I started teaching guitar lessons early this year and it’s been a struggle to make progress with some students because they simply don’t play at home. I’ve never been one to harp on practicing because I feel like that just makes me seem like a third parent. What I’ve come to realize is that most kids don’t know how to practice. They’re not sure what to do when I’m not there guiding them through their materials. In addition, I have found that goal setting is incredibly useful. For example, being able to play a song at a certain tempo.
To this end, I created a couple of challenges for all of my students to participate in. The two areas I felt would benefit them the most are in scales and chords. Here is what I came up with:
The Scale Challenge: Play a two octave major scale using 8th notes at 130bpm. To prepare students to complete this challenge, I have been having them practice quarter notes at slower tempos such as 70 or 80 and gradually speeding them up. This is a great way to incrementally work towards this goal.
The Chord Challenge: Play all major (7) and minor (7) chords within 30 seconds. I use flash cards of my own making to display the chord name and ask them to play the correct chord. To help them with memorizing chords, I created this simple chord chart because I haven’t been able to find one this clean and simple anywhere else. Every week, I have them run through the flash cards with me while I time them to see how close they are to 30 seconds.
I just issued these challenges to my students, but the initial response has been great. Students will be able to publicly put their name on a poster indicating that they’ve completed the challenge as well as winning a small prize.
Andrew Michael Pincock: Bassist 