Sometimes inspiration and clarity comes from surprising sources. My younger daughter is starting on guitar and she wants me to be her teacher. If we can make it work I'll love it, but, it's going to take a bit of effort, I think.

One of our first struggles is that at 9 she doesn't want to play slow and build up speed with an exercise. She just wants to PLAY FAST RIGHT NOW! After we went around and around with this we quit for lunch. We were all discussing this and I was trying to come up with ways to explain this to her. This is something that I struggle with, too. As I learn Stick I didn't want to have to go back to the beginning and start with slow exercises and a metronome. I thought I could just skip a few things and get going since I was a pretty good guitarist. Silly me.

I was getting nowhere with my daughter, she was fighting everything I said. In walks my other daughter. She's a percussionist in the HS band and a big influence on her young sister. She heard what we were talking about and could hear that we were both frustrated. She chimed in.

"Music is like a video game, Kelsey." she said. "If you want to play on level 2 then you need to beat level 1 first."

This shut both of us up and as I was letting that sink she continued, unprompted.

"I have beaten all level 9 characters in Mario Smash Brothers by first fighting all the characters on level 1, then level 2, and so on up to level 9. The early levels were really easy and I could have skipped them. But, I learned so much doing it that way that I beat every level 9 character the first time I fought them."

My mouth was hanging open by now. Kelsey just said, "Hmm...", which means that it hit a nerve. I have been thinking of this ever since. My wise daughter has taught her professional teacher dad a big lesson. I bought a metronome and I'm playing simple exercises really slowly. I'm already noticing a difference. The pieces that I thought I was getting good at sound very uneven when recorded. I'm starting to tear them apart one measure at a time and putting them together at an even tempo.

I have no illusions about where my music will go, I just want to get better over time and make a little music that has a soul. I think I just made a big step forward. I hope Greg will notice some improvement in our next lesson.

Just wanted to share.

-Eric

Always leave it to a drummer/percussionist to set things straight !!!!
(by the way, I am a former drummer )

EricTheGray wrote:

..."Music is like a video game, Kelsey." she said. "If you want to play on level 2 then you need to beat level 1 first"...

-Eric

Hi Eric,

(Just be prepared to learn that Mario Bros theme song...)

Thanks for sharing this. My daughter (12) has tried the violin and currently plays the piano. My son (10) made a short-lived attempt to learn guitar, but gave up after the second lesson. With him being a video game fan, I might try this technique myself!

I can't comment on your family dynamic, but in general I find that almost all kids do better with a "real teacher" than with one of their parents, irrespective of the parent's teaching abilities. That is not to say that the child won't learn by watching, listening and sharing with the parent (leading by example is more effective in the long run than any incentive or punishment method IMO). A great teacher will always make criticism appear both constructive and non-personal in a way that's perhaps not possible if they are "too close" to their students. My son is a classic example of this. We spent an extremely frustrating 3-4 months pushing him around on his first real bike, dealing with constant falls and temper tantrums. Then one day I took him to a birthday party at a local bike track. Within 15 minutes of arriving, one of the other dads had Marcus burning around the track on his own (much to my great relief and frustration)! He obviously had all of the required skills already, but needed to be "told" by someone who wouldn't interact with him like his mom or dad.

I also think you made a very important point with this comment: "The pieces that I thought I was getting good at sound very uneven when recorded. I'm starting to tear them apart one measure at a time and putting them together at an even tempo". Following this type of process will make you a much better player. In this day and age there is no excuse for not recording yourself regularly.

I'm amazed at the things I've learned since my daughter started taking piano lessons. Just playing along with some of her pieces made me aware of obvious shortcomings in my own playing!

Cheers,
Andy

"One step at a time" is always hard to deal with, especially for a seasoned musician. I play several instruments so I've started from scratch several times ... and I STILL tend to "put the cart before the hourse" each and every time. I make some strides then have to back peddle to clean things up. I do think however that recording yourself playing "live to tape" every now and then is vary valuable. You can HEAR much more of what you did if you can sit back and just listen. I believe bands that play live all the time also benefit from recording every few months. It's amazing how many "problems" can be corrected in this manor. If someone TELLS me I don't have the right feel, or I'm over playing, or my tempo is off I may think to myself "yeah right, I don't agree because that felt great" and perhaps become a little defensive. BUTTTTTTT when "I" hear these issues "for myself" I understand and it clicks.

I think most of us will NEVER reach the level we want on our instruments, we always want to reach that next level. But as your daughter explained, you really have to KNOW level 1, 2, 3, etc. before you can beat level 9. ........ you have a very wise daughter there!!!

I do think having a teacher out side of the family is generally a good idea, if you can find a guitar teacher with knowledge of the motor skills and cognitive abilities of children.

Whether you use an out side instructor or not you can help your child learn music by doing a few things: Stay interested in her progress, go to lessons with your child, know what she is learning, make games (like pop 1 bubble-wrap bubble for every note played in the right rhythm), and insist on frequent but brief practice. When your child is 9 years old you are still the biggest influence in there lives, take advantage of this time.

Eric, if you would like to talk about this at length we can use Skype. I have been teaching guitar to about 50, 5-12 year old kids for the past 10 years.