by Glen McCarthy | Oct 1, 2016 | Classroom, Education, News, Tips + Tricks, Uncategorized
You’ve been drilling your classroom guitar students for two months; teaching them open chords and the notes on the strings. Well, it’s almost Halloween – time for a crash course in tritones! Halloween brings out the augmented 4th or diminished 5th in...
by Glen McCarthy | Jun 24, 2016 | Classroom, Education, Gear, Principles, Tips + Tricks
With tight and fluctuating school budgets, it can feel like an impossible mission to pitch a new idea. This is especially true of arts programming, as music educators know. Interested in starting a guitar program at your school? One way is to sell the powers-that-be...
by Glen McCarthy | Dec 3, 2014 | Classroom, Education, News, Principles, Tips + Tricks, Uncategorized
It’s that time of year again: Everyone is busy shopping and making plans for the holidays. Meanwhile, you forgot to plan out some holiday songs for your guitar class! Don’t worry! We’ve got you covered with 5 songs that are easy to learn and teach....
by Glen McCarthy | Dec 1, 2014 | Classroom, Education, News, Principles, Stories, Tips + Tricks, Uncategorized
Part of my responsibility as the Guitar Task Force Chair in Clark County is to pay attention to the challenges that guitar teachers are facing. Currently, 60% of our classroom guitar teachers do not play the guitar or did not play the guitar before teaching their...
by Glen McCarthy | Nov 3, 2014 | Classroom, Education, News, Principles, Tips + Tricks, Uncategorized
By Bill Swick 1) Teamwork The profile of a typical guitar student is a person who does not spend a lot of time playing sports, does not participate in scouts, does not belong to a youth group at church, etc. The guitar ensemble may be the first time a guitar student...
