After School Enrichment

Electric Guitar

An electric guitar is provided to each student to use during class. The first thing that comes to mind for most when mentioning electric guitars is very loud music enhanced with sound effects. Although that may often be the case there are other features to an electric guitar that make it ideal for kids. The slim profile and magnetic pickups makes it not only much kinder and forgiving to hands but also ergonomic for small frames. Another great feature the electric guitar has to offer is to play silently with headphones. In a class setting it givers students the ability for one on one time with their instructor and independent practice without disturbing one another.

Classes

Level One Guitar Class

Learning guitar fundamentals and keeping it fun! Perfect for beginners. This class is designed to get student comfortable and playing guitar immediately. Using chord diagrams and simplified instrument specific notation called tablature, I‘ve created a course that allows students who have never even played guitar before a way to begin reading music and playing familiar rock and pop songs as if they’ve studied the instrument for years. In turn, students begin excelling quickly. Their rapid progress offers a sense of accomplishment, confidence and incentive to keep on playing.

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Level 2 Guitar Class

This class is great for a student who has previously taken my class or another guitar class and want to take their playing to a more serious level. Students will learn to read and play traditional notation along with chords. This course will follow a method book while also incorporating advance techniques and style. Full chords will be expected. Introduction to Power Chords in preparation for Bar Chords. Students will learn the importance of scales and begin to develop solo techniques.

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What does a group lesson look like?

Example of a group guitar lesson

A typical Level One group

classes start with a drum circle were we play a rhythm game called "Pass the mic". This is our ice breaker. While passing a rhythm in a circle students also say hello and give an update on how they are feeling or something exciting they want to share with the class.

Music topic of the day. This is either music theory, a vocabulary term, chord, technique or a composer/musician. Each topic has a corresponding book I read or activity to to complete.

Warm up and finger exercises. Either a game of finger play or well as single note warm up on the guitars is done. Students gain comfort and confidence with correct hand and finger placement as well as developing muscle memory.

Lesson of the day is explained and demonstrated to the group. Q and A is then done before students go the their independent workstations.

Students practice at their independent work stations with their headphones on. Their teacher will go to each student and plug into their headphones to check their progress. Students receive feed back and assistance from their teacher similar to a private one on one lesson.

End of class students have a chance to play for their peers, share a trick they may have discovered or ask for peer feed back.