Hi Susan,


Having the student state the goals is so important.


"For instance my lap dulcimer friend asked me one jam night, if I was playing a straight rhythm to the time signature or was I holding strums to make up the same length of time as the sung note. Gosh, I thought, I'm just PLAYING."

This is interesting because the rhythm is often indicated by the melody of the song in folk music.

The folk singer and player is a complete orchestra as a soloist or leader of an ensemble. Bass runs on the guitar and sometimes on the 5-string banjo or dulcimer (counter lines). How do you edit your playing so that when you are in a larger ensemble jamming you fit in with what you're doing?

It's great that you can integrate the music that you've learned about into the folk style and encourage your students to listen to all kinds of music.

One of the things that might frustrate a "teacher" is to not complete a passage of music but to stop and go over it for the student. Do you deal with this or do you just have the student go through the whole piece and then talk about it?
In classical music, many teachers isolate a passage that gives the student problems and just go over it again and again. It's one of the things that drives me nuts about that style of teaching. I get so bored. Sometimes in practicing I can do this for myself but I find it difficult to concentrate for too long a time. There are some musicians who find the process fascinating and can spend hours learning a single lick. I enjoy however the process of learning songs and don't mind going over and over the lyrics.

It's great that you have such patience and enjoy the process of watching people learn.

We live in the Atlanta area now. If you ever get down into this neck of the woods, please let us know. We'd love to talk and get together. You have our e-mail. Love to hear from you.

Frank