Uy ayos na topic 'to ah. Also thought of starting a thread like this. Anyway, I teach basic guitar in a sort of professional capacity, yes I do get paid. I have developed a 'system' (naks!) to teach guitar... actually it's an almost-done work-in-progress.
The challenge: My pupils (aged 12~14) are not particularly musically gifted and their interest/motivation varies greatly from session to session.
Things I've noticed:
1. Developing their concentration/focus is difficult and is actually the second biggest challenge.
2. Keeping them interested is the biggest (pupil may quit, no more lessons).
3. Only in 3-4 months will a non-gifted modestly motivated beginner be able to play bar chords.
4. Pupil plays an A major but also strikes the low E string (aargh!). Pupil plays D major but strums all six strings (more aargh!).
5. There is a chance the pupil may be able to tune a slightly out of tune guitar 5 months into the program.
blackboard stuff for first lesson:
1. parts of a guitar.
2. how to hold a pick (fingerstyle is outside the scope of my program).
3. how to strum (forearm twist, wrist, thumb, economy of motion, etc).
4. describing the "baseball bat grip": term I coined to describe how your fretting hand palm hugs the neck when playing open chords: A, D, E, G, C, etc.
5. describing the "violinist's grip" (another term I coined): how your fretting hand thumb presses against the neck when playing bar chords. e.g. you use the 'baseball bat grip' when playing a D major, and the 'violin grip' when playing F. what goes on behind the fretboard is just as important as your fretting fingertips landing on their targets.
Since this challenge has been presented to me (these-kids-suck scenario), I have elected to dispense with music theory and chord construction, and decided to focus on drills, drills, and more drills. I ended up producing over 60 backing tracks (yup, I'm a bedroom producer) that would drill them with over 70 chords (from C to B, flats and sharps included, major, minor, 7, m7, M7, plus some sus2/sus4, root/3rd, etc).
This is what you have to realize with these iphone/facebook generation kids... the drills should provide INSTANT GRATIFICATION. The drills should be able to make them realize that: "hey, I can do this!". Learning through success is much more faster than learning through failures (sa NLP ko yata ito napulot). My gulay, nung panahon ko, learning guitar just meant getting a copy of jingle/songhits and you SHOULD be able to learn. But it's a totally different ballgame now. I guess ADHD is more common now, joke.
With that in mind, my first drills are just strumming patterns (I have five) where no chords are played (strings are muted by left hand). They all start out slow (60 bpm) then progressively get faster (accelerando). My program is not the best... because it was designed for the worst (pupils). As such, I had to strip it down to the bare essentials.
If I get the time, I will share some of my work.
Meantime, here's a track I made for one my pupils (who is now comfortable playing reggae).
Magic! - Rude (lecheng nestea na yan!)
