My mom sent me this article from The Washington Post by Meghan Leahy, about how (as a parent) to handle kids who are perfectionists (really for the benefit of me, my wife, and our 4 year old daughter).
I saw some value as a guitar teacher as well.
Here’s a little story…
I’ve been teaching a 14 year old for about a year. Let’s call him Tyler.
Tyler had never really played guitar when I first started with him.
He’s super smart. Super busy. Has a ton of after school activities… Lacrosse, football, even a part-time job…. and all of the other social things that come along with being a teenager.
We started lessons and he picked everything up quickly…. until…
… we started doing some complicated versions of chords. Barre chords mostly. We were moving past the beginner stage and onto more intermediate stuff.
I could see he was struggling. I could also see that we’d been here before.
I remembered seeing this kind of frustration when we were learning some beginner open chord positions. So what did I do?
– I encouraged him. Yay!
– I reminded him of past successes! You can do it!
– I told him to keep at it!
None of it got through to him. The frustration remained, and he would say things like… “I don’t really need to know bar chords, the older chords sound better”.
I was suspicious.
We’d continue to learn, I’d continue to push, encourage, and all the usual teaching stuff. Every so often I’d find myself just empathizing with his frustration and struggle. I’d talk about my current struggles: learning difficult pieces and just not getting it. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this is exactly what Meghan Leahy talks about in her piece in the post.
Of course I didn’t really understand the scope of what I was doing (in my guitar lessons). I know empathy goes along way when others are struggling, but I never really thought of using it as a teaching tool
For those of you who aren’t teachers or parents, there is still an incredibly important takeaway message here: we all struggle and progress. Sometimes it sucks (usually it sucks). Embrace the struggle.
That’s it. The struggle doesn’t get easier. But you don’t need to feel bad about feeling bad.
Oh man I love lists. And this time of year we get a ton of the “Best of 2014” lists. So before we say goodbye to 2014, here is my stab at the best of Severn River Guitar.
My fingers still ache if I’m learning a particularly challenging piece. I know that my newer students feel the pain. This post covers everything you need to know to help ease the pain of learning.
Huh. This one surprised me. I guess a lot of parents are interested in getting their kids starting on the guitar (or their kids are bugging them for guitar lessons). Check out this post if you’re curious about my thoughts on the matter – I’d love to hear what you think as well? How young is too young for guitar playing?
I’ve caught a little bit of heat for this. For some reason, a lot of music teachers (or any professions for that matter) don’t like to publish their prices. As of the time of this writing my lessons cost anywhere from $50 – $100. Prices are always changing based on lesson time, package deals, format (online vs face-to-face), etc. In this post I cover what typical lessons cost – and what you should expect from each price range.
Oh yeah… the mother of all of my blog posts. This article consistently brings visitors to my website (maybe you’ve already read it). I’d love to get your take and thoughts (especially if you’ve already started playing). I think I stand by my original thoughts, but I’d like to hear what you have to say.
That’s it! I hope you had an awesome 2014 and I wish you a Happy New Year and all the best in 2015!
A capo is basically a little clamp for your guitar. I’ve been using this since I’ve been playing the guitar.
I strongly suggest anyone who is new to the guitar (especially kids) pick up a capo. I love this Kyser kind because it’s super easy to get on and off of the neck of the guitar. I have a bunch (and they come in multiple colors if you prefer something other than gold). Capos are especially awesome for kids because they can help smaller fingers get used to fretting notes and chords.
At some point, you’re gonna need to change your guitar strings.
I’ve been playing with these guitar strings for as long as I’ve been playing the guitar. There is a reason for that. These strings are super easy on the fingers. Do your fingers hurt when you play the guitar? These little babies will ease your finger pain (if only a bit). They have a coating on them that is easy on the fingers, cuts down on the screechy sound, and has a nice mellow tone. Get them. They’re awesome.
Ok… So I’ve gone through at least 10 different brands/styles of tuners. And I always lose them (or leave them in sofa cushions or at gigs, etc). This is by far my favorite.
It is durable, easy to read, easy to use, and bright red (so it’s not easy to lose). I also recommend getting a tuner app for your phone (the app has definitely helped me in a a pinch), but these clip-on snark tuner has been awesome.
Love This Guitar Stand (and I own at least one per guitar).
You know I’m not a fan of guitar cases. I prefer leaving the guitar out in the open where I’ll actually remember to pick it up and play or practice. Rather than leaning it up against a wall, I’d suggest a nice little guitar stand. I have at least one per guitar (or I use a guitar wall mount like this). Either way, keep those guitars out and ready to play.
Awesome and easy to use microphone for recording (macbook not included)
If you’re a singer/songwriter, you may want to pick up something like this Blue Microphones Yeti USB Microphone. It’s an easy way to record your vocals and acoustic (or electric if you’ve got it amped up). It’s not meant for professional quality, it’s really just a nice way to get your music down. It’s a inexpensive and easy to use microphone. You can use it to add better quality to videos (especially if you like recording stuff and uploading it to youtube).
Should work with most current Mac or PC software/computers (check the specs just to be sure).
This is the camera I use. It’s cheap and effective.
If you’re serious about putting some videos of your songs/recordings on Youtube, you probably want to use a webcam (that didn’t come built into your computer). I have this Logitech camera for my videos. It works great and it’s pretty cheap.
I used to use a pretty decent pair of bose headphones for all my recording (Youtube or otherwise). Until the cable/wire wore out and they became useless. I spent a month researching wireless headphones (that were affordable). I finally came up with these. I have not been disappointed. They hold a charge really well (i.e. excellent battery life). The sound quality is great. Easy to pair to multiple devices. Plus they have a microphone built in (that I use when paired with my phone).
If you have any other thoughts or ideas, leave them in the comments below. I’d love to know what you think (or if I missed anything).
Happy Holidays and all that stuff!
(Full Disclosure: Some of the links above are affiliate links, which means that I earn a commission if you purchase through my site. But don’t worry – these products are awesome, I love them… if I didn’t I wouldn’t recommend them. I recommend them because they’re great… not because of the small commission that I make from them. If you have other recommendations, just shoot me an e-mail and let me know!)
It’s easy to get caught up in the technical aspects of playing music. We frequently focus on learning to play faster, more accurate, more difficult chords, more complicated styles and genres. While it’s good (no great) to push ourselves, sometimes we need a reminder of why we play music in the first place.
I had a student recently request a bunch of songs by George Ezra (who I hadn’t previously heard of). When students request new songs by new artists I sometimes get nervous (will I be able to learn these songs fast enough to teach them? are these songs too difficult for a beginner? Are there even guitar parts in these songs?). After listening to a few of the George Ezra songs I quickly realized:
1. I had nothing to worry about.
2. I’m so glad that my student told me about this artist.
3. I remembered the fun and excitement of discovering (and learning) new music.
That’s it! Check out the video above (and any other George Ezra stuff).
On June 6th 2013, Severn River Guitar had their first official Jam Session/Recital. It was a great experience and a wonderful opportunity for students to showcase their talents and support each other.
Since I focus on teaching lessons in the homes of my students, we don’t have that many opportunities to meet each other. It was so cool to see everyone come together and support each other.
Below are some of the photos from the event (you can check out more at our facebook page).
Darby… Getting ready for her set.Keagan and me. About to perform “Hallelujah”Amelia, Parker, and Caroline (all from Indian Creek!) getting ready for their set.The Indian Creek Girls getting ready to perform Taylor Swift’s “Fearless”
Cameron getting set up to perform his original song, “Wonderland Fanatic”Checking in with James before his set
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.
When should you change your guitar strings? I don’t really care.
Frequently, folks ask me how often they should change or replace their guitar strings. As with most of my guitar-related questions, my answer is an obnoxious: “It depends…” (see: this, and this, and this)
If you haven’t seen the movie Pitch Perfect (see above photo), or heard the song Cups, check out this link. At about a minute into the video Anna Kendrick does this fancy little percussive/drumming thing with a cup – that is evidently so addictive among girls aged 5-10 it’s almost an epidemic. Hence, this tweet from Anna’s twitter a few months ago…
Michael Scott holds to key to music perfection. Read on…
I’ve written about practice a bunch of times. If you haven’t, I totally recommend going back and reading those articles… or you can just get the bullet points…
