It might be good for all teachers, many parents, and
some students to read this glowing general
description[2]
of the Ten Lessons. ☺
I need to devise some writing tasks to help with learning
the notes initially. No one teaches reading without writing,
do they?
It would be nice to get to these in a first series, but
not necessarily practical.
About Ten Lessons for Guitar
Rhythm and Time
A big problem in learning the guitar is that there are
many, many fundamentals. Unfortunately, the beginner
is seldom a good judge of what the most important things
are. The most important single thing in becoming a good
musician is to understand rhythm, and the means of doing
that is to understand musical time, not only by reading tunes
but also by practicing rhythms in strumming.
Learning the Notes
Reading the notes on the staff lines is the easiest part
of learning to read, but it sometimes can be one thing
too many for the overtaxed distracted beginner.
The notes are learned by the names at first,
and no ground is lost because the names remain important
forever. The notes are introduced at a very gradual
rate, and there are frequent summaries. The theme
and variations is a very old fashioned traditional
way of working on learning the notes, and it is a
very good way. Variations are easy to read
because they are similar, but they must be read
because they are not the same.
Learning the Chords
Learning the chords starts with the fingers
close together on the fretboard and gets to the
stretches later. The general rule is that
one should learn the easiest fingering for a chord
first. There is only the Dm as an exception to that
rule.
The Right Hand
I like to rule out the flat pick for the
first two sections because of the
problem of stopping notes from sounding. Players
who don't understand that notes have endings and
not just beginnings remain very bad players.
Minimizing the motion of the hand is also
not a minor matter.
There is no mention of apoyando
or rest or trap stroke for several reasons. This is
a right hand issue of some importance, because
unfortunately the false notion that it is
possible to play decently with the last joint of the
right hand fingers relaxed still has some
currency.
Much better to wait until the student is a strong
player who has no tendency to relax anything, has
repertoire which requires or at least justifies exploitation of the rest
stroke, and has acquired the ability to suppress hyperextension
of the last joint if it arises.
Use
It is obvious at a glance to the experienced teacher that this
document is intended for classes, but that it is extremely
flexible in meeting the needs of people of varying
abilities and interests. As a self instruction
manual, we shall see. I look forward to some feedback.
(End of Foreword)