1 Reply by GuitarAddict

(13 replies, posted in Acoustic)

Yeah, as I saw on the internet, she really has some problems that seem like dyslexia, but I guess she somehow figured to read well, like through pictures of the words or something, because now she is quite fast and fluent reader (though she usually reads quietly, and rarely loud). If there is a word "number" she will remember it by shape, like "number" and connect it with numbers, but she never read like "n-u-m-b-e-r". But with every new language she wants to learn, she has quite a bit of a problem learning correct pronunciation and often misspells it and mixes letters here and there. She also has very messy handwriting that no one can read really, even herself sometimes. I find it strange she was never assessed for any learning problems, while she clearly shows some difficulties in some areas, including time management and disorganization (forgets things often, and often asks the same question, like how much should she practice a day and such).

I made and gave her some very basic tab last week and asked her to try it (it is mostly open strings, and fingers 1, 2, and occasionally 3, on just low E string and it's not long). I asked her to try and then tell me how it goes. She said she still has to turn it around in her head to see it the right way (as in her head somehow low E string is placed below, and high strings are upper strings). That the lines look all the same and the numbers all get jumbled somehow. She said it's the same problem with classical notation. She sees the notes, but doesn't differentiate fast enough between all those lines and spaces and then like something in her head stops and she can't figure out what the tones are and becomes utterly confused.  Though she can find all the keys on the piano by visual memory.
Then I asked her to put a guitar on her knees like she would play the piano, to put her notebook with a tab on guitar, and the strings will be in the same order visually as on the tab. Then when she sees number 3, she has to put her finger on the third fret of the string that matches the one on the tab.  Guess what, when she called me today afternoon, she said she could finally find the appropriate frets and strings and could play it! Now, she would just have to convert it somehow to normal guitar hold and find the same thing when holding guitar normally after few tries. I hope she could do it somehow.

Go to forum: Acoustic

2 Reply by GuitarAddict

(13 replies, posted in Acoustic)

Yeah, I'm thinking of leaving all the theory to the side. She progressed pretty fast though. We started with having fun when playing, we often played together at lessons as fast as she got a handle of strumming and playing some basic chords (like A, G, D, E..) She really has no problem with down up, up down strumming patterns, changing rhythm, muting strings with her strumming hand and learning new chords (if they aren't barre chords though). She learned all the basic open 7th chords, minor7 chords, major chords, minor chords and open sus chords (sus2, sus4).
She has some trouble with barre chords, but only because she doesn't really understand which tone is the starting tone of the barre (with G major barre chord, first finger is on the third fret on the low E string, which is G tone - she doesn't really remember that, and many times also places it to G#, or even F#, we are really training this still). She can hold them pretty well, her guitar hold is fine, she isn't pressing too hard and has no problems with painful fingers if she doesn't play them for too long (I told her not too, even when she wants, because it can be painful then until the hands are well used to playing for a long time).

So we did a couple of songs (from rock, to pop, to easier country, to rock'n'roll, and as her daughter is 16 years old and quite good singer, she has many options to play the songs. Sometimes I join in too. When I asked her if she wants to just go on with strumming, and chords, she said yeah, but that she also wants to learn some theory, she wants to become good fingerpicker one day and wants to be able to read tabs. She is totally amazed when she sees anyone play that way. So that's why I started showing her some theory (around 4 months ago, but not in every lesson, it's like every second, or third, to not annoy her too much with that), and what the tones are. She said she also wants to be able to play some easier solo once and that she would want to understand guitar well someday.

Yeah, she told me that she was a lefty when little, but had to change the hand for right one when she started school (teachers wanted all students to write with right hand at her primary school). So she can really write and function with both hands, and she started with guitar as right-handed, beucause she wanted to learn it "normal way" and she didn't really tell me she was lefty once until we started with theory. But now she is very good strummer for her level (9 months). She can strumm both with a pick and without but has some trouble with proper finger placements without a pick if we don't take it really slowly, step-by-step, because she can't just read a tab and play what is written if it's a "normal" tab.

I have tought of her having some minor learning problems (she has some trouble differentiating left and right in ordinary things, but can work around it, she reads words as a picture of the word, not by letters, she has some minor memory problems if it's not visually supported..), but was never diagnosed with anything, or unrecognized, as it was a long time ago when she went to school and learned by visual memory. Otherwise she can tune her own guitar with a tuner very well, she knows that on 12th fret all the tones repeat (EADGBE), she can sing in pitch with no problems and has good sense of rhythm. She is otherwise very creative, has good intuition, her logic (if not for music theory) is quite good in ordinary things (she said so), she loves to write her own songs (chords and lyrics), she showed me some and they are guite innovative, she loves changing strumming patterns within a song, she knows how to play quiet (piano), loud (forte), etc., and appropriately changes it within songs.

I started to teach her theory around four months ago, because basically she asked me to, but is facing problems with that. We usually have a 60 min lesson, and if we're not working on theory, there is just a couple of minutes of explanation, and the other is having fun and playing, so I'd not think that too little fun is the problem. With theory is around 30 min explanation, 30 min of practice, flexible though).

I'll also look up if she might be dyslexic or something, but she was otherwise said as being gifted.

Go to forum: Acoustic

3 Topic by GuitarAddict

(13 replies, posted in Acoustic)

Hi!
I have some problems with one of my guitar students and if anyone has any suggestions, I'd appreciate it very much! I know the post is quite long, but I didn't know how else to write all that things in short. I'm really in need of some advice.

So here it goes... she is an adult beginner on acoustic guitar (around 30 years old). I never encountered someone like this before, and so didn't few other private guitar teachers, especially when an adult is in question.

She is very motivated to learn the guitar and wants to play well and understand it so badly, but often feels bad about herself because of her problems.

Otherwise she always had quite good grades in school and is quite intelligent in other things. She doesn't have any special needs as far as I know, she was never diagnosed with anything. She had 2 years of piano in her primary school years (it was a looong time ago, though, and she forgot most of the things by now) and her pitch recognition is quite good, rhythm sense too. She can copy me to the beat, but when she has to play it without hearing or watching me first, she is quite lost. Now she is learning acoustic guitar for about 9 months.

She understands rhythm, strumming patterns, and all the open chords very well, the trouble starts when we try to learn any form of musical notation (may it be tab or notes), anything about finding tones on the guitar, and she has lots of trouble with fingerstyle techniques because she can't read any notation, hence the trouble with remembering it. Sometimes it seems like she can't grasp a concept of tones and strings.

When I tried to teach her barre chords, she knows F and B chord, also F minor and B minor, but whenever I teach her other barre chords, she can never remember the right name of the chord. The problem is she can't remember tones on the strings. She says it looks all the same to her. We tried learning by repetition, tried games, I explained the chords and tones on few different ways, we tried playing songs with the new chord we learned, we worked on muscle memory, I also wrote all new chords down and she has a fingering chart in her theory notebook. As far as it goes, it took us nearly half a year to figure out barre chords for the first four frets (F, F#, G, G#, A#, B, C, C#). We could do it by me writing down on what dot is what tone, by fingering chart I made, and heavy repetition. And sometimes she still fails it without a fingering chart or seeing what tone is on what dot. I don't know what else to do. Otherwise she learnes open chords quickly, because she memorizes them by shape, not by tones.

Next problem are tones on the guitar. We did all those simple beginner exercises as 0,1,2, 0,1,2,3, or 0,1,2,3,4, etc. I tried to show her what the notes are first on low E string, later on A... she never made it past low E string. When she tries to find a tone by pitch, she doesn't take into account that the tones follow one another as semitones. So she finds wrong note more often than she finds the right one.

What would solve most of the problems listed here, would be if she knew how to read any form of musical notation for guitar.
I tried to teach her how to read the tablature which seemed like easier option because the finger placement is already shown there. She could not understand how to read it, I even asked some other guitar teachers how they would do it, and nobody could explain it to her so she could understand. Then I tried writing an inverted tablature and guess what, she could read it, almost sight-read! The problem is because it is an inverted, upside-down tablature where the lowest string (low E) is actually written on the line when you usually find a high E string tones. And you rarely find such tabs anywhere. So I have to manually convert everything she wants to play this way for her to be able to read it at all. I don't know how to teach her to read normally written tabs after so many attempts.

But there is the thing... when I asked her which string is the highest and which the lowest, she said that to her it would be logical if high E string would be in the place of low E string, actually if all strings would be placed in that order on the guitar. I asked her with which hand she writes and she said she was a lefty, but when in school she had to switch to right hand, because it was "not right to be lefty" and she is now like righty. I think there is a problem.
I adviced her to buy a left handed guitar and learn to read lefty tabs, or to replace the strings to different order, but she says she's used to strumming with the right hand and doesn't wanna change as she is very good with strumming chords now.

After a few failed attempts, I asked her how she best memorizes things, and she said in pictures. So actually I would have to write and color everything down for her to 'get it'. I don't really have many ideas on how to do it, as it seems she is a straight visual thinker and not so good auditory/practical learner. Does anybody have any experience with highly visual learners?
I know she does best when she copies everything I do and when I show her everything in front of her or draw a picture of the tones (we progressed pretty fast that way, but she often needs to look at pictures to remember things later, or has to see me play and copy it again and again), but I would want her to once be independent and not to need me for every single thing to show to her. I'm quite lost here.

I also asked her what her goals are and she said that she would want to be a country guitarist once or to be in a some kind of acoustic guitar band. This is a high goal, and we're stuck here with the thing called "musical theory and basic understanding of tones on strings".

I would really appreciate any help on this matter.

Go to forum: Acoustic