The problem with You Tube Some of my students in their teens and many adults have tried to learn guitar from You Tube, a video or a book and nearly all of them got a poor result. If you don’t know what it is you really have to know to learn the skills to play it will really give you some bad habits when comes to playing guitar since it’s all about muscle memory. You don’t want to train the wrong muscle memory. How did all the great guitarists learn how o play? All the great guitar players I’ve studied

  Won’t know unless you try Can autistic or handicapped kids learn guitar? In my experience, yes. I can’t say 100% across the board that all can learn. There is no 100% success rate of any student even without special needs becoming 100% successful at guitar. If someone doesn’t practice they will not improve. At this point of being a music teacher I have had ample time to develop methods teaching special needs. I’d like to share to a couple long time students stories and how I evolved teaching these guitar lessons in Metairie, La. My personal experience teaching special

Guitar is fun, here’s how If you guitar or piano or singing is not fun then why do it? When guitar becomes fun then your child will not be looking at their phone as much or playing games. It’s a battle for their attention these days. In the very first lesson I give the student a choice of 2 famous songs, riffs and they get to choose one to play. It’s on one string and uses one finger. So they are playing something right away. Then the next lesson I get them playing to a backing track which is like

Best choice: Acoustic or Electric So your child wants to play guitar. Now you have to buy them a guitar so they can practice between lessons. The first consideration is how much do you want to spend. Thiis will determine what tp buy. There are entry level guitars that are under $150. I recommend an electric guitar because the strings are smaller, easier on the hands. The body is much more comfortable and you can get your favorite color. Acoustic guitars are much harder to play in the beginning. I see kids with beginner guitar lessons make much better progress

Here’s the evidence The same skills your child needs to do well in school are the same skills to play Piano. In school, most studies are using memorization. Studying piano definitely builds this skill. It’s okay to read sheet music, there’s still a lot to remember with that and in real time. But when a student can play a piece of music from memory it really makes a difference and builds great confidence. There was a piano in a hospital and nobody was playing so my 11 year old daughter started playing and people reacted and applauded. If she didn’t

The healing power of music lessons To say music lessons is better than medicine is a big statement. Why can I say that?  First of all, the mental, physical and artisitic rewards are life changing. I see the coginitive abillities of ages 5 to 80 year olds having to think through, to work through the motor skills on guitar, pian or voice (which I consider  an instrument too, that you carry with you all he time}. I see how kids, the longer they do music lessons will getting a  healthy confidence. And their  teacher should always be building a genuine