The beginning music teacher is often faced with an overwhelming number of “first lesson” students, that is, students with virtually no significant experience in creating music. (CN) They come in, likely because they have a great love and appreciation for the music they listen to, yet have few ideas about how to start making it themselves. It is this love and appreciation that makes teaching a beginner a heavy responsibility for the instructor. Making music isn’t for everyone, but that is rarely cut and dry during the first few lessons. Any beginner is inevitably faced with a wall of impossibilities. A bad instructor will not be able to do anything about that wall. In order to be effective, a good teacher must shield the student from impossibilities by exposing them to all the possibilities. The beginning music student requires a foundation that is simple enough to be built up very quickly, yet challenging enough so that the student can feel a sense of accomplishment in their results.
Many of the traditional ideas, commonly associated with beginners, are not necessarily as all-inclusive as expected. Method books, for example, vary greatly. Many are nothing more than a collection of short pieces that were written to increasing difficulty throughout the book. In the literal sense, this is hardly a method at all. It should also be noted that on my instrument, top 40 guitar, in particular, nobody has yet agreed on a single, all-inclusive, approach to learning. Many guitar teachers, including the two that I interviewed, do not use a method series at all, for any level, unless it is specifically requested. A teacher should never assume that, just because he or she was taught with a method book, that a method book is the only approach. If it is decided that a method book is the way to go, it should be heavily supplemented by hands-on teaching and outside material.
A very direct approach to teaching guitar is to have the teacher give an oral explanation of what to do. There is no music and no diagrams on the music stand. This is a very hands-on approach. It isolates the student’s coordination because it does not require a significant amount of reading comprehension or analytical thought. David Newsam recommends teaching a beginner to play across a position playing each note in the position (no stretches) without worrying about what notes they are playing. (CN, 4/18) It is also important to keep in mind that younger students may not have the overall physical strength of an advancing player. (Newsam, 109) Dave Bell talks about just going through songs with beginners, one string at a time, and one note at a time. (Interview) As an advancing student, I can find this method frustrating, and did not previously consider it as an effective teaching method. This is because I have developed faster ways to connect with music. I can read off of a page and go at my own pace. Trying to get my mind in sync with the instructors mind just seems like a waste of time. However, the reason this method may yield good results for beginners goes back to the idea of a path of low frustration. A direct explanation of what to do is very similar to anything else we do in life. This is a direct contrast to reading and understanding music, which is something very new and mysterious to a beginner. Even students with the ability to begin reading may still not be emotionally ready for it. When I told my student for the class, Scott, that I was going to teach him to read on guitar, he felt that it was an unrealistic goal. This shows that a student needs to be comfortable with an idea, before they can approach learning it with the right attitude. There is nothing more comfortable than having a teacher take you by the hand and tell you, in a clear way, exactly what to do to succeed.
It may be decided that the explanation only approach is too simple or too boring and that working from a specific beginner book might foster better results through more structure. In this case it is advisable to choose a book that leaves room for work outside of itself. What works : instructional strategies for music education is not a method book. It is an instructional book for teachers. It includes many simple suggestions about different methods of engaging students. In determining a complete course of study for a beginning student, outside of a book, we will take a few of these unconventional suggestions into consideration. One suggestion is to have beginning students study rhythmic figures independent of melody. (Merrion) This is the opposite of most reading books, which, as mentioned before, are a series of pieces that attempt to merge many techniques simultaneously. For readers, Mike McAdam uses Music Reading for Guitar. (CN, 4/18). The author of this book is a believer that rhythm should be taught separately. (Oakes, 6) The first chapter of the book is rhythm only.
Another suggestion is that notes should not be taught individually, but only as a complete sequence. (Merrion) The idea being that the student will be able to subconsciously understand the scale. The beginner portion of the Oakes book is traditional in its teaching only one or several notes at a time. Learning from scales is very present in the Berklee ear-training curriculum. Every time I learn a new scale on the guitar I go through the solfege of it. This helps me to connect the intervals on the neck with my inner hearing, without having to think about it too much. I would consider this a personal proof that students need to be connecting their ear from the very beginning. Another effective device for isolating ear training for the beginner is learning the solfege hand signs. (Szőnyi) This works the same way solfeging a guitar scale works. It is a mind body connection. It is also very similar to making students feel comfortable through giving them directions in language, rather than music notation. Hand signs relate movements, which the average non-musical person can perform easily, to musical notes, which is the new concept.
A final aspect that is important for all students is originality. Tal Shalom Kobi, who has had success teaching jazz composition to elementary school students, believes it is essential. (CN, 4/11) Her thought was that students had to reach a certain point before they could compose. The idea is also applicable to beginners. My earliest music ed. memory is from preschool. Our music teacher handed each of us extremely wide ruled, laminated staff paper and gave us a handful of pennies. Our assignment was to come up with a song that she would then play for us on the piano. I didn’t know anything about ear-training. I had no idea what I was writing. The experience still sticks in my mind because it was a chance for me to take responsibility for the music I was making. There were no rules, no preconceived ideas of what I should sound like. I had to figure it out all on my own, and the whole time I was being introduced to standard notation. Note, that it was separate from rhythms, and all the notes in the key of C were made available. It all started with the student.
Whether you choose a method book that incorporates these suggestions or just introduce them to your new student independently is not important. The main goal is to keep the learning process diverse, without making it complicated. This is the only way to get your students to make the connections they need to move from the beginner stage to an independent musician.
Works Cited
• Class Notes Spring 2008 (David Newsam, Tal Shalom Kobi, Mike McAdam)
• Dave Bell Interview, 2008
• Duckworth, William. A creative approach to music fundamentals : with CD-ROM. Thomson/Schirmer, c2004.
• Merrion, Margaret Dee. What works : instructional strategies for music education. Music Educators National Conference, c1989.
• Newsam, David R., 1959. Making money teaching music. Writer’s Digest Books, c1995.
• Oakes, David, guitarist. Music reading for guitar : the complete method. Hal Leonard Corp., c1998.
• Szőnyi, Erzsébet. Kodály’s principles in practice : an approach to music education through the Kodály method. Boosey & Hawkes, c1973.
The only thing worse than having in-ear monitors is not having in-ear monitors.
I present the following situation:
Sound Engineer: Sounds good, do you guys need anything?
Joe: Yeah, can I hear a little more of me, please.
Paul (standing two feet from Joe): Can I hear a lot less of Joe, please.
What to do?
As a general rule, the bandleader is always right.
But there is another solution to this problem.
Every professional modern guitar player has had a set, or at least been offered a set of custom-molded, sound-isolating earphones. Here are some thoughts about my pair.
I don’t recommend them to anybody but performing musicians or maybe somebody who spends 100+ hours a year on airplanes. You will learn quickly that they aren’t something you want to wear while walking around busy streets because you won’t be able to hear a thing. You won’t want to wear them when you’re exercising because they can actually seal sweat in your ears (gross).
The first step is getting impressions of your ears from an audiologist. Make sure they use a bite block to keep your mouth open during the whole process. This will lead to the best fit for this type of hearing device. The molds are sent away to the monitor manufacture, & you hope they come back fitting. Make sure you are pushing them in correctly, not too far in & not falling out. They should flex around a little when your head/jaw moves, but if you ever feel like the seal is breaking, they don’t fit right; send them back. If you notice a little feeling of fullness, that’s normal, but if you’re in any kind of pain, they don’t fit right; send them back.
Here’s a chart of what they do, & why those things can be good & bad.
Pros
Cons
The sound isolation gives you control more comparable to being in a recording studio, than being on stage.
They make you feel like somebody built at 2-layer thick glass box around you on stage. Your eyes know you’re on stage, but your ears think you’re still in the practice room.
They can make even the worst amateur look & feel like a real pro.
They can be very expensive.
They can potentially protect your ears from permanent nerve damage.
Most young musicians are into that kind of stuff.
Some singers will like the intonation they get from having plugged up ears & a limitless, feedbackless volume control on their voice.
Other singers will find it very un-natural to have plugged up ears.
If they’re mixed well, you can hear things with a clarity you’d never hear without them, & play better as a result.
If they’re mixed poorly, or aren’t working, you’re in a new kind of trouble.
A custom fit means they should fit perfectly & comfortably.
Getting them to fit perfectly isn’t always one-stop shopping.
Your little brother won’t ask to borrow them.
Nobody else can hear what they’re missing.
In conclusion, if you want to hear yourself better without worrying about feedback, making yourself deaf or angry band members, in-ear monitors will solve your problems… but at a price, both in dollars and in a new set of problems.
There is a very common misconception that studying with a teacher means you will be put into a mold & forced to learn in a way that is not consistent with your goals.This comes with ideas like, “there is one right, formal way to play guitar, but if I learn to play like that, I won’t be able to make the music I want to make.”If this were true, there would be no reason to take lessons.In fact, depending on the teacher, this is often not true at all.I personally believe that there is no “right” way to play the guitar.
That being said, it is a balance.A true beginner does not even know enough about guitar to make their own goals, so I have to start somewhere.There has to be some structure in the beginning, just for the sake of getting the student doing something.I don’t care if it’s sight-reading, or memorizing a song on one string.Goal number one is always “get the student playing something.”& in order to do that with a beginner, it is helpful to look at “right” & “wrong” ways to play guitar.
On the long term, however, I try to teach with only two constraints sound & efficiency.
Sound is about listening to yourself.For example I might ask a student if he or she is aware that they are allowing strings to ring out, when they might sound better silent.Many times students are not even aware of the sounds the strings are making.So I show them how they might correct it, but in doing so remind them that it is just a choice.“Let them ring if you want to, but learn to know when they’re ringing, & learn to control it so you can make them ring or make them silent at will.”The same things will go for control over rhythm, tone & anything else that effects the sounds you hear when you play.
Efficiency is about achieving the sound you wantwith the least amount of physical & mental effort.For example, when I see a student playing a passage of a piece in a way that is different from the way I might play it.I show the student my way of playing it.I show them that my hand is moving around less than their hand.Even though we are making near identical sounds, I am expending less effort to make it.Like with sound I tell the student, “there is no single “correct” way to play this passage, just more & less efficient ways.Play it the way you had it, if you want to, but understand the logic behind my way as well.It may help you when you want to play faster, or if you want this passage to come easier to you.”Often times there will even be two or more ways of playing something that are equally efficient physically.
An example of mental efficiency might be when a student is struggling with a fingering because he or she is looking at it as a standard scale form, while they might be opened up to looking at it as a chord form.Either way is correct, but sometimes a different perspective helps your mind better connect the sound you are going for with a fingering you already know.
There is no right & wrong beyond sound & efficiency.
Joe,
When you play the piece I practiced with me or ask me to play it with your metronome it makes me sound worse.
Dear student,
Most music is meant to be played with a constant even pulse, like the one a metronome creates. At the very least, I believe being able to “grove” to a steady pulse is a skill every student should learn. “When” you play a note is possibly even more important to what note you play.
If I ask you to play with a metronome or with me it may be because I am hearing problems with the evenness with which you are playing the piece. For example, some students play notes too fast & leave space between notes where no space should exist. It is important to make every effort to correct this.
I could, simply offer a verbal suggestion such as, “work on your time.” This is typically unhelpful because chances are you don’t even realize anything is wrong with your time, & you can’t fix something if you don’t understand what’s wrong with it. So I ask you to play with something you already know is the ideal. This shows you where you should be working in a way that a million words could not.
So in short, the metronome is not actually making you sound any worse at all. It is just exposing the problem with your playing that you have not yet been trained to be aware of.
If you are struggling with your sense of time, it can be frustrating. But once you have it figured out, it will open up a lot of abilities & increase your enjoyment. It will also make you sound a lot more like you know what you’re doing to those pesky relatives that keep asking how the guitar lessons are going. Chances are they wouldn’t know the difference between an F & a G, but they do know it sounds bad when you appear to be starting & stopping constantly within one piece of music, & you know they’d love it if you figured out how to play something they could just clumsily bob their head to.
Variations:
“Joe, why do you make such a big deal out of guitar colors?”
“Joe, why do guitar manufactures make so many crazy colors & body shapes?”
Dear reader,
Once you’ve determined a price range & narrowed down your search, buy the color you like best. It will sound better. I say this based on the principle that you will like it more & therefore play it more.
Guitars come in far more finish choices than any other instrument. This availability was originally put in place to mimic the marketing strategy of the automotive industry. It makes every customer feel a sense of individuality. Most people don’t like the feeling of having exactly the same guitar as their neighbor. They like choices & a feeling of customization. So asking color questions about guitars you’re interested in is a lot like asking, “what colors does this car come in?” Though it will not affect performance, color is an important, sometimes overlooked, factor that may affect enjoyment.
FYI celluloid burns like that. Other materials do not!
Every couple of years I ask myself why I’ve been using a my regular guitar pick. Sometimes I decide to make a change; sometimes I don’t. I was even on thumbpicks for a few weeks in 2004. That’s for another blog.
Here’s almost everything I know about the physical properties of guitar flat picks.
There are three basic plastics guitar picks are made from. There are exceptions made of things claiming to be space-age or indestructible. I don’t know anything about those. Use them at your own risk.
Celluloid Pick
(Derlin) Tortex Pick
(Nylon) Jazz III Pick
There are three basic pick shapes: standard, large/triangular & small/jazz/drop. Some of them come to a point; some are more rounded.
Picks come in different thicknesses.
Personal Observations:
Celluloid – Bright & Somewhat Harsh When Used Clean
Nylon (Jazz III) – Noticeably Warm
Derlin (Tortex) – Neither Harsh Nor Warm, Not Many Overtones
Artist Usage:
Most picks I have from pro Pop/Rock artists are of medium thickness. Some are a little heavier.
I have an Yngwie Malmsteen pick that is extremely thick.
I have a Ronnie Dunn pick that is extremely thin.
ALL of my Berklee Guitar Professors who use picks, use heavy picks of standard shape.
Pat Metheny is quoted as using thin picks with heavy strings.
Eric Johnson has signature series Jazz III picks.
Mark Tremonti uses Jazz III picks.
Stevie Ray Vaughn was known to use a standard pick upside down.
Joe Pass broke standard picks in half so he would have two smaller picks.
I suggest you find a shop that will sell you a variety of single picks. Do a lot of side-by-side comparisons. Then wake up tomorrow, & do them again. I would say that the shape & thickness of the pick depends on your playing style & the type of control you want to feel when you hold the pick, while the pick material has more to do with the tone you want & the way the pick wears down.
Guy Van Duser once suggested to me that every morning when I wake up I should bang a tuning fork, & then sing the note it produces. The claim is that after a month of doing this you will wake up knowing where the note is without having to hear it. Give it a try. Tell me what you think.
A simple way to make any steel string acoustic or electric guitar easier to play is to put thinner strings on it. Thinner strings will not require as much force to hold down.
While changing to a thinner string size may compromise in tone, sustain, intonation & feel, these compromises are irrelevant if a beginner cannot play his or her instrument.
Guitar string thickness is referred to in thousandths of an inch, generally naming the thinnest & thickest strings in the set & referring to any balanced set by the thickness of the thinnest string & the thickest string in the set. For example: if you say “a set of nines” you are referring to a set which would likely be marked 9-42 on the front of the package, indicating that the thinnest string in the set is .009″ & the thickest string in the set is .042″. Labeling strings using words such as “medium” or “super light” is generally confusing & should be ignored as they often mean different things depending on style. For example “jazz light”, “regular light”, “acoustic guitar light” & “custom light” strings, all made by the same manufacturer, are four drastically different physical sizes.
I use D’Addario (Correctly Pronounced: Da-Dairy-O ((anglicized)) or Dahd-DAH-ree-oh ((Italian))) brand strings on all my instruments. They sound good & are consistently strong & free of corrosion in the package. Brand, as well as thickness are both personal preferences. There is no universally accepted best brand or size.
Electrics come strung with 9’s or occasionally 10’s. I recommend 9’s to most players below the college level. I recommend switching to 8’s for small children or anybody who is having an unusually hard time with 9’s.
Steel-string acoustics generally come strung with 12’s, which can be problematic for beginners, especially if the guitar has not been setup properly. If you are a beginner, having trouble pressing down on your acoustic, I recommend you restring it with 10’s.
NOTE: String gauge recommendations do not apply to 3/4 size instruments.
Welcome to my guitar blog, Everything Modern Guitar. I intend to discuss a wide range of topics from gear setups to guitar composition & interpretation. Some of it will be instructional. Some of it will be philosophical. Every entry will not be for everybody, but I intend to update this enough to keep you all coming back. I also want to know what my readers are interested in; so ask lots of questions. It could be anything from, “Joe, how would you come up with a guitar part for this situation?” to “What color guitar should I buy?”
