What guitar students should learn in a first lesson
Many students, parents, and teachers think about what to happens in the very first lesson of learning an instrument. I don’t even remember my first guitar lesson (am I bad for not remembering this..?), but as a teacher now, I think about the things I want my students to take away from their lesson and motivate them to come back the next week eager to learn. In my years teaching so far, what I teach in this first lesson has changed and I expect it to change many more times in my career. Other teachers will have various opinions and do other things. Ultimately, I think there are several goals for a first lesson:
Goals:
The student should walk away feeling motivated and encouraged
The teacher has established expectations
The groundwork for technique has been laid
Before jumping into just some of the things I do in a first lesson, I’ll reiterate that other teachers will do different things. I’m still in the early parts of my career so I’d love to continue learning from more experienced teachers and bring this to my students.
I like to engage new students in a brief conversation to get to know them. Some students will be more talkative than others, but expect over the coming weeks that the less talkative ones will open up. Learn about what year they are in at school, why they have chosen guitar and if they have any goals, what music they listen to, sports they do, favourite school subjects. The list goes on, but the idea is to build a relationship with your student that keeps them coming back for lessons every week with a smile, and gives you ideas to include in your teaching to accommodate their individual interests.
Continuing with motivation, students can walk away having learnt a song. Depending on age and capabilities, I will decide where along the beginner path to start. For most young kids, I teach Happy Birthday. I have a version of Happy Birthday written in tablature that uses only the first string. This is easily taught and learnt within the lesson and students learn about the frets and how to use their left hand. Not only this, but posture and the all important “walking fingers” of the right hand can be taught too. This is what I consider building the groundwork of technique. If good habits are built early then it makes furthering technique later significantly easier!
Next is to establish expectations. What do you want your students to do at the start of a lesson? You likely would want them to put their bag down, grab out their books, then proceed to pick up their instrument and tune. Kids will clue on to this pretty quickly, so it’s better to set the expectations early. By the second, third and fourth lessons, you’ll find yourself reminding them less and less what to do. This means there is more time to do actual teaching and learning in the lesson.
Other expectations include how much practice should your students be doing. Be realistic with this. New and young kids will not be able to sit down for an hour to practice, and if all they know is how to play Happy Birthday, is an hour on this time well spent? I think that practice duration should increase as the student’s level and repertoire increases. Also, as much as you can, involve the parents in this. Some kids will practice all day without being told to do so, but most kids will require some coercion by their parents. It’s better to have them on your side.
After the first lesson you can start to think about rhythms, note reading, and notes on each string. Some kids will be ready immediately for this kind of content. Others, especially younger and often more hyperactive kids, will require more time. I have a handful of songs in tablature just like Happy Birthday which I can use in these in between lessons. I will use them as the basis for teaching basics such as rhythm and dynamics, before jumping into note reading. The idea is that it should be fun, motivating, and catered to the individual student!
All the best for now - see you in the next blog!