The diversity of my musical background has played a huge role in the development of my teaching philosophy in that it’s helped me to realize the sheer size of the universe of music. The majority of my time has been spent with the guitar, mostly in the genres of rock, speed metal and classical. In addition to these, my other areas of study have included flamenco, jazz and classical piano. Through these pursuits, I’ve learned that musical principles can be taught through any style of music. Approaches to teaching these various styles are quite different as there are also differences between teaching children as compared to teenagers and adults. Through my teaching career, I’ve developed specific teaching curriculums for each various instrument, style and level/age group. These teaching approaches are broken up into categories and are shown below. But first, I’ll start by discussing the two basic categories that guitar study falls into.

“SOLO CLASSIC GUITAR” VERSUS “GUITAR AS AN ACCOMPANING INSTRUMENT”

Putting labels on musical genres and relating specific instruments to them can sometimes get tricky but these two basic approaches to the guitar need to be understood.

“Solo classic guitar” refers to a playing technique where the right-hand fingers, rather than a pic, are used to pluck the strings. This allows for all parts of the music (bass, accompaniment and melody) to be played by the one instrument, similar to what is often done on the piano. “Classic guitar” refers to the type of instrument. It has nylon strings and is normally the type of instrument used as a “solo instrument” and therefore, we arrive at the term “Solo classic guitar.”

The steel-string acoustic and electric guitars are typically played using a pic and are considered to be “accompanying instruments.” This means that they are intended to play only a part of the music and are used in conjunction with other instruments such as bass guitar, drums and/or vocals. The electric guitar –specifically as it relates to the genre of rock music– can often play the most prominent part of the music. Electric guitar (rock guitar) is by far the most popular style of guitar in the world today.