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These items first appeared in our FREE e-zine. They are designed to be bite-sized chunks of wisdom that you can use to sharpen your teaching skills and increase your awareness. 1.Guitar teaching is about quality, not
quantity 1.
Guitar Teaching is about quality, not quantity. This means that you should concentrate on teaching a small number of things really well in a single lesson, rather than attempting to teach a large number of things somewhat sketchily. Never be tempted to add time on to a lesson to make up for real or imagined poor quality of teaching - why would your client prefer 90 minutes of poor teaching to 55?! We all have lessons that go less well than they should. The trick is to end off promptly and spend the spare half-hour working out how to do it better next time. 2. Using the guitar as a percussion instrument. Your students will often ask you to help them improve their rhythm playing. In the early stages of learning they will complain about their right hand (strumming hand) being too slow, too lumpy or uneven.
They cannot yet change chords smoothly enough (unconsciously enough) to hope to get any continuity going with their strumming hand. Here is a great exercise to help bring on the development of their right hand without having to wait for their left hand to evolve: Get them to turn the guitar into a percussion instrument by muting all 6 strings with their left hand. Then play a song with a nice distinctive rhythm and get them to strum along on their muted guitar trying out different strumming patterns as appropriate. This is a great trick with beginners, but is also a useful tool at any level if someone is experiencing difficulty with the rhythm of a particular song. 3.Teach only one thing and teach it thoroughly. This is a question of self-discipline on the part of the guitar tutor. There you are asking your student to learn a new chord sequence. They're halfway through the sequence when you can't help noticing they've slipped out of 4/4 time into 12/8 or something. Resist the temptation to correct what is a rhythmic mistake at this juncture. Wait until they have sorted the sequence out and then raise the issue of time signature with them. Never, never, never try to coach more than one point at a time. It winds the student up and slows down their learning rate. Coach or teach one thing - do it until it's done - then coach or teach the next thing. Internally, the student is almost always finding things harder than they appear to be. Give them time and space to complete the learning of each stage. 4. What to do when your student hasn't done their practice assignment. Don't spend time during the lesson having the student work through stuff they can just as easily do on their own at home without you. The only exception to this rule is when a student has not practised what you asked them to. In this case there are two important reasons why you should use their lesson time to work through the stuff they should have done at home:
2.If what you asked them to practice wasn't really essential to their
forward progress then you had no business asking them to practice
it in the first place! 5.Always specify what to practice Some guitar players are highly motivated, have loads of musical initiative. They will pick up their guitar several times a day and try out new things on it that keep pushing back the limits of what they can do..... .... But these guys aren't usually the kind to come and ask for lessons! It's a sorry truth that most of the people who come to you for lessons are going to need every encouragement from you to do any practice at all. Just telling them to 'keep practicing' is definitely not enough. - Tell them exactly what to practice - Write it down in detail - Have them demonstrate to you their understanding of it - Tell them you will check them out on it next lesson - Ideally, make a tape of how it should sound for them to take home with them ....... Then there's a good possibility they'll get on with it and the next lesson can move unwards and upwards rather than just repeating what you did the week before. 6. Observing your students' progress When you give your student an exercise or song to play in the lesson it should normally be something that stretches their ability, if only a little. Because of this you must always allow time for the student to get used to playing the exercise on their own terms. Tutors often make the mistake of stopping the student the very instant that they sound as if they've got the hang of the exercise. This is a mistake. Although it may appear that they are playing it right, internally the student will still have a sense of 'only just getting the hang of it' and will still be entirely focussed on the exercise at this point. Watch your student carefully and you will observe certain signs that tell you when they are still engrossed in the exercise (in which case let them continue without interruption) and when they have reached a point of being satisfied that they have got it right. At this point the student's attention will extrovert. This usually takes the form of them looking up from what they've been doing, changing their posture or simply stopping of their own accord. If in doubt always check with the student: " Happy with that ?". Its always better to allow them to play exercises longer than it is to interrupt the process before the student feels happy with it. Make each lesson part of a balanced diet. Your students may think they want to learn nothing but cool electric guitar licks, but you know that you owe it to them to give them something of an education in the subject of music. If they don't develop as musicians they will never gain any independence and this will ultimately stifle their enjoyment of the instrument. The trick is to balance each lesson. I usually start with the grittier stuff: 10 - 20 minutes of exercises, scales and a bit of brain-taxing music theory. Then the middle part of the lesson it's good to work on a specific song or tune - something that stretches the students abilities, but that also provides them with a sense of producing an end result. The last ten minutes or so I like to lighten things up. Depending on what stage of development the student is at; what age they are and what their musical likes and dislikes are I might do a bit of improvising with them, play over some songs we have already sorted or (with young students) play some music-based games. I see this as actually teaching my students to enjoy their playing - something a lot of guitar teachers either take for granted or overlook the importance of. Don't teach a whole hour of solid theory - its like eating nothing but potato! Equally, don't spend the whole lesson pandering to the students desire for 'instant guitar'. That's nothing but gravy! 8. There's no such thing as too easy When starting a student on a new exercise or new song to learn, always stop and think about how to present it to your student in a way that they can learn it quickly, easily and enjoyably. This means MAKE IT EASY! Suppose you want them to play a riff-based blues. Don't try and teach the whole thing at once. First get them to locate the underlying chords and just strum their way through the piece. Next, once they're doing this confidently, play the riff over the top of their strumming so that they can hear how it fits. Then get them to learn the riff thoroughly, but just over the first chord of the sequence. Beginning unaccompanied until they can play it fluently, then with you strumming along. You can then get them playing the riff over the sequence - again let them do it unaccompanied until its up to speed, then play along with them to keep them in strict time. Even an advanced guitarist will enjoy learning this way. The point is that if the student picks each step up immediately you can move straight along to the next bit. - Being thorough is always more important than being fast - You can learn more about the philosophy behind this
tip from the following article: 9. Allow your student time to warm up Your student bursts into their lesson full of enthusiasm:
I've cracked it!" They exclaim But a good teacher will make them wait - at least until they have warmed up. You see, the chances are that they finally 'cracked it' after 3 hours of solid playing the night before. Its almost certain that if you let them attempt the same piece cold they will be very disappointed to discover that their new-found ability has mysteriously vanished over night. There are two factors involved here:
1.It is always more difficult to play well in front of your teacher than on your own.
2. It is always harder to play something when you pick up the guitar for the first time after a break than it is after 10 minutes of playing it. So the wise teacher says:
10.Work with your students' strengths You often get a student who is noticeably better at one aspect of guitar playing than another. For example they may really struggle to strum chords, but be quite happy with scales and single-note playing. If you are teaching them during the first couple of years of their development then I advise focusing on what they are best at. You don't entirely ignore their strumming necessarily, but you don't take it up as a big challenge to be overcome. The point is that in the early stages (first three years) how much the student plays is more important than what they play. In our example, there are many details and skills common to both lead and rhythm guitar playing. By focusing on what they are making good progress on (lead guitar) you encourage them to play more. By playing more and more lead guitar they will: strengthen their fingers and hands improve their accuracy and finger positioning develop awareness of rhythm and phrasing improve their ear learn to anticipate chord changes grow in enthusiasm get used to practising for longer ...all of which will put you in a better position to tackle any difficulties associated with their rhythm guitar work. If they have come to you as an experienced player, particularly asking you to help them with their strumming then, of course, it is vital to address that area directly. In this case though, I would still carry out a broad assessment of their strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes. If I discovered that their single-note work was strong, but their chord work hopelessly out of time then I may decide, for example to use single note riffs played with a variety of different rhythms to help develop their rythmic awareness (working with their strength) and then find ways to transfer that awareness to chord strumming. Work with what thay can do. Work with what they like doing. But make sure you focus on the specific aspects of the work that enable them to move into new areas. Of course it is important to plan lessons well and to keep to some sort of structure during the lesson. This is a manifestation of Professionalism. However, there are times when thinking on your feet and being truly inventive is also a good idea. This ability can turn you from being not merely a Professional, but a Master! Spontaneously creating a completely new approach to solving a particular problem your student is having can sometimes produce a major turning point, particularly for students with problems that are somewhat off the beaten track. Here are two rules you might find useful in this situation: 1. Don't try a new idea just for the sake of trying it. Try to solve the problem using tried and tested approaches first. 2. Make sure that any new approach firmly adheres to basic principals of good teaching practice - these are outlined in the articles available free on this site. 12.Confidence from Consolidation As a guitar tutor you should rightly be focused on your students' development of technique and understanding. Your student, however, does not necessarily perceive their progress in those terms. Your student is more likely to measure their progress in terms of what songs they can play or accompany on the guitar. During the early stages it is highly likely that you will have your student learn bits and pieces from different songs. Or even when learning complete songs, they will learn to play them at a very basic level. It is vital to provide your student with their own sense of progress because this feeds their confidence in their ability to play. For this reason you should frequently re-visit earlier material and repeatedly polish up on songs that have been half-learnt or poorly learnt. I call this 'consolidating' your students' knowledge and ability. 13. How to Accompany your Students How best to accompany your students when they are playing guitar in your lessons? Here are some important considerations:
1. Playing a different type of guitar to them helps you hear their playing more distinctly over yours. So if they are playing electric guitar try playing acoustic. If they are playing acoustic try playing bass guitar.
5. Singing along is always helpful to students and you should do
this even if you're not a particularly good singer as long as you're
in tune most of the time! 14.Provide Performance Opportunities
One thing I do to provide students with a focal point for their endeavors is periodically to arrange some sort of performance opportunity event. Over the years the form of these events has ranged from holding a party in my own home to hiring out a theatre, a PA system, sound crew and backing band. The scale of the event is not that important - what matters is the format. In every case I have enlisted the help of friends who are good 'busking' musicians (ie. they can play along with almost anything with minimal instructions or preparation) to cover drums, bass, keyboards, guitar and vocals. I have then invited each student to prepare a couple of songs to play with the band on the night in question. The performers are then invited to bring their friends and family along to make up a very receptive audience. Of course, if you are outlaying funds in order to stage the event it is quite reasonable to sell tickets to audience and participants alike to help cover costs. The important points are:
1. Don't underestimate how scary the prospect of playing in public
is to most people. 2. Appreciate that for some people this will
be the greatest night of their lives.(I have been told this after
the event by several students on different occasions) 3. Don't let students choose to perform songs
that are at the outer limits of what they're capable of - always choose
songs they can play easily! 4. Prepare your students very thoroughly
- set them up to succeed! 5. Don't let the events get oversubscribed!
12 songs per hour is about normal when you are constantly changing
the line-up. 6. Make the whole thing fun to be a part
of! When teaching your students to improvise it is necessary to encourage
them to practice against some sort of backing. Of course you should spend some lesson time listening to them jam over
your playing rhythm guitar - but they can't take you home with
them! There are several options to consider: You can suggest they play over records. Trouble is that they will
be 'competing for space' with the lead vocalist or guitarist on the
record. So although there is much to be gained from copying bits and
pieces off records, jamming along does not work quite so well. They can purchase commercially available backing tracks at their local
music store. There are a range of these available, but they all seem
to suffer from one or more of three basic faults:
1. The tracks are too short - just when you are getting a few ideas
sorted out the track ends and you have to break off to rewind. 2. They are over-produced - why this happens is a mystery! People
make a backing track for you to solo over and then fill it with harmonica,
piano and sax solos! Perhaps this works for more advanced musicians
who can weave their playing in and out of the other soloists, but
its not much use for your average beginner. 3. The chord sequences are too complex - again this may be great
for the advanced player, but simple repetitive chord sequences are
much more useful to the beginner. So my answer is to make your own backing tracks.The recording quality
doesn't have to be over special and the simpler the tracks the better.
Acoustic guitar rhythm tracks are fine if you only have single-track
recording facilities. If you have multi-track then lay down bass, drums and rhythm guitar,
but I wouldn't bother using a live drum kit for this unless you have
some experience with mic-ing up a kit for recording - its a black art!
Unless you know what you are doing you will get something that sounds
like you are banging around with the pots and pans in your kitchen!
So I suggest swallowing your artistic pride and using a drum machine
preset pattern to do the job. Make each track 5 minutes long and avoid over-complicating it! Record
a variety of sequences in different styles to suit the students you
teach. Before the final mixdown make sure you play along with the backing
yourself to make sure you have the right balance of tempo, orchestration
and levels - if you're not finding it easy to play to, then nor will
your students! Final advice: SELL the end product (tape or disc) to your students.
If you give it away there's less chance they'll use it! By far the most common fault shared by inexperienced tutors is that they overteach. By overteaching we mostly mean that they give instructions where none are needed. All the time the student is engaged with the subject - playing the guitar or figuring out an answer to a question you are best advised to just sit and do nothing. Give the student time and space to engage in their own learning process. The only time to interrupt a student in the middle of carrying out an exercise is when they are doing the exercise so wrongly that they are unlikely to benefit from it at all. Otherwise, wait until the student shows signs of extroverting their attention. These signs vary from student to student. Some will stop doing the exercise on their own accord. Some will look up. Some will make a comment that indicates that they are ready to proceed to the next stage. So remember - more is less. Strive to perfect the noble art of doing nothing. It's not as easy as it sounds! If you have already started teaching guitar you will quickly have realized how much you learn from the lessons you give. In fact I sometimes think we learn more from teaching than we ever do from studying! You can use this principal in reverse to help your student consolidate their knowledge in any given area. Say, for example, you have demonstrated how 'E' shaped barre chords are rooted on the 'E' string and 'A' shaped barre chords on the 'A' string. The student says they 'sort of' get what you mean. You say: 'OK teach it back to me!' - 'Pretend you're the teacher and I'm the student and explain to me how it works' Just the demand this places on them to organize the information in a way that can be delivered to another person helps consolidate their grasp of it. This won't work with all students. I advise using it only on students whose confidence level is reasonably high, but it is a powerful tool when used appropriately. 18. Teaching Improvised Lead Guitar Teaching improvised lead guitar is an art unto itself. In no other area of the subject are you up against so many variables. Anyone can learn a few blues scales. The difficulties start when you try to get them to use those scales to improvise with. There are six main areas that may need quite detailed coaching: 1. Speed and Fluency My tip for this week is to get your student to have a go at improvising say over a 12-bar sequence and assess them against this list as they're playing. At any one time there will be one or more of these items that you can hear they need coaching on. The trick is to choose the one you can see the student making the most immediate progress with. Then focus on that item, typically for at least half a lesson. Then next week repeat the same procedure: get them to improvise, check them out against the list and select an item to coach them on. Don't make the mistake of mixing the items. Whilst coaching orientation, don't comment on their phrasing. Whilst coaching technique ignore their rhythmic weaknesses. It's always confusing to the student to be coached on more than one item at a time. New tips are added every month. If you would like to receive them by email why not subscribe to our FREE ezine?
Copyright ©2002 Nick Minnion. This material may be freely copied and distributed providing that this copyright notice including the website address is included in full. This material may not be included in any publication offered for sale without the written agreement of the copyright holder. For further information on this and related articles please visit: www.TeachGuitar.com. |
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