An Accepting Student
A new guitar student began taking lessons from me on Monday. She is in her early teens and has studied piano in the past. Her piano training is going to allow her to make rapid progress as a guitarist. She already understands the idea of major and minor chords. She also realizes that she will eventually need to memorize a chord progression in order to learn a song on guitar. Most fortunately, when I asked her if her piano instructor emphasized the importance of proper technique, she said yes. I then explained that I teach a technique that allows for proper blood circulation into her hands and consequently allowed for better playing. She nodded her head in acceptance. I then showed her the proper right hand technique and she simply did it ! She had not ever learned any bad habits yet. The left hand technique introduction was equally successful. She has the potential to utilize better technique than myself in the near future. If only it could always be this way with a student. My pre-experienced former students often have such outrageously bad habits that I don’t even begin to change them. If one of them had inquired about Guitar Craft, I would have corrected them, but no one around here has ever heard of Guitar Craft or expressed an interest in learning more about it. This new student is simply learning the technique that I am teaching her and accepting it. I have told her that she will see lots of guitarists, even good guitarists, play guitar differently than I am teaching her, but that it is my responsibility to teach her the correct way to do it.
With acceptance,
I.C.