Ella's Progress. Teaching the very young

Subject: Ella's Progress. Teaching the very young
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 23 Jan 00 - 11:40 PM

Generally I work with adults (and usually fairly experienced players) when I teach. As I've mentioned here before, I have some radically different approaches that I use, and while they don't work with everybody, I've gotten some remarkable results from most of the folks I've worked with. The most simple explanation to my style of teaching would be that I try to eliminate (at the beginning) the things that "aren't fun". I concentrate strictly on ear training, repetition, and familiarisation with one "key" at a time, til the person can "hear" the changes to just about any song in that key, rather than learning one song at a time.

Ella is 7 and both her parents are very musical. They sure don't need me to help her become a rock star, or Classical giant....but, she and I made a deal. So I'm going to try and teach her a little bit about being a "folksinger"!! I figure it'll put good use to my little 1890s 4 string "courting guitar", which is about right, size-wise for her. We'll probably start off with "John Henry" (just one G chord, played with one finger, and lots of frantic strumming) and if she hasn't smashed the four string over my head we'll try "Skip to My Lou" with a D7th added.

Any suggestions on teaching a "little girl" how to play a "little guitar" would be welcome. She's a sweetie by the way. If I'd ever had kids, I'd want one like Ella.

Thanks

Rick

Subject: RE: Ella's Progress. Teaching the very young
From: Callie
Date: 24 Jan 00 - 02:28 AM

A friend who plays recorded music and sings constantly finds that her three year old and five year old have fantastic memories for songs, and also have impeccable pitch. Picture her embarassment when the three year old started singing "Three Drunken Maidens" and "Plastic Jesus" in church!

That doesn't answer your question, but I think that lots of exposure outside 'the classroom' is probably as important as the formal learning time.

A more concrete (?) suggestion: when I learned guitar around 8 years of age, the chords were simplified for us, so that "C" was just one finger on the first fret of the "B" string, and so on. For ages we played songs (folky stuff - Red River Valley, Home On the Range etc) with only C, F and G7 (that last chord was one finger only on the first fret of the "E" string). I soon cottoned on to the idea that when a melody goes a certain way, the chord will change but then probably finish on a C.

Hope that's not too basic - I had fun reminiscing, anyway!

Callie

Subject: RE: Ella's Progress. Teaching the very young
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 24 Jan 00 - 08:46 AM

I taught piano lessons and discovered the following.

There seems to be a break around 8-9 years old (or when the child starts to read). Before that age, all learning is imitating; after that age it is more cognitive. (Someone told me that children in countries other than the US are not forced to read at a young age and have less reading problems as they grow older.)

I enjoyed the Suzuki method for young children. (Yes, it's for the piano as well as violin). I can just see Ella with her little guitar just like the Suzuki kids with their little violins. I wish every student could benefit from this method, but the one drawback (a big one) is that it requires tremendous input from a parent. All practices involve parental participation. The nice thing about this method is that the very young child plays "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" in a sonatina style and sounds really grown up. It gives them an ear for hearing classical music, and the imitation allows them to play and experience music without having to read. Sounds like you're already doing this with easy-to-play songs. Also finding songs which little hands can reach is important. Other methods use lots of duets (the teacher plays the difficult part), and the resulting participation is fun for everyone.

I think both you and Callie have found the ways to let the child participate and make music!

Mary

Subject: RE: Ella's Progress. Teaching the very young
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 24 Jan 00 - 12:45 PM

Thanks folks. Yeah, that's the beauty of the 4 string guitar (baritone uke as well). The chords are very simple. I can remember sitting everyday at the piano, bored out of my tree, with my mother patiently trying to get me to relate to some ditty that Mozart wrote when he was three. I see nothing wrong with a kid starting to learn theory AFTER they've learned some basic skill on an instrument.(and had some fun with it.)

Rick

Subject: RE: Ella's Progress. Teaching the very young
From: Peter T.
Date: 25 Jan 00 - 09:30 AM

Not having taught very young children, I was however impressed some years ago by a discussion that Northrop Frye had with some child educators. He said that the worst thing about the educational system was that children were not getting poetry before prose -- he believed that the history of the human race showed that people chanted and learned complicated pattern rhythms very early, and prose (although it looked simpler) was actually a very late, sophisticated, ironing out of the rhythms of speech. He was asked in a question period what he thought young children should learn. He said that he would build up the rhyming games and the fascination with words that all children have. He thought that children up until the age of 10 should learn huge blocks of poetry and magic lists of huge mesmerizing words -- he thought "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" was a perfect example of the way kids will memorize tongue twisters, and try and make sure they had them exactly right. I wonder if there are songs like that -- the one that comes to mind is "Great Big Gobs of Greasy, etc.", but I'll bet you have some other pattern folk song in your repertoire. Might make an interesting experiment. Look forward to more reports on her progress (gee, she already sounds better than me!!!!)
yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Ella's Progress. Teaching the very young
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 25 Jan 00 - 10:13 AM

Yeah Peter, I think Northrop hit the nail square on the head.

Almost every contemporary musician who's written about their beginnings talks about the sheer wonder and excitement of discovering new things. I think "natural" musicians are simply folks who saw learning as "fun" rather than hard work and drudgery. Sometimes it starts at age 6 and other times, 56. I learned to enjoy reading at a very early age, but never learned how to study. I suspect if my father or mother had said "After you finish 'Great Expectations', we'll have a quiz", the magic would have disappeared, and I'd have chucked Dickens real fast and gone skating. I'd rather not put expectations of any kind on someone learning to play an instrument...so I never give homework.

Rick