The following article was written by guest author Chad Criswell. Chad runs a great music education website called Music Ed Magic. Check it out here.Why is it that many music educators have an inherent distaste for the guitar? Why is it that the vast majority of music educators that I have come in contact with know very little about the guitar when it is the most popular instrument on the planet? My personal take on it is that music educators associate the guitar with pop music and through association subconsiously see it as not worthy of inclusion in the music education curriculum. Perhaps this harkens back to the old stereotype that rock and roll is the music of the devil. Today our society has emerged from those dark ages of ignorance, but yet the guitar remains frozen out of the vast majority of schools. Why? There are many contemporary reasons, but here is my personal opinion.
Teaching The Way We Were Taught
We as music educators teach the way we were taught, and throughout my sixteen years of public education I was never once handed a guitar and taught to play it. Today, if I had to pick between having to teach a guitar class and teaching cello I would almost certainly pick the cello simply because I was at least minimally exposed to it during my undergrad work. I have tried to teach myself to play the guitar at least a dozen times over the years, plucking away on my mother's old acoustic. Each time I gave up. Not so much for lack of time but because I did not feel capable of doing it and because I did not have a driving reason to do so. As a result, on the few occasions when a student would come up to me and ask if I would teach him guitar I have turned them away. Quite often those same students disappear, never to be involved in music after elementary school. If we want to get the guitar into the schools our colleges need to be teaching it to future music educators!
If our goal as music educators is to bring music education to the masses, to be disciples spreading the word about our craft, then we have to acknowledge that guitar and other “pop” instruments are important. We have to insist that they be placed on the same level as the trumpet, clarinet, and violin. Some educators are doing this already, but they are few and far between.
Guitar Instruction That Works
One innovative teacher, Jamie Knight from Huntington Beach High School in California is taking guitar instruction and using it as a doorway into a serious occupational training program. His program is an amazing model of how popular music can be used to meet the national standards for music education. His students learn to play an instrument and compose while also learning real life trade skills that can give them a chance at a real career in the industry even without a college degree. Equally impressive is that a sizable chunk of his students are those that were it not for his class would not take a music class and perhaps not even be in school at all. His ideas and methods draw upon the desire of the students to be recognized in a positive way for their abilities and accomplishments. focusing on making music on an individual level rather than with a large group.
Don't Be Afraid Of The Guitar
While Jamie uses the guitar as a springboard into other parts of his curriculum so to should other music educators consider the possibility of breaking the mold of traditional classes and find a way to incorporate guitar instruction into their schools. Do not fear it, for evidence seems to suggest that such programs do not detract from traditional band, choir, and orchestra, but instead draw in those that otherwise may have never taken up an instrument. At the junior high and high school levels there is even less to be worried about. Very few students will drop their band instrument in favor of trying guitar, and those that do quite often may have been struggling in traditional ensemble classes anway.
Take a moment and consider the opportunities for incorporating some kind of guitar instruction into your school. You may discover that the benefits are quite significant. You may also discover what millions of people already have, that the guitar is a valid, beautiful instrument that deserves a place in our curriculum.
Check out a related article here.
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5 comments:
Actually when I left school in '92 the music teacher had introduced electric and bass guitar lessons (he also encouraged me to pursue music education and taught me classical guitar for a couple of years) and then a year later I taught one afternoon a week at a neighbouring high school. I think our area was very proactive in encouraging electric guitar as a "real" instrument.
That's great, sounds like you had a very progressive school. I started learning in my highschool, but it was the only one in my city at the time, with 9 high schools and dozens of elementary schools, that offered guitar classes. It always seems like the last classes to be added to schools curriculum are music and the first to get cut from the budget are music. Hopefully your school is a sign of a new attitude within the school systems.
Great post! My colleagues and I had been baffled by guitar teachers for years. They would meander through a mish-mash of music with their students and it all had no rhyme or reason. Why we would ask, don't guitar teachers follow a curriculum? So, we decided to write one and use the same concepts that all musicians need to know to be functional.
The result was the software by www.MusickEd.com which consists of 20 sequential lessons for 39 different instruments. Now the guitar program is thriving at The Dallas School of Music. Our students actually READ MUSIC (I know, ....a novel idea!) understand concepts like dynamics and articulations, can actually spell chords (not just learn their 'shape') and jam comfotably in minor keys. Their (guitar) learning is organized, quantifiable, and easily tested, in much the same way one would approach trumpet, saxophone or piano.
Schools would be wise to incorporate guitar into their curriculum in this manner.
Nice article! Education is very important, and even music history. I would love to see the history of instruements and music studied more in schools too.
Keep up the good work!
Hi, I love the guitar and I incorporate it into everything I do at school, whether teaching music or reading. I know what you mean about guitar teachers in the past seemingly teaching without rhyme or reason, that's why I am a certified elementary teacher, with a music endorsement. All of my guitar students learn how to read music, they learn the classical way and the modern way with tablature and power chords.
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