I am a classical guitarist with a large
knowledge of popular music such as pop rock and Brazilian traditional popular
music (samba, bossa nova, choro, etc.). I made my studies back in the 80’s and
90’s with some of the most important teachers from my country and from abroad.
In those years the access of technology was
restricted to some people and the technology we had in hands were completely
analogic and encompassed music played in radio stations, long plays (vinyl
records), tapes and clips on the television. We still hadn’t the VHS system and
buy records was expensive. When we wanted to play one pop song we had to wait
until occasionally listening to it on a radio station, then record it on a
cassette tape and try to find the chords and how to sing it by listening. The
other way was wait until the next publication on a specialized magazine that
would bring the chords and/or tablatures.
In the last two decades, with the easy access
to new technologies and the Internet, all of these tasks became unbelievably
easier. I incorporated the use of programs addressed to write music like Encore
or Sibelius and started to use them to write my own ideas of exercises,
methods, transcriptions and editions of music.
In my work as teacher these tools represent a
central role once I easily find the songs my pupils want to play, print them
from specialized web sites and use YouTube tutorials and/or official or cover
videos of the songs to learn them faster. As a democratic view I use the same
videos with my students too and encourage them to be more independent about
what they want to learn or practice researching on the same resources.
As a complement for my work I aim to make my
own tutorials and sessions of lessons on how to play guitar without a formal
method and lessons addressed to pop guitar players, acoustic or electric, with
technical approaches used in classical guitar which could be helpful for their
development without the exhaustive use of scores and with the hope that anyone
without reading music ability can engage in.
I have already made some of these videos
addressed to one or other of my pupils as a model for the songs they are
learning. It is an easy task and can be made at home with simple devices like a
Zoom HD Camera or even a mobile phone.
Another area that I have been experiencing and
want to give more attention in my guitar lessons is the improvisation. Not the
improvisation imagined in jazz or rock but just the freedom to create little
melodies or create a song with the chords and elements that the pupils have
already mastered. It may be a sequence of chords with or without singing and
also previous known sequence and melody but using other text created by them.
In this case, having fun is fundamental I believe.
In my view, music education, specially playing
an instrument, must have as main objective to provide interest in the students and
fast response. By fast response I mean to make the student play a song or two
in the first lesson, even if it is a one chord song or a simple melody with
one, two or three notes. We need to avoid what may seem to them boring
technical exercises and choose the repertoire in accordance with they need to
develop musical and technically. Most of our nowadays students don’t play with
professional objectives. Rather they want to have fun and we must fulfil this
will. On the other hand, they don’t have enough time to practice so the lesson
must be very practical and incorporate in large scale music making, interest
and fun.
I believe teachers must be open minded to
contemporary repertoire including both popular and classical music and, with
this in mind, learn how to explore any kind of music experience or particular
students’ interest to work on music elements such as form, rhythm, harmony, melody,
etc. and develop the skills that may be necessary to their purpose in music
education.
Having said that I must say that I am very
confident in traditional music methodology used in the past but teachers must
have the feeling to filter the students who might want to follow a professional
path to work with them using these traditional methods and methodology. As we
all know to be a top professional player of any kind of instrument and approach
the western classical music and repertoire properly it is necessary to follow a
vast and rigid list of methods, exercises and works from all periods. In
addition, the amount of time and discipline dedicated to it must be vast too.
To finish my thoughts, I must say that
sometimes the methodology may be more important than the method itself. By this
I mean that I encourage my students to develop their own exercises or ways of
practicing their difficulties rather than always appeal to a written method. I try
to show them how too quickly learn and practice chords or how to develop their
fingers abilities and independence without the use of, what may seem for them,
a daunting sequence of methods.
