In the first class in the beginning ten-week folk guitar course, after showing my students a couple of different ways of holding the guitar securely, I started them with the right hand and got them going on open strings by having them play the low E string with their thumb, followed by their index, middle, and ring fingers on the 3rd, 2nd, and 1st strings respectively. First individually, one at a time, then thumb followed by all three fingers together. One-two, one-two, thumb-fingers, thumb-fingers. When they had that down (usually takes no more than a few minutes), I had them repeat the fingers: One-two-three, one-two-three, thumb-fingers-fingers, thumb-fingers-fingers. So we've covered a two-beat and a three-beat rhythm in what I tend to refer to as "Burl Ives Basic" (Burl rarely did much of anything more complex than this, and it's perfectly adequate for a lot of songs).

Once they have this down, I taught them a D major chord and had them do the same right hand patterns, but this time, alternating the thumb between 4th and 5th strings. Then on to A major. I found that some people did have a little trouble with this at first, but they were soon able to change back and forth between the D and the A. When that went smoothly (more or less), I had them add the right hand, all doing at two-four, then a three-four.

It's always pretty hesitant at first, but they seemed to pick it up pretty quickly.

Then, I passed out song sheets with the words and tunes to "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" and "Down in the Valley" on them, with the chord changes written in. Any two-chord songs would have done, but I found that most people already knew these two songs, or were, at least, acquainted with them enough to learn them quickly and easily.

I sang the songs for them, then we all sang them together. There was lots of hesitation and stopping and starting at first, but it's amazing how fast they picked it up. A week of practice and it would be duck soup!

The key of D might not be the optimum key for everyone's voice, but the range of both songs is sufficiently limited that most people are able to sing them in D. The following week, I opened their options by teaching an E major so they could sing the songs in A if that suited their voices better. (Now they have three chords)

As the classes progressed, I added a chord or two each class, along with right-hand variations (broken chords, arpeggios, a little thumb-index, thumb-middle rolling pattern that could eventually lead to alternating bass or "Travis-picking" styles). And I added a new song or two each evening.

Now here's the sneaky bit: as we went along, I would teach them bass runs from chord to chord. This slyly gets them practicing scales without calling them "scales!" Then, the question of "Which chords go together as families? And how do you know what chords to play and when to change chords?" I pass out a copy of the Circle of Fifths and explain how it works and ties everything together systematically. Also, at this point, I give them 7th chords (D7, A7, G7, etc.), and explain when and why to use them.

With the Circle of Fifths, we're into some basic music theory. But—I don't tell them that I'm teaching them music theory because lots of people think it's much more complex than it really is and their eyes tend to glaze over if they know that what I'm teaching them. But when I explain the Circle of Fifths, a lot of people's eyes light up and they say, "Oh! So that's how it works!"

By the end of ten weeks, I have a class full of people who can get around reasonably adeptly in C, G, D, A, and E, along with Am, Em, and some in Dm. I show them what bar chords are and explain their use a bit, but I don't really get into them until the intermediate class, which is in the next ten weeks. By the end of the first ten weeks, they know about a dozen songs, and most folks are starting to learn songs on their own.

Although I've made a few of my own modifications, how I teach the classes is pretty much what I learned from Barry Olivier and from the workshop with Bess Lomax Hawes.

I found that after the beginning and intermediate classes, a fair number of these folks wanted to continue with private lessons. I taught several hundred class students althogether, and I was gratified to see that some of them went on to play and sing professionally, some eventually taught guitar, and one of my beginning class students went on to take some classic guitar lessons from me, and he eventually become one of the mainstays of the folk music community in this area.

Teaching can be a very satisfying activity!

Don Firth