I’m often inspired to write blog posts by things I see on my social media networks. This is one of those instances, when an online FB buddy who gives guitar lessons launched a thread asking for ideas on how to teach timing to students struggling to keep a beat. So thanks, Marv.
This tip isn’t so much for those students struggling to keep time (although it *can* help in that regard), but rather for teachers working with students who are in the early stages of instruction and more or less progressing in their studies.
The tendency I see in lesson is for the student to abruptly stop the tune every time they buzz a note, hit the wrong string, etc. They will then go back to correct the mistake, and proceed with the tune… until the next train-wreck. It’s a natural thing to do (and when practicing at home, perfectly fine).
But in lesson, especially on duets, it can turn into a long series of starts and stops trying to get through a song, which can cause the student to get embarrassed for making the teacher have to stop playing. Embarrassment and the resulting anxiety are best avoided if possible.
To counter this, I will explain to my student that in a real-life jam or performance, one doesn’t have the luxury of interrupting the song to correct clams. The group isn’t going to stop and start the tune for your sake. No, the tune will get played, clams and all, and you’re expected to hang in there. Continuity is the issue here.
So I say: “This time, we’re playing the passage eight times, from start to finish, without interruption. If you stumble, no worries, just let it go, but make a mental note of it, and try to reengage with the tune by jumping back in at the top of the next measure. Then, in our next ride through the tune, try to correct the mistake you had previously made. But no matter what, know that I’m playing the tune straight through eight times, so it’s your job to correct your clams on-the-fly and keep up.”
Doing this teaches the student several valuable things, playing well with others being just the most obvious. Learning to keep a beat is certainly another. But procedurally, it also encourages them to repeat material over and over again, refining it each time. More advanced players have learned this, but newbies, not so much.
Beginning students have this idea that “practice” means you go through the tune one time, give it your best shot, move on to the next assignment, then call it quits. They need to be disabused of this notion.
The idea of repeatedly hammering a single tune over and over while working out the kinks is foreign to them. Students need to be reminded that learning to play music is not just an intellectual endeavor, but that the hands must be trained over time to perform the necessary moves with fluidity and ease, much as an athlete must train their bodies and fine tune their muscles to handle the rigors of the chosen sport.
As a sidebar — I remain ambivalent on the capacity of today’s youth to stay dutifully on task in this endeavor. On the one hand I think there’s no question that, in a general sense, our young, tech-savvy generation’s use of digital devices has negatively impacted attention spans and tolerance for delayed gratification. However, kids also exhibit a remarkable devotion to video games, steadfastly repeating and mastering level after level of play in their quest for higher scores. The challenge for music teachers, it seems to me, is to find a way to tap that focused determination to excel and help kids apply it in their music.
While teaching notes, scales, chords, progressions and tunes is the meat and potatoes of what we do, teaching good practice habits is also an important part of the music teacher’s job. The beauty of it is, the skills learned practicing music (as many studies have shown) extend into all other areas of learning. And so the humble guitar teacher can take double satisfaction when a student learns to practice well.
