Karlsson on the roof: “..I am clever, reasonably fat man in my best years” Little Brother: “Which are the best years?” Karlsson: “All of them!” (quoted from Astrid Lindgren’s renown children’s book “Karlsson On The Roof”, 1955) You don’t need to be smart or fat to learne the guitar although it may help. The truth… Continue reading
Posts Tagged → Teaching
Choosing Repertoire for Classical Guitar Students
Twice a year I have to think seriously about the repertoire that my students at the academy are going to play. Luckily, my colleague Heiki took some time in summer to update our repertoire lists. The list goes together with the study program. My students are mainly studying to become guitar teachers so they have… Continue reading
The Sources of Information for a Guitar Teacher
A (guitar)teacher should always know more than the students and often this is the case. However, young people crawl around the Web, talk to many people and have opinion on everything. How to beat them? The only way is to keep reading. Education is a life-time process and if you give up, you’ll be in… Continue reading
The Best Age for Taking up the Guitar
Karlsson on the roof: “..I am clever, reasonably fat man in my best years” Little Brother: “Which are the best years?” Karlsson: “All of them!” You don’t need to be too smart or fat to start learning the guitar although it may help 🙂 But the truth is that all the years are the best… Continue reading
What Makes a Good Guitar Lesson
The most common way to learn to play the guitar or any other instrument is to get a good teacher and attend lessons. Of course, you should practice on your own between lessons. Lesson is just a short happy occasion when you meet your teacher, get your homework evaluated and what else? Let’s see what… Continue reading
Get Started with Hammer-on and Pull-off
If you play mostly chords on the guitar then probably you haven’t heard or thought about the legato technique on the guitar – hammer ons and pull offs. Once you need to play the melody then those techniques are essential. Legato means to join the notes smoothly and this term is used most often in… Continue reading
On the Speed of the Scales on the Classical Guitar
A common aspect of the guitar playing technique that causes much trouble is playing the scales at fast tempos. Arpeggios and chords are more convenient so those problems seem more realistic to overcome. But what to do with the scales? Specially when plucking strings with fingers not a pick. About how fast tempos are we… Continue reading