I have a guitar student right now who had years of piano lessons when she was younger from teacher who wouldn't let her depart from written music. She wanted to learn to play the guitar so she could accompany herself singing.

I started her out by giving her a sheet of chord diagrams and showing her some basic strums. She just couldn't grasp either the chord the diagrams or the right hand patterns (simple "Burl Ives basic") at all, so I started her on a classic guitar technique book that gets into chords right away (one of the ones based on Matteo Carcassi's method). The problem we are having right now is that she can't seem to learn chords—retain them—just as finger-shapes. She has to have the dots in front of her, and her brain just doesn't seem to be able to translate them into finger positions that she can remember. If I close the technique book and say, "Okay, play a C chord," she simply doesn't know where to put her fingers without the dots to tell her.

I got her working on a couple of fairly easy classic guitar pieces, which she can play reasonably well—if she has the music in front of her. I've been urging her to try to memorize them in the hope of weaning her away from the dots, but so far, no go.

I think it's doing a student a real disservice not to allow them, or even encourage them, to learn to play by ear as well as to read the music. When they do that, they're not teaching them music, they're just teaching them to read notes. Imagine, if you will, someone who can pick up a book or a newspaper and read it aloud, but who can't talk.

I'm afraid my student may be stuck in a rut I can't get her out of.

Don Firth