Originally Posted by: ChristopherSchlegelThanks for the mention & the links! FWIW, I think it's good that GT provides the option for students to follow mine or Lisa's curriculum.[/quote]
Me too!
Originally Posted by: manXcatP.S. I just belatedly realised Christopher follows a simple chord approach too earlier in his Fundamentals 1 program.[/quote]
Originally Posted by: ChristopherSchlegelYes, that's just a standard part of traditional guitar pedagogy. It can be a helpful small first step for beginners that are struggling.[br]Noted. I'd have thought it remedial methodology, -ref: paraphrased, 'struggling beginners' rather than "traditional".
[quote=ChristopherSchlegel]Another reason I think it's helpful is that it matches basic music theory (& piano) pedagogy: a chord only requires 3 notes. If you skip that knowledge, which some guitar programs do, you wind up thinking that the only way to make any given chord is the static open shapes.
The flaw in this rational [u]as I perceive it[/u] is the 'whoosh'! factor. At that phase of the introduction to initial chords, with [u]everything[/u] being new and the average student in a physically challenged and information overload state guaranteeing load-sheding, said 'average' beginner isn't going to pick up on that, or if s/he does, relate meaningfully to its significance. The slower remedial almost certainly won't. [br][br]Certainly KISS, but not so much as to boor, obfuscate or confuse with information not relevant to the immediate objective. Inarguably that info is necessary, and [u]saliently[/u] useful later, and should be introduced when the student can relate to it and its importance then, not during the guitar equivalent of a baby discovering their fingers and toes for the first time. Hey that's just my perception and view. If I might use an experience orientated analogy? [br][br]I saw the same thing instructing ab-initio studs in aviation all the time over the years I was doign that. Although you spend almost as much time on the ground doing a pre-flight lesson briefing explaining the theory and outlining the objectives prior to the flight, once airborne in the dynamic environment, the student is so in awe of just being in the air by everything going on around them, time and performance pressure (rate) constraints ensure load shedding and brain fade obscures all efficiacy but demonstrate, immitate, practice. "Oh is it time to land already?". Nevertheless, although taught in lesson steps or building blocks, effects of controls, straight and level, climbing and descending, turning, etc other than the TIF when the student is so swamped by excitement they're absorbing next to nothing (think holding a guitar in the music store for the first time with the sales assistant 'speaking in tongues') it's important correct technique is taught from the outset and that focused upon so the understanding of the basic concepts and actions required to affect them is absorbed. Correction and the self-correlation of why can and does occur later with exposure and time as the student develops.
[quote=ChristopherSchlegel]So, it helps physical technique by only requiring one finger & minimal strumming. And it helps conceptually to set the precedence that a chord requires a minimum of 3 notes & there is a variety of ways to play any given chord.
[br]Although the theory of the above sounds good hypothetically, in pragmatic terms [u]IMV[/u], I don't think it what you're referring to really resonates let alone sinks in [u]at that stage[/u] when all a newbie student really wants to do is play a few open chords as quickly as possible so they can put together a three chord song using traditionally fingered and sounding -vs easy or simple, resembling something song wise with which they are familiar.
Anyway, I didn't enjoy easy and it didn't help me in any way,. More's the point, initially I was confused by it in a "What the!" sense. Once I realised what was going on and categorised it pointless + infantile as applicable to me (hey, my view, if someone else enjoys that brain brake methodolgy so be it) I bypassed it as extraneous & obstructive. Without apology for my view, noting neither group hugs style diplomacy nor superficiality are strong suites of mine. Just calling it as I experienced and perceive it.
Why this view? Undoubtedly past experience in a (non-guitar) tough 'take no prisoners' style learning and instructing environments where high demonstrated progress performance rates and standards were the expected norm transferring in application to guitar abetted possibly because I was a returning guitar student who'd done a couple of years learning and playing acoustic and electric guitar in my late adolescence albeit with a 40+ year complete hiatus since - vs multiple half-hearted attempts and fails during that time.
No doubt also due to the nature of how I learn, the simple chords approach was something I [u]personally[/u] found superfluous as in pointlessly obuscational rather than in any way useful. That said, I do appreciate others might not. I comprehend your explanation of why it's included in the GT syllabus as it is. I also get totally that it's not [u]about me[/u] but a public of whom Fender's survey stats revealing 90% of new guitar buying beginners give up trying to learn guitar within the first 12 months.
Cheers mate.[br][br]
