While many Americans agree with that statement, most public schools
consider music an "extra" that gets short shrift. Mike Blakeslee,
executive director of MENC, the National Association for Music Education,
says, "There is such an emphasis on testing nowadays that teachers
must focus entirely on subjects like math and reading. There just isn't
enough time in the school day for many schools to have meaningful music
programs." Music enthusiasts such as Will Schmid, Bill Purse, and
Jessica Baron Turner have begun to challenge that notion with new guitar-oriented
programs that bring music back into the classroom.
In 1994, representatives from Blakeslee's group and two other organizations—GAMA,
the Guitar and Accessories Marketing Association and NAMM, the International
Music Products Association—formed the Guitar Task Force for Revitalizing
Guitar in Music Education. Focusing on grades 6 through 12, the task
force's primary goal was to increase the number of students participating
in active music-making, not simply attending passive classes
such as music appreciation.
Bill Purse, one of the original task force members, says, "Typically,
a middle or high school music program consists of band, orchestra, and
choir, and about 20 percent of the student body participates. That means
that, on average, 80 percent of the kids aren't getting any music education
at all. We wanted to improve access to music-making for those students."
The ultimate outcome was an intensive, five-day workshop for middle
and secondary music teachers. In the
summer of 1995, the first of the jointly sposored Teaching Guitar Workshops
was held at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The workshops
are now offered at six sites around the country (one is for music teachers
of younger kids, grades 4–7). Each workshop accepts 25 teachers,
and all attendees receive three units of graduate or continuing education
credit. The program boasts about 650 alumni, virtually all of whom have
subsequently added guitar to their schools' curriculums. (Before a teacher
is accepted into the workshop, an administrator at his or her school
must sign a contract to start a guitar program within a year and a half
of completion of the course.) An estimated 200,000 students—about
half of them girls—have been exposed to the guitar as a result
of these workshops.
Most of the workshop attendees teach band, orchestra, or choir. About
a third of them have never played the guitar at all, a third have some
experience with it, and the rest are more advanced players. The comprehensive
workshop syllabus starts with basics and covers such topics as strumming,
improvisation, beginning solos, and beginning classical technique. Attendees
learn an impressive amount of repertoire, as well as teaching methods
and curriculum ideas. By the end of the week, even those who have never
played guitar before can return to their schools and teach their own
classes.
Why Guitar?
According to the workshop organizers, the guitar is
the perfect vehicle for getting kids into music, for many reasons. It's
relatively inexpensive, compared to instruments like the clarinet and
the violin, and it's appropriate for every style of music. Will Schmid,
past president of MENC and the workshops' current chairman, says, "It's
easy for kids this age to play songs on the guitar immediately, and
it's also the easiest instrument to keep playing. It's like riding a
bicycle: a student can play the guitar once a week or every other week
and still feel competent."
One of the most important reasons for the guitar's success is its
"hipness factor": it's a very appealing instrument, particularly
to adolescents. "Getting middle and high school students interested
in the guitar, and keeping them interested, is no problem," says
Schmid. The guitar even reaches "at risk" students. "We've
received letters from parents that say, 'The guitar class is the one
thing that made my child want to go to school.'"
The guitar also provides a new entry point into a school's music program.
A student who doesn't get involved in band or orchestra right away usually
gets left behind. But an 11th grader, for example, can easily start
taking guitar in school as a first musical experience.
Around the same time the work-shops originated, several high-visibility
committees developed the National Standards for Arts Education. Subtitled
"What every young American should know and be able to do in the
arts," the standards specify the level of competence that students
should achieve in the arts by the time they complete high school. Again,
the guitar does an exceptional job of meeting all nine of the content
standards for music education. "Singing, playing, improvising,
composing—all of these activities come naturally with the guitar,"
says Schmid. "Students are very motivated to write songs and make
up solos, just like rock stars do." The guitar's conspicuous presence
throughout history also makes it easy to achieve another of the standards,
"Understanding music in relation to history and culture."
While teaching the blues form, for example, teachers can discuss the
birth of the blues in the context of African-American history.
Integrating guitar instruction into the classroom is one of the main
focuses of the collaborative workshops. During the week, attendees prepare
at least three lesson plans and present a final paper discussing how
they will use the material in their own classes. When the teachers return
to their schools, some start a new guitar class and others incorporate
the guitar into an already existing music program. Says Schmid, "It's
not a replacement for band or choir or orchestra; it's a complementary
offering that can help bring new vitality to a school's music program."
Many of the teachers claim that the new techniques they learned in the
workshop have helped improve their overall teaching.
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the workshop is that tuition
and materials are free for attendees. The teachers must pay only their
travel expenses and their room and board, which ranges from $180 to
$500 for the week. Thanks to the generosity of some major music manufacturers,
attendees receive a guitar and case worth $500 from such manufacturers
as Yamaha, Fender, Taylor, and Martin and about $300 worth of accessories
and teaching materials—a strap from Levy's, a Korg tuner, picks
from D'Andrea, strings from D'Addario, books from Hal Leonard and Mel
Bay, and so on. All the materials, guitar included, are for the teachers
to keep. During the workshop, teachers can try out both steel- and nylon-string
guitars and decide which is more comfortable for them.
The workshops have been so popular that in 1996 a higher-level class,
called Beyond the Basics, was begun for teachers who have been through
the first workshop and are looking for new ideas and resources. Teachers
are so motivated to expand their guitar programs that they pay the $600
Beyond the Basics tuition themselves.
Back in their schools, the biggest obstacle the workshop graduates face
is finding money for instruments and teaching materials. The workshops
suggest strategies, such as applying for grants, getting parental support,
and
arranging donations and leases from local dealers. "Most music
stores," says Schmid, "are very supportive of bringing more
music into schools. Some stores have even sponsored teachers to attend
the workshops. Retailers know that such programs are creating the musicians
of tomorrow." NAMM provides major funding for the workshops. Last
year, Sam Ash Music sponsored a site (paying the tuition for all 25
teachers), and this year Guitar Center and Mars Music are doing the
same.
Little Kids
What about younger children in elementary schools that
don't have band, orchestra, choir, or a music teacher? Jessica Baron
Turner, a music educator and award-winning author in Santa Cruz, California,
has created a program that gives pre-kindergarten through sixth grade
teachers the skills they need to bring guitars into the classroom. If
you're imagining the teacher standing in front of the room with the
only guitar, think again; these children are actually learning to play.
And in many classes, the guitar comes out a lot more often than during
the 30 minutes of designated "music time."
After several years of working in therapeutic and educational contexts
with children, music making, and guitar, Turner went on to receive graduate
training in the fields of psychology and learning disabilities. Her
work blending these disciplines eventually led her to establish Guitars
in the Classroom, a nonprofit program that operates under the auspices
of the San Francisco Foundation Community Initiatives Fund.
"Kids who can't read yet typically aren't accepted into music
lessons," says Turner. "But the greatest window for acquiring
basic musicality occurs before age six. A four-year-old, for example,
doesn't think about learning a melody—it's as basic as learning
to walk. Once a child reaches the age of six, however, conceptualization
overrides perception. The child starts thinking about what
she's doing; she's no longer in a purely receptive state. So it's important
to give children musical experiences when they're very young."
To help open the door to music for children during their most impressionable
years, Turner came up with the idea of offering public elementary school
teachers free guitar lessons. Starting with the premise that music is
for everyone—not just "real musicians"—she designed
an inspiring program for people with little or no musical experience
or free time in which to practice ("the typical classroom teacher,"
says Turner). In 1998, the first Guitars in the Classroom pilot program
took place in the Oak Grove School District in San Jose, California.
Now the organization assists communities across the country in developing
programs for teachers in their own local schools.
Typically, regional classes meet for an hour a week year-round. In
the first class, attendees learn how to hold the guitar and play an
open G chord for a long time, hitting the strings with their thumb or
a flatpick. They sing many different kinds of songs and learn to keep
strumming with a steady beat. Anyone too afraid to sing aloud is encouraged
to sing quietly with the group. The teachers play vocal games and discover
that voices don't have to be "beautiful" to express music.
Over time, people find their own voices and become more confident in
their singing abilities. About 25 percent of the teachers play the guitar
in their classrooms after only one lesson. Teachers come to the second
lesson so excited—"I got the kids clapping and singing, and
they loved it!"—that those who have yet to make the leap
get inspired to break out the guitars in their classrooms.
The information teachers learn from these programs can serve as the
only music experience children receive or be integrated into a school's
already-existing music program. Teachers are also provided with numerous
suggestions for integrating music into academic lesson plans. For example,
when a class of second graders is reading Alexander and the Terrible
Horrible No Good Very Bad Day, the teacher can introduce blues
music, and children can write blues lyrics from Alexander's point of
view. Songs can help students memorize scientific facts. Songs from
social movements can be incorporated into history lessons. Music is
also a natural for mathematics; it can teach children to count beats
and recognize numerical patterns. In addition to enhancing the regular
curriculum, guitars benefit classes in many other ways. Teachers can
use songs to ease the transition between activities, to help students
calm down or focus, and to encourage or discourage specific behavior.
Doug Breen, a teacher at Soquel Elementary School in California, had
been teaching kindergarten for five years when he got involved. "I
used to do a little bit of singing with the kids in class," he
says, "but I had no musical background and I was too intimidated
to do much more than that." Since he took a summer program, Breen
has played the guitar regularly in class. "Sometimes the kids are
too wound up to listen to a poem or a story, but they will always listen
to a song and sing along," he says. He also finishes each day with
a song. "When I take out the guitar, the kids sit down immediately
and get ready to sing. Being five years old and in school for the first
time can be an emotional roller coaster; the closing song provides stability
and consistency. And it's a very positive way to end the day—the
kids go home happy."
Guitarist Laurence Juber, a longtime GITC supporter, donated 21 guitars
to Breen's school, and over the past year all the students have learned
to play them in open-G tuning. "Children as young as three can
play in open-G tuning," says Turner, "and as they progress,
students make the transition into standard tuning." (SmartStart,
a book and a video Turner created using this method, is published by
Hal Leonard. A grant from Taylor Guitars provides free SmartStart
books and videos to participants, but it is not a necessary part of
the programs; teachers can use any method they like. A complete list
of sponsors who have contributed merchandise is available at www.guitarsintheclassroom.com/company.html.
During a typical 40-minute music class at Soquel Elementary, teacher
Diane Bock splits the children into three rotating groups: one group
plays guitars, one sings, and one accompanies on Orff instruments including
bass bars and xylophones. (Orff Schulwerk is a popular approach for
teaching music to children that teaches music the way we learn language,
by making music instinctively first—singing, chanting rhymes,
clapping—and learning to read and write it later.) "Children
in all grades love to play guitar," says Bock. "They become
comfortable and confident strumming and changing chords very quickly."
At first Bock calls out the chords, but as the students become familiar
with the songs they start to hear and feel where the changes occur.
"We learn many songs in a short period of time," says Bock.
"The children are always eager to play songs they already know
as well as learn new ones. Even children who struggle academically stay
in at recess or after school to play guitar."
Turner says that playing an instrument, even only occasionally, makes
a difference in a child's musical self-esteem. One study indicates that
kids who have no hands-on musical experiences between first and second
grade go from thinking that they can "do" music to thinking
that they can't. "When children start getting better at things
like math and reading, it's critical that they also feel they're getting
better at music," says Turner, or else they'll begin to define
themselves as nonmusicians.
With GAMA's help, Turner is developing training materials to help anyone
start a regional GITC program, which requires both a facilitator and
a guitar instructor (although the roles could be filled by the same
person). The instructor should be a solid intermediate player and a
kind and patient soul who enjoys making music with others. "Teachers
with adult beginners as students must be gentle and supportive,"
Turner cautions. "They have to like singing and teaching general
music skills so they don't feel frustrated with reviewing the same chords
each week. They have to be more interested in the process of teaching
than in the sophistication of the musicianship.
"The guitar helps give something back to teachers; it brings
joy into their classrooms," says Turner. Even more importantly,
it provides children with essential exposure to music.
|
Resources
|
GAMA,
www.discoverguitar.com.
Guitars in the Classroom, www.guitarsintheclassroom.com.
MENC, www.menc.org.
Bill Purse, Pittsburgh MENC/GAMA/ NAMM Teaching
Guitar Workshop, (412) 396-4939, maestroBP@aol.com,
koch@duq3.cc.duq.edu.
Will Schmid, MENC/GAMA/NAMM Teaching Guitar Workshops,
(800) 393-3655, willschmid@aol.com. |
Excerpted
from Acoustic
Guitar magazine, October 2001, No. 106.
That
issue also contained a transcription of Shawn Colvin's "Nothing
Like You," a story remembering fingerstyle pioneer John Fahey,
and a lesson on Celtic backup.
