Guitar Curriculum

Don’t think that, as teachers, we have the right to copy copyright material “for educational purposes”—we don’t. But developing an attractive curricula, meeting the needs of students with a wide pallet of musical interests and needs, takes years. We don’t have to re-invent the Xbox; plenty of songs and instructional material is freely available on the web. Unfortunately, most of what can be printed out for students isn’t reliable or nicely formatted or complete (lacking lyrics and standard notation).

Having given up on illegal copying, creating all my own educational material, and printing out scrappy tabs off the web, I chose to study the offerings of a bona-fide publisher. I’m not too proud to admit that whatever I’d come up with on my own, with my limited time and resources, couldn’t appear as sharp or be as diverse as what a publisher, with an army of guitarist/author/professors and a graphic design department and state-of-the art printers, create by the thousands. After checking out Hal Leonard Co. books, here’s a curricula I’ve worked out for my students.

Beginning: Jessica Baron Turner’s Smart Start books, using open-G, for students who like to sing and appreciate Folk music. Otherwise, teach basic Blues and Rock riffs, sometimes using the Riffnotes series.

Open chords, basic strumming and simple tab chord/melody: Easy Guitar with Notes and Tab, featuring a style or artist the student loves—if they don’t hear themselves playing what they like, they won’t stick. The downside of this psychological fact is that they come with false expectations, hoping to play like their idol—now! Most students learn the guitar for this reason, not because their parents are pushing them (as often is the case with students of band and orchestra instruments). So keeping the interest of beginning students requires that we get them playing what they like ASAP; and this series is simple enough but cool enough to divide the horns of this dilemma.

Beginning improvisation, developing chord vocabulary, focusing on a genre: Hal Leonard Guitar Method, Supplement to Any Guitar Method, in Rock Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Blues Guitar, Country Guitar, and Jazz Guitar meets this pedagogical need using note-for-note riffs and complete songs from classics of the given style.

Repertoire: By now the student has enough together to play through songs, in many cases, as their hero played them. Recorded Versions Guitar has hundreds of stylistic and artist compilations to really get students excited about playing. For solo renditions of popular songs, use books from the Guitar Finger Style series.

Note Reading: Your reputation as a teacher is at stake. If all we teach is fun stuff, we’re not preparing students for their musical future. True, few students seek to be professional musicians (a good thing, considering the market) but their tastes will change; and we’re responsible for their being prepared to tap new wells. Teaching is a sacred trust. For young children, consider E-Z Play Guitar. This series places note names right in the note heads, and includes tab. Otherwise, The Christopher Parkening Guitar Method develops note reading, technique, fingerpicking, and repertoire thoroughly and succinctly.

Intermediate to advanced improvisation: With no theory or verbiage, Practice Trax for Guitar offers scales and direction on their basic application, using appealing grooves nicely laid down on CD. Dan Anderson