Thomas J. West Music

The following article is a guest post.

I've got good news and bad news. The good news is that there are lots of kids out there who want to learn guitar because they want to play like [insert guitar god here]. The bad news is that there are lots of kids out there who want to learn guitar because they want to play like [insert guitar god here].

This presents an interesting set of choices for guitar teachers (and parents). Do we force these kids to learn guitar "the right way" (whatever that means) and run the risk of turning them off, or do we teach them exactly what they want to know just to keep them engaged?

I think it's possible to do both, but a lot depends on our willingness as teachers to adapt to each of our students instead of forcing our students to adapt to us. I'll get to that in a minute. But first, a story:

A teenager starts taking guitar lessons because he's just heard "Ozzy Osbourne/Randy Rhoads: Tribute" for the first time. He is transfixed by the saturated tone of Randy's guitar, the virtuosity, the energy of the songs. Walking into his first lesson, he's giddy with anticipation because he's about to begin a journey whose only possible outcome is an arena packed with rabid fans chanting his name. He sits down across from his guitar teacher and is promptly presented with a Mel Bay guitar method book. Time to spend the next six months in the key of C major.

I was that teenager. Can I at least put some distortion on my rendition of "Mary Had A Little Lamb," please?

I did eventually learn the things that I wanted to learn, mostly from publications such as Guitar World and the now defunct Guitar for the Practicing Musician. I was on-again off-again with private lessons, bouncing around from teacher to teacher. They were all good players, but not one of them ever spent any significant amount of time talking to me about why I wanted to play the guitar, who my favorite players were and what kinds of things I wanted to learn - in other words all the things that would have kept me engaged and coming back for more.

This is by no means an indictment of guitar teachers in general, just an example of how easy it is to lose a student to indifference and boredom.

Let's take a look at a couple of things that typically constitute the "right way to learn guitar" and see if we can focus on some ways to adapt them to the interests of our students:

Reading standard notation - I'm going to fly in the face of conventional wisdom here and argue that not every guitarist needs to know how to read standard notation. There are a substantial number of teachers out there who think that tablature is the root of all guitar evil, but did you know that some of the earliest music for fretted instruments is written in - drumroll please - tablature?!  That's right, during the Renaissance, early lute music was written in tablature. Trying to play "Greensleeves" or "Semper Dowland, Semper Dolens" by reading standard musical notation? How historically inaccurate of you!

Before you get out the torches and pitchforks, I'm not arguing that knowledge of standard notation is worthless. There are plenty of situations where it is necessary:

* Session musicians need to know not only how to read standard notation, but to sight read fluently. Can't do it? No job for you.

* Playing in ensembles with non-guitarists creates the necessity for a common musical language. Try telling a horn player that you're playing "fourth string, fifth fret" and let me know how that conversation goes.

* Anyone wanting more than a basic knowledge of music theory will benefit greatly from knowing how to read standard notation. Tablature might be easy to read, but it's not very effective at illustrating voice-leading, a fundamental building block of western music.

My point is that the need for standard notation is situational. The student who wants to broaden her horizons and get into a jazz ensemble will probably be more than happy to learn standard notation because it moves her towards her goal. That same student, however, might be completely turned off by standard notation if it's jammed down her throat along with the rest of some "no fun of any kind" method book as soon as she walks through your door. And the reality is, whether we as teachers like it or not, students who only want to play rock music in a garage band probably don't have a lot of reasons to learn standard notation - so force it on them at your own risk.

Understanding music theory - I still remember the day when my music world was turned inside-out. I was in harmony class at Tulane University and the professor was explaining to us that the "rules" of music theory and voice leading that we know today are really not rules at all, they're just conventions that were used so frequently by composers such as Bach, Mozart and Beethoven that they were codified - and then routinely ignored by later composers such as Chopin and Debussy.

What does that mean? In the immortal words of Grease, "The rules are, there ain't no rules." In other words, different musical aspirations require different angles on music theory. Does your student want to be a rock god? Start with the pentatonic minor scale and the mixolydian mode. Jazz cat? Modes, arpeggios and chromaticism. Folk artist? Chord progressions.

The point here is to make sure that the theory you're teaching supports what your student wants to accomplish. Classical music theory and rock/blues theory have some very basic differences that can be frustrating to a student. For example, classical music typically requires defining a major or minor tonal center, while blues/rock often requires an ambiguous (not predominantly major or minor) tonal center. Teach your student theory in conflict with how they want to sound and watch the confusion set in.

So what can you do about all this? Listen to your student. Understand his goals, what his favorite kinds of music are, which players he admires most. Help him pursue his goals, and support that pursuit by teaching him the things he needs to know to achieve what he wants to achieve. Your reward for this will be trust and engagement, and you will find with many of your students that as they get better they will come to you wanting to broaden the scope of what theyíre learning. At this point they will basically be asking to learn the stuff that they would have complained about had you hit them with it right from the start.

You can also help your students by knowing your own strengths and weaknesses as a teacher. If a potential new student comes to you wanting to learn jazz, but you're a blues/rock specialist, build a referral network so you can always do the right thing for the student.

And that's really the crux of the matter - it's not about us. It's about our students. If we always keep that in mind then we will be able to figure out what's best for each of them individually in order to keep them engaged and enjoying themselves.