In a nutshell, I believe that when we play guitar, our left hand is our head and our right hand is our heart.
When I taught elementary kids anything musical - singing, playing an instrument, writing, composing - I always stipulated that it had to go through their heart and that it wasn't authentic if it didn't have something to do with their heart in it. If I felt they were going through the motions, I was ruthless and called them on it.
As far as guitar goes, strumming is the heart of the guitar sound. It's the engine for the music. It's the freight car that carries your melody. As soon as you give a kid a guitar, guitar pick, and license to strum as fast and loud and powerful as possible, the heart of a musician is exposed.
This is why a five-year old kid can out-play a lot of adults.
They are still connected to their hearts. Adults have lot track of what their heart actually is. They rely on what Face Book, other media platforms, and other so-called social arbiters say their heart is.
Kids get it, aren’t afraid to flaunt it, and aren’t apologetic about any musical sound they make.
When I started all my beginning guitarists, especially from first to fifth grade, it was all about simultaneously strumming and singing. We were tuned to an open D chord and had about two dozen songs that we could strum and sing convincingly. Only after making our strumming as automatic as breathing did I venture into teaching the head.
Usually I would do standard tuning and teach one cowboy chord followed by another cowboy chord. Even then, we would simply learn to form a chord on the neck and strum the songs that we knew already on that one cord.
If you believe that music on guitar is powered by the groove, you will start to notice that when little kids play guitar, it is as if they are singing poems and dancing with their hands.
It is the most beautiful thing.
When I introduce guitar this way, kids solidify their right hand technique to the point where it's on autopilot and they are not even conscious of what they are doing - they are just “doing” They’ll be able to recall this technique and, more importantly, this feeling should they move away from the guitar in their childhood and pick up pick it up again in their twenties or thirties.
That means when I start to teach the left hand chord patterns, it's not a question of stopping the right hand from strumming.
It's not even about counting groups of fours and eights and changing chords. It’s even less about duples and triples. It’s about feel. It's about unrelenting strumming starting with rocking back and forth between two chords and then adding a third chord.
The head should only be focused on switching chords when you want to switch chords. As long as the groove is there, it's going to sound good.
There is a prodigious world of songs waiting for the person who can synchronize the chords in their head with the feel of their heart in their strumming hand.
It will make a beautiful sound.
It’s all about the groove, the head, and the heart.
When I taught elementary kids anything musical - singing, playing an instrument, writing, composing - I always stipulated that it had to go through their heart and that it wasn't authentic if it didn't have something to do with their heart in it. If I felt they were going through the motions, I was ruthless and called them on it.
As far as guitar goes, strumming is the heart of the guitar sound. It's the engine for the music. It's the freight car that carries your melody. As soon as you give a kid a guitar, guitar pick, and license to strum as fast and loud and powerful as possible, the heart of a musician is exposed.
This is why a five-year old kid can out-play a lot of adults.
They are still connected to their hearts. Adults have lot track of what their heart actually is. They rely on what Face Book, other media platforms, and other so-called social arbiters say their heart is.
Kids get it, aren’t afraid to flaunt it, and aren’t apologetic about any musical sound they make.
When I started all my beginning guitarists, especially from first to fifth grade, it was all about simultaneously strumming and singing. We were tuned to an open D chord and had about two dozen songs that we could strum and sing convincingly. Only after making our strumming as automatic as breathing did I venture into teaching the head.
Usually I would do standard tuning and teach one cowboy chord followed by another cowboy chord. Even then, we would simply learn to form a chord on the neck and strum the songs that we knew already on that one cord.
If you believe that music on guitar is powered by the groove, you will start to notice that when little kids play guitar, it is as if they are singing poems and dancing with their hands.
It is the most beautiful thing.
When I introduce guitar this way, kids solidify their right hand technique to the point where it's on autopilot and they are not even conscious of what they are doing - they are just “doing” They’ll be able to recall this technique and, more importantly, this feeling should they move away from the guitar in their childhood and pick up pick it up again in their twenties or thirties.
That means when I start to teach the left hand chord patterns, it's not a question of stopping the right hand from strumming.
It's not even about counting groups of fours and eights and changing chords. It’s even less about duples and triples. It’s about feel. It's about unrelenting strumming starting with rocking back and forth between two chords and then adding a third chord.
The head should only be focused on switching chords when you want to switch chords. As long as the groove is there, it's going to sound good.
There is a prodigious world of songs waiting for the person who can synchronize the chords in their head with the feel of their heart in their strumming hand.
It will make a beautiful sound.
It’s all about the groove, the head, and the heart.
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