Necessity is the Mother of Invention
Many times in the last 40 years of teaching, I have been asked by my younger students, especially the boys, to teach them guitar. I have succeeded with the older children, but for the younger children the guitar is a very confusing instrument. First of all it is upside down when in playing position; the high notes are on the bottom strings and the low ones are on the top strings. Even a very young child can tell you that one must go up the hill to get a higher view. Then there are two E’s among the open notes two octaves apart; the high E is on the bottom string and the low E is on the top string. For a child, that is just “mind boggling” and crazy. An adult who has had any musical experience can figure this out, but for a child, it just does not make any sense.
Many times a teacher will approach this problem by teaching chord positions, but a young child wants to play a tune they know and that will impress their friends. That is something that is not possible with a young child playing just chords.
I have an eleven year old grandson who tried hard to learn the guitar only to quit in frustration. His four year old sister is using the Animal Notes to learn piano, and that gave him an idea. “Why don’t you write a book using the Animal Notes to teach the guitar? He wants it so badly that I decided to work on it for him. The new book on this web page is the result of this endeavor. I am teaching six young people, including my grandson, using this book with good success. Two of the children are teenagers who are good note readers thanks to band, but told me they just could not seem to understand the makeup of the guitar. When learning about the Animal Note method from one of my student’s sisters, they asked me to teach them guitar. They are having a lot of fun, and they tell me that for the first time they understand how the guitar is organized. They are delighted because at last they feel like they are learning to play it.
If you have a child who wants to learn the guitar, or is having difficulty learning with standard methods, I hope you will give this book a chance.
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