by Glen McCarthy | Nov 3, 2013 | Classroom, Education, Principles, Tips + Tricks
How do you motivate students whose eyes wander? 1. If your students keep looking at their fingers and lose their place in the music, and then give up on reading place the music stand along the sight range of your guitar neck. You can also project the music on the...
by Glen McCarthy | Nov 3, 2013 | Classroom, Education, Principles, Tips + Tricks
What are some good warm-ups? A good warm up for linear movement is the block approach 1,2,3,4,4,3,2,1 in a position on every string or on one string shifting to all positions. I like the l.h. pattern 1234,4321,1434,2434, because it gives extra attention to the 4th...
by Glen McCarthy | Oct 27, 2013 | Classroom, Education, Principles, Tips + Tricks
Do I need humidifiers for the room? For individual guitars? Do I need them at all? Think about this. 1. Humidifiers are necessary in dry climates. 2. For individual guitars – damp-it; try using old film containers. 3. In a room, you might get away with a jug of water....
by Glen McCarthy | Oct 27, 2013 | Classroom, Education, News, Principles, Tips + Tricks
When another teacher requests to remove a disruptive student from his/her class, the logical place to move that student is guitar class. And why not, what kid does not love guitar? This scenario most often occurs when the class is in its tenth week and moving along...
by Glen McCarthy | Oct 20, 2013 | Classroom, Education, Principles, Tips + Tricks
How do you know whether to start a piece with your i finger or your m finger? You will most typically start with i, however it is really situational. If you have to do a backwards string crossing to start with i you should choose to start with m. Remember, you can...
by Glen McCarthy | Oct 13, 2013 | Classroom, Education, Principles, Success Stories, Tips + Tricks
I wanted to share a very cool idea from my friend Jane who teaches guitar at a middle school up in Nebraska. She decided that during parent teacher conferences this year, that when students brought their parents to come discuss their grade – that they were going to do...
