Guitar Lessons at Church Today!

studio

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Started a beginner guitar class this morning.
We were going to utilize the parish hall, but another church group had it booked and they were setting up for their event.
So we opened up our cases and met in the conference room.

All the chairs were totally wrong for guitar players, as they all had armrests. So we pulled out some folding chairs and made it our way!

Instead of throwing all those beginner chord fingerings at these kids and their parents, I started them off on an Open D tuning.

We spent some time going through Cowling Institute hand exercises that were developed for musicians and other at risk occupations.

It was fun seeing everyone laughing at their inability to form certain fingering positions until we discussed the famous composer Shulman who wrongly adapted a weight and pully system to strengthen his fingers but instead ruined his hands and was never able to play again!

The open D tuning is so easy and fun. With a few quick rhythms, they were all off and running with simple
I, IV,V progressions!

It was really cool to hear all the people play a song in unison for the first time.

You should have seen the looks on their faces with their new found skills!
 
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Chester P Squier

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What Robert Schumann did not know was that the ring finger does not have its own muscles, but rather uses the muscles of the adjacent fingers to control its movement. Schumann was trying to strengthen the ring finger muscles and ruined his hands.
 

studio

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Yesterday was the second lesson.

We went from 3 guitarists to 9 guitarists!

The second lesson plan was an extension of the first. Again with the finger exercises then straight into rhythm application from Bob Moses' Drum Wisdom book.
Discovering accents over a straight 8 count, then break it down to quarter notes on the four.

So today at church, one of the songs didn't cue up so we did accapella and the folks that attended the class started stomping out the rhythm with their feet!

It was totally awesome to know that your teaching took root so fast!

God be praised!
 
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