Tag Archives: lessons

Why I Teach Music Lessons

July 25, 2011   Russell Martin   No comments
hands-piano

I took classical piano lessons when I was young, and as I grew older I began to play by ear, write my own music, and read chord charts. I took music classes in college, and refined my knowledge of music theory, ear training, piano and voice. I taught myself how to play guitar when I started leading worship for camps and youth groups.

When I started being a worship leader in a local church, it wasn’t long before I had parents asking if I taught piano or guitar lessons. For the first few years I declined. Though I played very well, and understood music theory, I felt that the fact I did not have extensive classical training meant I could not teach.

What I found though was parents coming to me saying they simply wanted their children to enjoy music. They were not interested in recitals, and contests. They wanted their children to understand and enjoy playing their instruments. So I signed up my first guitar student on a trial basis.. for both of us. He did great, and apparently so did I.

Since that time I have had a number of students. Some tried music, and found they did not enjoy it or did not have time for it. Some found they liked it, and desired to go on to more formal training, and they found a teacher to better suit their needs. Most have spent at least a few years working with me before schedules became hectic, or they learned what that had set out to do.

Sometimes we use books, sometimes we learn popular songs, sometimes lessons are one on one, and sometimes they are in a group. I try to match the method to the student, how they learn, and what they want to accomplish. I try to make sure they all have an understanding of  things like note names, chords, rhythms, counting, dynamics, chord patterns and other basic music concepts.

It has been a joy to teach and see the moment that they “get it.” Whether “it” is a guitar chord their fingers finally go to, or a piano song they have struggled with for weeks. I love it when they tell me how they played “Jingle Bells” for grandma at Christmas, or how they loved to show their friends their new song.

It also has been a great way to bring in some extra money. With us trying to become debt free, including paying off adoption costs, every last bit helps.

Worship leaders.. have you been asked to teach lessons?

Would you consider doing so?

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5 Apps I Use to Teach Piano and Guitar Lessons

February 01, 2011   Russell Martin   2 Comments

For the past 5 or so years I have taught a handful of students guitar and piano lessons. Here are some of the iphone and ipad apps that I use on a regular basis when I teach.

1. Guitar Tool Kit- This one app contains a metronome, tuner, chord bank, chord finder, scales reference and more. I use the tuner for myself and also for my guitar students. The needle makes it easy to see whether the are flat or sharp. I use the metronome for both guitar and piano.

2. Flash Class-When I was taking piano lessons I took index cards and made flash cards to learn the notes. Flash Class allows me to drill students on learning their notes. It has various modes of testing. You can set the time limit per game, and per note. A learning mode repeats notes a student misses, to help them learn.

It comes with many standard practice decks like “Middle C Position” , “Treble Spaces” etc.. but also gives you the ability to make as many custom decks as you like. I have made one for guitar 1 string, guitar 2 strings and so on. This way I can drill students on learning their notes as the progress to the next string

3. Adobe Ideas- This drawing app is great for demonstrating anything I would use a chalkboard for. The best thing is that it allows me to use layers. I can draw a treble staff on the bottom layer, then have the students draw in notes, rests etc… using different colors on different layers.

4.Pocket Drums- This is a drumset on the ipad. It has many features like 8 kits, metronome, recorder and the ability to play with tracks in your music library. I use it mostly to help students learn things like down beats and up beats, and counting. We’ll play down beats on the bass drum, and up beats on the snare. Then maybe play 8th notes on high hat, creating more complicated patterns.

5. Evernote- No, not really a music app, but it is great for keeping track of students contact information, progress, assignments, payments etc… I create a page for each student. Since it updates iphone, ipad, and computer, I always have the information with me. I can also easily email assignments to parents.

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Using the IPhone to Teach Guitar and Piano Lessons

October 21, 2010   Russell Martin   No comments

I teach guitar and piano lessons. I love music, and it’s great to help others to enjoy it too.

I see most of my students once per week, and some once every other week. In those thirty minutes I try my best to explain, demonstrate, and encourage them to learn whatever concept or lesson we are learning that week. Then they walk out the door and I do not see them again for another 6 days.

I know they practice most days, but it is still easy to forget how a song goes, or that exact fingering. And once they forget, they either will get frustrated and stop practicing, or practice the wrong way and reinforce band habits.

Enter the iphone (or your favorite smartphone with video capability)

I recently have started taking short videos of myself playing, or demonstrating the song, or concept and put them up on my youtube channel. Then I send the link to the student or parents so they can be reminded of how to play the song.

Here’s an example:

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The Importance of Teaching

December 09, 2009   Russell Martin   No comments

basic mathWhen working with my youth worship team I often find myself emphasizing rehearsing the songs. After all, we generally have one event or another to prepare for so that means creating a songlist, and working up that music to perform or lead with.
I have realized, however, that there is a huge benefit to teaching, and not just rehearsing. When I first started to teach guitar lessons I told myself that I wanted my students to learn why a chord was what it was, what the names of the notes they were paying etc… Instead of just “play this chord”
I believed by teaching them how to learn to play guitar, then they could continue to learn whether I was teaching them or not.
The same thing should be true for worship teams. We should work with them to teach the basics of chord structures, rhythms, balance, tone, song structure, etc… So that they begin to recognize these things.
What’s cool is that when your group starts to learn these things, they begin to play musically together. You don’t have to explain every part of every song, but they begin to feel it.
For us this has resulted in more productive rehearsals, and more enjoyable ones too.
So what basic lessons would you teach a beginning praise band?

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Teaching Class Guitar Lessons Week 3

March 07, 2009   Russell Martin   No comments

This week was our 3rd week of guitar lessons and I wanted to get to the point of what most people want to do with their guitar, which is playing chord. I included in their worksheets a basic chord chart. I figured since we learned how to read a chord chart last week that they should do fine and I was right. I started with a basic chord progression of 1 4  5  4  1 and we started in the key of C so they played  C   F   G    F   C. Then I said I would just add one chord and we would play in a different key. I asked them to learn D. Then I asked what the chord progression would be in the key of G and we figured it out G  C  D  C  G. Then I added the A chord and we played the progression in the key of D which was D   G  A  G  D.  It was a great way to build on a progression having to only learn one new chord at a time.

After that we worked on strumming patterns. Started of just playing down and upstrokes 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &. Then I taught them to keep the same pattern but only actually strum at different times. I had half the class play on down beats only, and the other half play on upbeats only. We will build from that and add different patterns over the next three weeks.

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Teaching Class Guitar Lessons Week 2

March 06, 2009   Russell Martin   No comments

Last Thursday we had our second guitar lesson for the class. I actually gained one student, and everyone else was there as well. I asked the question at the beginning how many practiced and most of them said they spent atleast a little time working on stuff during the week.

I took some time to review and then we talked about tuning. The previous week we tuned using a tuner, but this week we talked about tuning using the 5th fret method. I think they actually took to it easier than the tuner. That may have been because they had been using the tuner for a week and the guitars were already close to being intune.

Afte that we reviewed how to make a scale and we played the G scale two octaves all the way up. Then we went over how to make a chord. I told them that making a chord was like carving a statue of an elephant.  To carve a statue of an elephant you take a block of marble and chip away anything that doesn’t look like an elephant. I then said making a chord is the same thing. We wrote down the three notes that make a G chord and then circled all those notes on the guitar fretboard. Then I showed them the fingering for a G chord and it made sense. My goal is to show them why something is not just what it is.

Finally we ended with chord progressions, and talked about what I IV V etc meant.

It was a great class. I had some requests to tape the class and put it up online. There are lots of online guitar classes out there but what do you think?

If you like this article then consider subscribing to Fork In the Road music by email or using your rss reader. Visit my contact page for more ways to stay in touch.

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Teaching Class Guitar Lessons Week 1

February 21, 2009   Russell Martin   4 Comments

On many occasions during the past year I have been asked to teach individual guitar lessons. Instead of doing private guitar lessons, like I have done in the past, I decided to try a different approach. I put a small article in our church magazine indicating that I would be teaching a 6 week class for beginning guitar players one hour, once a week. I had never tried teaching a guitar class before but I thought it might be fun, and at least be different. 

I advertised for about 3 weeks. I told people if they were interested to email me and let me know. I had a few inquiries on Sundays, a phone call or two and an email. I really was wondering what I should expect. Would anyone come? Who would they be?

Thursday night we had our first class. I had 12 students; 3 kids, 2 youth and 7 adults. As I was warned by a fellow blogger and worship leader, the first 20 minutes we spent on tuning. But we also were able to cover the parts of a guitar, how to hold a pick, alternate picking, the names of the strings, what half steps, whole, steps are, what makes up a major scale, how you get a triad, and how to play a G and C chord.

It was alot for one night and I will be interested to see how much they retain for the next week. I plan on using video to put demonstrations on our church website and using video to answer questions they have during the week. When I get some of those up I will definately show you the links.

So if you have taught or were going to teach a beginner guitar class, what would you cover in your next lesson?

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Worship Service Brainstorm #3

February 15, 2009   Russell Martin   No comments

A few months ago I proposed an idea to help worship leaders brainstorm and give ideas for worship services we were working on. The Worship Service Brainstorm is an opportunity for you to help out, give suggestions and ideas, and to gain some ideas and resources. 

This weeks worship service brainstorm comes from John Hagge at oursaviorlcms.org. 

Here is the information he is working with so far

Date of Service- 3/29/2009

Possible Scriptures: None as yet however given the thought from below it would be from Proverbs or the lessons of the day – series B Jer. 31:31-34 Heb. 5:1-10 & Mark 10:32-45

Title or Topic- Unkown as of yet

Songs- Unknown

Other Elements- I really had hoped to have more info but I plan to discuss this with our youth on Sunday morning and giving them some assignments. BUT one idea that our youth board had was to have (as the sermon) a skit that is a spin off of the TV are you smarter that a fifth grader; only our “show” would be “Are you smarter that a Confirmand?”

So what’s next? Leave your suggestions. Maybe you have a song that would go well, or you  have done a skit that would work. Leave links to items posted on your own blog or others. Just get the dialogue going and lets help each other out.

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Lessons Learned from My Dogs- #1 Let It Go

January 26, 2009   Russell Martin   1 Comment

I have 4 dogs and a cat. Each one has their own personality and quirks and I love them all. The amazing thing is that for the most part they all get along, even the cat. What has suprised me though is how, by watching them interact, I have learned some really great lessons.

I thought I would take a chance to break from my usual posts about chords, or music, or worship, to share some of these insights with you from time to time.

This evening we were sitting in the living room watching tv. As usual Jaeda our Cocker Spaniel was on the back of the couch, Ultra had claimed the love seat and Honey, the Lab/Greyhound was laying in the middle of the floor chewing on a nylabone. That’s when Mia, the fourth dog, walked right up to Honey, put her mouth on the nylabone and took it away. Mia walked away about five feet, laid down and began to chew on her recently stolen treasure.

I know if that had happened to me I would have done one of two things. Either gone over and taken it right back, or gone and complained to a higher authority about how something had been taken from me and it wasn’t fair.

So what was Honey’s response? Honey looked at Mia, then got up, walked over to the “toy” box and picked out another chew toy. She did not growl, she did not whine, she just moved on. She could have held on and fought but she just let it go.

What did I learn? Sometimes it’s best to just let it go. I recall this verse from 2 Timothy.

“Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful.  2 Timothy 2:23″

As I look through my day I can see countless times where I get into a discussion or argument that really doesn’t matter in the end, when the best thing for me to do would be to get up, go find something else, and just let it go. Earlier in the verse 4 it says:

“No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs—he wants to please his commanding officer.”

Before getting involved in one of these discussions, or arguments I really need to ask, “Does getting involved with this have anything to do with what God is wanting me to do? Does it please Him?” This question even cuts out those things that may not be harmful, but just are not relevant to me or my ministry or my calling.

So my question to you. How much of your day is spent in discussions, arguments or quarrels when it would really be best to just walk away and let it go?

Why is this important to do?

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National Youth Workers Convention- Part 1

November 22, 2008   Russell Martin   1 Comment

This weekend I am attending the National Youth Workers Convention in Nashville TN. I have attended many of these events in the past years, especially when I was the youth director, but now since I have moved into a different role, (I am a volunteer and work with the youth band) I am viewing this conference differently. I used to come with my seminars already chosen about being a youth director, or setting up a youth group, or the best games for youth groups. Now I am looking at things like the course I took yesterday on how to be a transformational leader, or spiritual disciplines, and things like that.

The thing that always awesome are the general sessions and times of worship and teaching that occur there. Yesterday they started off with Mercy Me, David Crowder, Joe Castillo (The sand art guy) and Frances Chan.

Well… we are about to head off to lunch and a super seminar. I hope to share some of the lessons learned with you in future posts. Oh.. and for all you twitter folk you can follow what’s going on by searching the tag #nywc.

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