Guitar Lessons at Music Pillars

Core Principles of Guitar Lessons

HAVING FUN WHILE STILL LEARNING AND GROWING AS A GUITAR STUDENT

Guitar Lessons at Music Pillars focus on developing well-rounded musicians who can thrive in different musical environments. Our students learn to read standard music notation, chord charts, and tablature so that they can effectively learn different types of music and play in different types of ensembles. We may also help a student learn songs by ear to develop that challenging but valuable skill. Guitar Students in our rock bands play acoustic and electric guitars, learn songs from many different genres and eras of music, and may even improvise a guitar solo!  

Rock Bands - Ensemble Opportunity for Guitar Students

The joy of music is multiplied when you do it with others! Our Rock Bands provide excellent opportunities for the growth and development of a guitar student, while also making friends and enjoying the social life of being in a band! Students audition to join a band and are placed with fellow students of similar abilities. Many performances around town soon follow!

We have over 100 brief guitar videos for students to reference in-between lessons as they work through their first method book! See one of them here.

Guitar Students Perform Frequently at Friday Fest Recitals

Students who go to lessons and then perform once every 6 months will struggle to become good performers. Would you ever sign up your son or daughter to learn to play soccer by having them go to practice for 5 months and then play in one single game that lasts only a few minutes? Sounds silly right? But time and time again we see students subjected to this ineffective tradition of performing once or twice a year in a terrifying recital, and never growing and learning to be a better and more confident performer. There is no replacing performance experience!

Students should be up on stage playing 2-4 songs every 6-10 weeks. They should learn and be taught to be confident performers, and that will never happen with such little stage time. They need to be on stage more often, and they need to perform several pieces of music so that they are up on stage 3-10 minutes each time. This gives their heart a chance to slow down some, and so they begin to relax while up there. This process should be repeated over and over and over again. There is no substitute or secret sauce for becoming a confident performer. It takes much more time on stage than what is traditionally done. Too many teachers and studios focus on their student’s playing a piece of music flawlessly on stage. The emphasis should be on the development of the student. The notes are important too, but more important than a perfectly executed piece of music is the maturation and development of a child to learn that they can be in front of people, and be confident, and even enjoy themselves. We develop students who can enjoy themselves and own their experience on stage - and enrich their audiences lives with music. 

How do the Pillars apply to learning guitar?

Love

The guitar is one of the best instruments to channel your creativity. It is easy to write your own songs with guitar accompaniment. Learning your favorite songs is a great stepping stone to learning how to write your own songs and further develop your musical artistry.

Pattern Recognition

The guitar is a very visual instrument with many shapes and patterns that exist all over the fretboard. Having a working knowledge and understanding of these shapes and patterns helps you become more competent in your playing.

Theory

Pattern recognition and music theory go hand in hand while learning the guitar. Understanding the shapes and patterns on the fretboard helps you to understand note locations, chords, scales, and transposition. Since guitar is both an accompanying and solo instrument, it is great for learning the theory behind both harmony and melody as well.

Dexterity

Developing proper hand technique is an essential part of becoming a good guitar player. Learning and devoting a portion of your practice time into technical exercises is very helpful as it equips you to play the music you love!

Audiation

Guitar is a great instrument to assist in learning the skills of playing by ear. Students can learn to recognize common chord progressions as well as various types of strumming and picking patterns.

Sight-Reading

The skill of looking at a piece of music and being able to perform what is written on the page is a very useful and effective skill to have. Standard music notation, chord charts, lead sheets, or tablature are all different forms of written music that you should know how to interpret.

Improvisation

The guitar has always been an enormously expressive instrument for improvisation.  With experience, you can learn the skill of improvising on the spot as they perform for an audience using a combination of your knowledge of music theory, proper guitar technique, audiation skills, and pattern recognition.

Composition

The versatility of the guitar makes it an incredible tool for composing music. If you enjoy writing your own songs, guitar is a great way to figure out backing chords to accompany your voice. For strictly instrumental music, the guitar is highly versatile as well. It is possible to play a melody, a bass line, and chords on a guitar all at the same time!