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Post by Skeleton Keys on Feb 9, 2008 16:59:16 GMT -4
I'm giving more and more lessons now, and I was thinking about different views on teaching.
My theory is the best thing a guitar teacher can do for thier students is to let them learn what they want to play, i'e. their Black Dog licks, Metallica riffs, blues proggresions, ect, while still at the same time giving them little hints about music theory and such. I figure the only way that people will start to study the nitty-gritty of music(theory/reading), and really start to improve thier playing is when they've matured enough with/through thier instrument that they see the importance/power of a broad knowledge of their fretboard. It's different with everyone, I'm sure, becuase we all put our lives to our instruments differently, and we all have different levels of interest in playing. I've never had a child student, meaning they just got some strat copy and a 5 watt amp for christmas, from which who's parents are paying me to make thier child a fantastic guitarist, i teach mostly to freinds a few times a month, on varying subjects, scales/chords/techniques. Do you guys think it's best to support your students and thier musical interests, while teaching them bits of the important stuff ( theroy) rather than sending them home with confusing charts and boring site reading homework? i've never had a teacher, really, but i know the pitfalls involved in the initial novice phase of playing. what do you think?
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Post by earthman on Feb 9, 2008 18:54:25 GMT -4
Hmmm. Well, when I took lessons, it was pretty much straight theory stuff and going through a classical sorta book. I found it kinda boring. But then one day my instructor was like "So, what do you want to learn next? Do you have any CDs you'd like to learn songs off of?" So I gave her a few of my CDs to listen to (I think it was like, Are You Experienced?, Eric Clapton's greatest hits, and the Black Album), and she came back the next week saying "Okay, let's learn 'Layla.' " It was pretty cool. Come to think of it, I don't know what happened with that, I don't remember ever actually learning Layla. What was the question?
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Post by Akira on Feb 9, 2008 21:06:34 GMT -4
Teaching songs during lessons is something I do only if it's directly related to a topic i'm teaching, even then it'll probably only be a part of the song.
I'd rather equip the student with the skills to go away and learn songs by themselves.
Having said that it depends on what their goals are; even then, they can change as they progress with the instrument.
Learning to read music is always presented as an option rather than forced.
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