(Black friday sales crowd) Continuing to Make Progress in Learning the Guitar

November 4th, 2008 admin Posted in music |

By Keith Baxter

For most people who pick up the guitar, the first year or two of playing is a very exciting time. Just like an infant who learns so very much in a condensed period of time, the beginner guitarist who puts in sufficient practice time improves his playing at what seems like the speed of light. Think back, if you can, to when you first began playing the guitar and remember how exciting it was. A simple guitar chart could probably keep you entertained for hours as you studied the finger positions and names of chords. Then, you probably learned how to read guitar tabs and went on to master playing easy guitar songs. Finally learning to play even easy guitar songs from start to finish is absolutely thrilling for the novice guitarist.

But what happens when you have downloaded all of the free guitar sheet music you are interested in, and you feel like you have hit the so-called wall? You have spent hours poring over Metallica guitar tabs, and have even spent some time learning Christian guitar tabs in search of some way to expand your repertoire. You can play innumerable easy guitar songs, and even some relatively complicated songs, and you are looking for something to stimulate your creativity.

The truth of the matter is that this is a very common pattern for guitarists to fall into. Put simply, for those guitarists with the perseverance to learn all of the basic guitar techniques, there comes a point at which the learning curve simply begins to plane out. The time in which you learn something new every day will eventually come to an end, but this is not the time to slow your practicing. In fact, this is the time to reevaluate where you are at as a guitarist and redouble your efforts so that you can achieve excellence, not merely mediocrity.

The first thing you should do to push over this hump is take a serious inventory of your guitar-playing abilities. Look past how many guitar song chords you have memorized and examine the actual techniques that you have mastered. Do you have the guitar chart memorized? Can you fly through the scales? Do you know lead techniques, such as hammer-ons, bends and slides? Make sure that you are not lacking in any of the fundamentals, for without a solid foundation it is difficult to progress.

Once you make an assessment of where you are currently at, set some goals for where you would like to be. It helps to be specific here maybe you would like to learn some new chords; if so, download a guitar chords chart that is more comprehensive than the one you presently have. Or maybe you would like to learn to play in an alternate tuning use an online guitar tuner to alter the sound of your guitar. There is no limit to what you can do with a guitar so be creative.

For more ideas about how to improve your guitar playing skills, visit our website at http://www.totallyguitars.com.

Getting the most from your trumpet students!
By Earl Marsden

Teaching music is very difficult. Getting the most from your students is something extremely difficult, but it can be done. When engaging in music teaching, you must remember certain rules so you can mold your students into the best possible performers.

First, always give them technical studies. Yes, they’ll hate them. Why? Because they’re boring! Playing scales up and down or practicing the chromatic scale can be quite dull. Running the scales can do nothing but great things to their finger speed and future improvisation successes.

Other technical practices to be remembered are the all-to-boring tonguing exercises and finger dexterity exercises. Failing to use these skills while teaching music will lead to your students hitting an improvement wall going 70 mph!

Second, you’ll want to focus on breathing. Air is the source of life for the trumpet! Breathing exercises should be practiced regularly. Your students may become embarrassed while performing these but let them know that their success depends on they’re breathing capability.

Teach them the correct way to breathe so they don’t tense-up. Show the proper relaxed breathing techniques. Let them hear how much warmer the tones of the instrument are when they use proper breathing techniques!

Set standards! Teaching music is as difficult as it comes. You will find students becoming lazy…believe me! Always give standards. If you teach them once per week, make sure they have something prepared each and every time - something that will steadily increase their skill and performance.

Have them prepare scales with zero imperfections. Make them practice etudes and melodies to improve their skill. Without setting minimum standards, they will not be challenged into focusing while practicing. Without focus during practicing, the student will simply be wasting precious time.

Last but not the least; you must play with them at practice. Show them what it’s supposed to sound like. Show them how good you are and why. They will listen and want to strive to sound like you. You may not think too highly of your skills but they will and this motivation will allow them to vastly improve themselves. Teaching music is about this motivation and inspiration. Give it to them!

These are just ideas about music teaching that I wanted to share with you. I’ve learned these throughout my years of performing and teaching music to the younger generation. If there is one thing I’ve learned the most it’s that with a little motivation and encouragement, young students can become great musicians!

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