes the bulk of the material found in the first two Hal Leonard Method books with the newer songs and a new snazzy layout. I haven't looked at a newer edition of the HL Method to see what's changed over the years.

The one I found has a 1977, 1980 copyright and included this vinyl record!

Again, I think the main difference is that the Essential Elements book has a lot more copyrighted popular music in it.

How to Hold the Guitar!

2007-11-13T09:30:00.001-08:00

...just in case you were wondering.

I can't believe I found this! The next time you're feeling down just check out the picture on the right. You just can't be unhappy looking at that.

I found it while looking through some old guitar method books at the school. The photo came from "The Standard Guitar Method" by Dick Bennett.

Actually, I really like the section on "simplified chords in musical notation". It's the three-string chords we've been trying to learn anyway. The exercises are written out almost exactly like what I had written on my dry-erase board anyway.

Essential Elements for Guitar Review

2007-11-12T08:17:00.000-08:00

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.

Whiney Crying About Playing With the Pinky

2007-10-31T16:00:00.000-07:00

Today we introduced F# on the fourth string and a couple of my boys declared that they weren't man enough to play with their pinky. I'll have to think about what I'm going to do about that one...

Schedule Changes

2007-10-26T17:00:00.000-07:00

My classes are doing pretty well with cut time. I'm especially working on getting them to tap their foot and feel it as cut time rather than just playing it twice as fast.

In other news...I've had four new students added to one of my classes! We've been in school for 12 weeks, done six pages worth of beginner guitar instruction, finished rhythm and almost finished melody in our theory book and I don't really know what I'm going to do with these students who haven't been here for any of this.

I just named the blog Adventures in Classroom Guitar Instruction while trying to think of something catchy. But this may really be more adventure than I'd bargained for!

Question:
How do you teach students who are three months ahead and brand new students at the same time?

Learning Cut-Time

2007-10-24T22:00:00.000-07:00

Well, we've had 9-weeks tests and watched West Side Story. So, I haven't updated much on the guitar. In our 30 Days to Music Theory Curriculum we're on Day 18 "Key Signatures" which means that we're about to have our second test on theory. We did rhythm first and now we're about to test on melody.

With guitar we're rockin' on with the first 3 strings (minus high G). The songs have more skips and we're playing songs like "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "Jingle Bells" in the key of G.

We're starting cut-time music in this band method that we're using. It's gotten me thinking about why there is so much cut time in band music. Sure, you find it in all kinds of music but in band you have a lot of it! I think it must be that it's just easier to read. Maybe it's easier than teaching so many eighth and sixteenth notes for beginning students. Maybe it's the march thing. I'll have to research that one.

Anyway, at this early stage, without eighth notes it's the only way to play songs like "Jingle Bells". It just doesn't sound the same if you play it with quarter notes.

I'm trying to get us to the point that we can play a couple of little Christmas ensemble pieces at the nursing home pretty soon.

One-String Yankee Doodle

2007-10-24T17:00:00.000-07:00

This is what I'm using for some of my special ed students. I've also given them "Amazing Grace" recently. I actually write it out a little differently for them. I always right them out 4-8 bars per line. That way they can see the stucture. (The third line is the same as the first, etc.)

Chord Melody Enrichment

2007-10-13T14:00:00.000-07:00

Earlier, I briefly mentioned that I'm doing some chord-melody with one of my students who is more advanced. He's in band, reads well and knows some chords. He's far enough ahead that he can sight-read what I've got planned for everyone else for at least 2 months.

So, what do you do? Well, one thing I'm doing with him is having him play the same pieces chord-melody style. If you're unfamiliar with the term, it's where you play the chords under the melody, making the melody note the highest note of the chord.

The guidelines I've given him are:

1. Strum the chord with the melody note being the highest note of the chord. For now, it's just once per measure.

2. Don't pick any note higher than the melody note.

3. Use the fourth finger to play the notes D and G on the first and second strings.

I don't usually write them out but here's a notated example:

Of course, you don't actually play the chords as quarter notes. I just notated it incorrectly. You hold the chord tones as long as you can or at least until the next chord if possible.

You eliminate unwanted chord tones and change fingering to have the melody 'on top' like so:

Steve's Jazz Guitar Journey

2007-10-09T15:30:00.000-07:00

http://jazzguitarjourney.blogspot.com/2005_08_01_archive.html

This is a link to Steven Rosenberg's jazz guitar blog. It's a little off topic for this blog but Steve's a great writer and it's got a lot of cool links for jazz guitar study. This one's more for the hard-core student who already plays well.

Studying jazz helped improve my playing more than anything else I studied after the first few years. It's great if you need to get out of a rut, which is a common occurance for guitar players. Jazz is something that you could literally study and enjoy for the rest of your life.

Ensemble Music

2007-10-02T16:00:00.000-07:00

I'm very pleased with the progress my students are making. We're now playing E and F on the first string, B-C-D on the second, and G-A on the third. All of my classes are at least to page 10 in the First Division Sax book. They've learned whole, half and quarter notes and rests, 3/4 and 4/4 time signatures, repeat signs, first and second endings and played some simple duets. We've just started ensemble music in one class.
We're using this Yamaha Band Ensemles book now that we know a few notes.

Yep, it's the Eb alto sax book because they transpose to the keys of C and G which are friendly to guitar players. You would need to know about ten more notes before getting started with a comparable guitar ensemble book.

A few of my inclusion students are working on "One-String Yankee Doodle". (5-5-7-9-5-9-7-0) and one of them can play some of the note-reading tunes if he writes the letter names on the page. By the way, he doesn't have the reading skills do it the 'normal' way but he's awesome when it comes to improvisation time! The students in this one class just have to play the blues at the end of each class. I've told them I'm going to get sunglasses for them to wear while we play the blues.

Smart Guy Reviews

2007-10-01T16:00:00.000-07:00

Here's a site that reviewed a few of the many guitar methods available online. With so many sites for guitar methods out there, how could you possibly know which are any good?

He opens with the question "Have you been overwhelmed by all of the 'learn guitar' programs available on the web?" Right on! This is a pretty helpful look at a few. Be sure to read the user reviews page.

The top rated one looks pretty good. Expensive but cheaper than the price of a semester of lessons.

GAMA video

2007-09-20T12:01:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-11T16:37:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-11T07:06:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-09T17:00:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-04T16:34:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-04T16:04:00.000-07:00

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.

Winton's Ways to Practice

2007-08-31T09:16:00.000-07:00

I introduced the concept of practice today. We practiced together as a group, a section at a time and then I set them lose to work on the piece by themselves. I also introduced Winton's Ways to Practice from his Tackling the Monster video.

Wynton’s Ways to Practice

1. Seek Private Instruction.
2. Make a Schedule.
3. Set Goals.
4. Concentrate.
5. Relax and Practice Slowly.
6. Practice Hard Parts Longer.
7. Play with Expression.
8. Learn from Your Mistakes.
9. Don’t show off.
10. Think for Yourself.
11. Be Optimistic.
12. Look for Connections.

The reason most guitar method books are weak is...

2007-08-27T15:30:00.000-07:00

...they're written by guitar players. Well, I guess they are. I hate to say it because I am a guitar player, but guitar players are not great with method books. I learned to play out of one of these method books, and I've taught out of them for years but they're weak. Let me tell you why I've come to this conclusion.

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.

Most guitar method books begin by teaching E, F and G on the first string. Then, after you've played about a page you move on to B,C and D on the second string. Here, most books will stick with these six notes for a couple of pages. Then, when you're feeling like you can almost do this, they unleash the third string with G and A.

I learned to play the guitar great this way! I began with Mel Bay's Modern Guitar Method Grade 1. I really do have a special place in my heart for this book. I fell in love with this instrument playing through this book. The funny thing is, I didn't even know about chords when I started teaching myself.

I went on to study some classical in college while majoring in music. Years later, when I began to teach private lessons, I was surprised to find that most students didn't have the same experience with this method that I did. They had trouble keeping up and lost interest because they were required to learn so many notes just to play the first couple of pages.

The difference for me was that I was already a musician and highly motivated. I had played the saxophone for three years in band, could read music very well and was already a full-on, passionate music nerd!

Most people who came to me for guitar lessons wanted to learn to play guitar but didn't have the same ability or motivation. I really have always wanted to believe that anyone can learn to play. I set out to find a method that was geared more toward inexperienced musicians.

First, I tried Mel Bay's Mastering the Guitar book which mixes in chords and tab at the same time as the note reading. I figured this would help with the monotony of the note reading. But the note reading section still worked from a 3-notes-at-a-time approach and some students couldn't keep up.

Then, I found Everybody's Guitar Method which after teaching the three notes on the first string, uses an add-one-note-at-a-time process which I was pretty happy with. It definitely helped the pace but had one song per note added; still a little fast.

In a future post I'll explain why I think that a new method is needed for guitar instruction.

The Treble Clef Rap

2007-08-26T09:25:00.000-07:00

This is a great way to teach kids the notes of the treble clef. (There's also one for the bass.)Thanks to Chris Young for sharing this at our state choral meeting.

F, A, C, E, F, A, C, E,
These are the spaces I can see
E, G, B, D, F, E, G, B, D, F
These are the lines o the treble clef

You use your hand for the staff and touch the spaces between your fingers as you say the space names. You touch your fingers as you say the lines. It's really great for my special education kids but I do it with everybody and they like it. It's a fun chant they'll remember and it uses kinesthetic learning.

My class guitar grading rubric

2007-08-23T07:26:00.000-07:00

October 26, 2010 edit: I have a more recent rubric which can be found here. It better reflects my current teaching methods.

http://classroomguitar.blogspot.com/2010/01/updated-class-grading-rubicgrading.html

The following is the original 2007 post:

This is the basic rubric I use. I weigh them differently depending on how far along we are and may add others later. For example, the first couple of weeks I might assign 50 points of a playing grade toward the "elbow on the hip" because I really want them to understand the importance of that one.

I give a lot of weight to the first three or four items under technique at the beginning because once they're learned properly the students can play without looking at their fingers and don't have to unlearn nasty habits.

The first week or two I assign about 5 or 10 points total to the general performance items. I've found that if they've got the technique right, these first easy songs will be correct anyway. Most beginner's problems with playing beginner songs correctly stems from their not being able to play notes without looking at their fingers, losing their place because their looking at their fingers and not being able to reach certain notes because of poor Left Hand (LH) technique.

Guitar Playing Rubric

Technique
· Elbow on the ‘hip’ of the guitar. (50 points this week)
· “Thumbs up” – LH thumb behind the neck, pointing up. (20 pts - this is fundamental esp. for small hands)
· Fingertips pressing strings against thumb. (Teacup pinch) (7 pts - this will definitely be higher each week. They have to learn to play with fingertips)
· Fingers spaced to fit the frets (7 pts - this one needs to be increased too. They can't get the 3rd fret note without looking at their hand and sliding unless they learn to feel this finger spread)
· Rest Stroke – RH thumb comes to rest on the string below (6 pts I've got nylon stringed instruments. I would use the thumb even if they weren't. They can feel what they are doing better than with a pick. Also, playing it as a rest stroke teaches them to feel where they are without looking at their fingers)

Musicianship (I'll start hammering these more next week. We're doing them but I'm not grading it yet)
· Looking at music – even if you know it!
· Say the letter names in rhythm
· Tap your foot

General performance (10 pts - This will be fine the first couple of weeks if they're doing the above technique correctly. The songs are just so easy. Technique is the killer!)
· Play rhythm correctly – Steady beat; be sure to hold notes full value
· Play pitches correctly

Good left hand finger spacing

Poor left hand finger spacing

Big Mistake No. 1 (for this year)

2007-08-17T07:09:00.000-07:00

I taught some chords first! I gave in to the impulse to get some immediate gratification and just taught some chords. They're just so much more satisfying. I've always done it that way with private lessons. If there is any confusion about playing single note melodies you can give immediate feedback and fix the problem. But what do you do when you've got six kids still strumming multiple strings?

I've only had a problem with it in one class but it's still frustrating. I think the problem stemmed from one thing...

I used stickers this year.

Yeah, you can see them in the pictures. I had to because my first period class is an inclusion class and I have four "special needs" students who really needed it. Then, when I tried to teach them to play individual notes they kept going back to the stickers. ...and strumming multiple strings.

I think we will be able to get them going in a couple of days but if I had the same kids again I probably would begin with the note-reading first. I think it's easier to teach the concept of "those three notes we learned are all in this G chord" than teaching it the other way around.

A couple of these kids will probably never be able to get the note-reading and the others will be behind my regular ed students.

Something to think about:

How do you teach kids within a very wide range of ability levels in a classroom setting?

I don't know if my thinking is correct, but I've basically been giving my more medium level and advanced kids things to work on and letting them practice while I work with others who require more intensive instruction. Also, they're not necessarily working on the same thing at the same time.

I think that this idea can work when teaching beginner guitar because so much of it is just practicing. They have to initially understand the concept but after it's been taught they have to work on learning it kinesthetically through muscle memory. Later, it's more about musicianship, and then, I could see having a problem with this aproach. But the Mattster's open to suggestions. If you have experience with this, please share your ideas with me.

One thing I've gotten out of this is that I'm teaching them some new terms. They are now learning that we 'pick' individual 'notes' and we 'strum' 'chords'. I've also taken the time to notate the chords. This is helpful, even if they can't read all of the notes yet, because it shows them what it looks like on the staff to have more than one note at a time.

Anyway, TGIF!

I told them that if they worked hard I'd give them a free day tomorrow (Saturday). They groaned. I know it's a stale old joke but I'm kind of a stale old guy.

This year's adventure in general music

2007-08-16T18:28:00.000-07:00

I'm currently teaching general music classes for the second year at a Middle School in North MS.

This year I have three sections of General Music. Two of them are 7th and 8th graders and the third is 6th grade. This is my first year to teach 6th graders with guitars in General Music and although I didn't expect them to pick it up as quickly as the older kids, I'm surprised by how much more instruction they need.

We're using these little Excel EX 36NBK guitars which we purchased last year mostly with $$ from the class fee paid at the beginning of the school year, being that funds are very limited. We generally get less than $200 per teacher in Mississippi (yes, that's for the year) to spend in the classroom. So, everything else we have to raise ourselves.

They're nylon-string 3/4 size guitars which we were able to purchase for about $40.00 a piece. They retail for $60.00 but we were able to get a discount because we bought 13 of them. They're really sound great for the price.

I've found that the nylon-string instruments' mellow tone and softer volume help minimize the irritation of beginner clanking and minor intonation problems. Although they probably don't stay in tune any better than a cheepo steel-string, they're much easier on the ears. Listening to a classroom full of cheepo steel-strings played by beginner middle school students is enough to make anyone lose it!

Also, in this price range I think the nylon-stringed instruments hold up better. Truss-rods to support the neck of a steel-string are just not great for a $60.00 guitar. After a few years they tend to bow in under the string tension. This makes them harder to play and intonation horrible.
I think that the 3/4 size is great for beginners of all ages because the students can easily see what they are doing without craning their necks over so much. And for middle school ages it's a must to have 3/4 size.

We're finishing up our second week of school and I'm very excited about what these kids are going to do this year. We've learned the one-string version of "Twinkle Twinkle", begun note reading, and are strumming "Every Rose Has It's Thorn" and "Amazing Grace" using Matt's famous EZ chords G, C and D. (More on that later)

What's this blog about?

2007-08-16T07:47:00.000-07:00

I'm starting this blog to record my own experiences teaching groups of (sometimes young) individuals to play guitar. I've found that this is no easy task.

My background:

I'm 34 years old with a degree in Choral Music Ed. I've played the guitar for about twenty years, taught public school choral and general music for about ten years, and taught private guitar lessons for ten years as well. I've taught up to 60 students a week in music stores and at a church with a school of fine arts.

In that time I've found that guitar instruction books move too quickly, are set up in a way that makes no sense and are basically useful only to individuals with exceptional talent and/or prior musical experience. And that's for individual lessons! Try using these books in a classroom setting with average ability/interest level students and they are very ineffective.

In this blog I'll address some of these problems and their possible solutions with the hopes that others with experience will join in the discussion. In my searches I haven't found very many resources that are useful for a large class setting. Please let me know if you find something that you think works. Again, not for just highly motivated 'nerds' like I was when I started out but something that will work with your average student.