Originally Posted by ljguitar
Hi HHP...
As a teacher, I think the things you listed would sure be stages one goes through on their way to becoming a better player. But for the record, I don't approach teaching/learning from an avoiding/preventing/correcting mistakes perspective.
People want to learn to play guitar, not work an instrument. Our children learn to talk without knowing how to read or write by mimicking peers and adults for several years before they start school.
In much the same way, guitar beginners can be taught the basics of playing songs, and then steered into the educational side later.
While technically the things you listed might be 'mistakes' I'm not sure how 'big' they are, and they are pretty common (along with a whole other set of things that need to be accumulated in the process). But I'd be the last to publish a list of ''20 Things to avoid on the way to learning to play the guitar'' - that just doesn't sound like fun at all!
This doesn't mean basics are unimportant, but they should not dominate the landscape. Glad I didn't learn to golf that way.
Steps I take with beginner students involve getting a proper setup with a weight of strings matched to their stage of development. At the beginning, being able to play easily is more important than working on tone, so lighter strings and a close setup are often helpful.
I also teach them proper posture (a never ending task).
Then building the chord vocabulary and learning 5 major scales in first position are going to reap huge dividends down the line, so I would teach them scales in C, A, G, E and D and all the associated chords for each major key.
Some simple etudes can be helpful in just learning/knowing the fingerboard for the first 4-5 frets, and learning common chord progressions is helpful too.
I find song-based teaching more helpful than just chord knowledge, scales, and etudes, so beginners need to have some basic songs to sing/play as well. If they sing (even poorly), it makes this stage of the process so much easier.
I always asked who are their favorite singer/players and had them bring in a song or two (we often pull up examples on YouTube) and we learn the chords. To get them to play along, I'd play the progression and let them record it on their phone, camera or other basic audio/video recorder.
Then they can use it at home as a practice tool.
I don't teach classical music, so I watch for a phase as they develop where they need to learn to count and I'll loan them a metronome for a month and they can take it home. After that, I'm not much for metronomes, as they tend to sterilize music.
I'm not trying to turn out precision mechanics, but organic musicians, so though I want players to know and understand how to count, how to stay at tempo, and play along with others.
I don't find metronomes do much but frustrate people. So I use them sparingly to get players up and running, and find that after that within a year or so, active players learn to hold tempos without a lot of outside help.
I teach them to hear/envision a key phrase from the song they are going to do in their head before they start and to base the tempo they play at on that.
OK that's enough for now…
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