Teaching


lyricchic
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Joined: 03/18/06
Posts: 60
lyricchic
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Joined: 03/18/06
Posts: 60
04/26/2007 7:44 pm
Hi!

I give beginning guitar lessons to about five people, I'm more or less practicing for giving lessons during college (where I'd actually charge them something :rolleyes: ). Do any of you have any suggestions on teaching? Where to have them start? How to tell when they're ready to move on? And for those of you just starting out that might be reading this, what do you find you have the most difficulty with? Anything specific I should be telling/showing these guys?

Thanks for the advice! ;)
Don't worry. I shred.
# 1
txladykat
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Joined: 10/31/06
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txladykat
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Joined: 10/31/06
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04/26/2007 8:40 pm
well, from a newbie standpoint. i can say in the beginning, the hardest things are chord changes and proper strumming technique.

i was self-teaching before i started working with someone recently. really more a friend who has a band, helping me out. anyhooo.....when i showed him what i knew so far, his first advice was "quit focusing so much on the rhythm of the song and playing only downstrokes till you get fluent in and comfortable in the chord changes, THEN bring in the strumming patterns. This helped me millions because I was trying to focus on keeping the rhythm pattern whilst ineffectively changing chords, and it sounded like crap...now, even just playing downstrokes, the chords ring much better, and more fluent between changes. when i feel totally comfortable with that, i will progress towards the rhythm of it.

that is my advice, as a newbie..... :D
# 2
ren
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ren
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04/27/2007 8:10 am
What I tend to do to start with is ask people what they want to play... you get three basic types of response in my experience:

" I want to play campfire songs on acoustic", or
"I want to Shred/play SRVesque blues like the devil himself", or....
Kids - who either just want to play, or whose parents are pushing them

Everyone gets taught open chords and some basic theory around the major scale, and we move from there. I try to encourage people to go through the formal exams, just to give the technical elements some structure. Say I was teaching the open major chords. The student would probably get E and A, and maybe D pretty OK with a bit of buzz but getting the idea... I'd move on after about 20 minutes and ask them to practice then re-visit it next session. 20 minutes seems to me to be about the limit for attention on one subject. Also, if they are struggling they don't want to be spending their money having you watch them while they keep fighting with it. Some things only come with time. Basically each lesson I cover what we did last time, introduce something new and cover anything the student raises.

For what to teach, check out the RGT syllabus here - it only covers the chords & scales in any detail really, but hopefully it helps.

I don't tend to teach other people's songs much - mostly because I don't have time to learn them. I'll do a few bars or a riff or whatever, but who'd want to pay £30 an hour to struggle through songs week after week?

There's no magic answer to when a student is ready to move on - you have to let them be your guide and have the kind of relationship with your students where they'll tell you what you need to know. Are your students total beginners?

Check out my music, video, lessons & backing tracks here![br]https://www.renhimself.com

# 3
GuitarJunkie23
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Joined: 04/13/07
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GuitarJunkie23
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Joined: 04/13/07
Posts: 92
04/28/2007 12:46 pm
Originally Posted by: txladykatwell, from a newbie standpoint. i can say in the beginning, the hardest things are chord changes and proper strumming technique.

i was self-teaching before i started working with someone recently. really more a friend who has a band, helping me out. anyhooo.....when i showed him what i knew so far, his first advice was "quit focusing so much on the rhythm of the song and playing only downstrokes till you get fluent in and comfortable in the chord changes, THEN bring in the strumming patterns. This helped me millions because I was trying to focus on keeping the rhythm pattern whilst ineffectively changing chords, and it sounded like crap...now, even just playing downstrokes, the chords ring much better, and more fluent between changes. when i feel totally comfortable with that, i will progress towards the rhythm of it.

that is my advice, as a newbie..... :D


I already gave my advice on chord changes in another thread, but it just seemed to confuse people, but as a beginer the chord changing is most likely the hardest thing to learn, or it has been for me so far.
[FONT=tahoma]Jimmie Page is my Hero.[/FONT]
[FONT=Tahoma]"Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition." Timothy Leary[/FONT]
# 4

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