Lessons and Practicing Student Questions Episode 4 Video Transcript

Hello, Chris with BeginningGuitarOnline.com. Welcome to another episode of Student Questions. We're answering questions that have been submitted to us through our website, and hopefully, these will shed some light on questions you may have already had.

Question 1: "What's your progression for someone who's just starting? What should they focus on?"

First and foremost, I'd say posture. Good posture is critical to your success as a guitar player, and to building the techniques necessary for both hands to reach their full potential as a musician. With good posture, you'll avoid injury and pain. It will also make the progression of graded steps through a good curriculum a lot easier. So first up, I'd recommend posture, make sure you dial that in.

After that, we're focusing on getting a great tone out of the instrument from the get-go. It doesn't matter what style you are playing: classical, electric, acoustic. Good tone is the bedrock of musicianship. And in that pursuit of a good tone, progressing through a good curriculum, again with a skilled instructor, is really critical.

Most instructors who follow a graded and successful curriculum progress bit by bit, one point in the lesson at a time. Master that point, and you'll be able to master the point in the next lesson. Each teacher's curriculum will vary in what they use, and especially with what style you're pursuing, and the age of the student.

But in general, good graded curriculum will begin with just one key on the guitar. The guitar is capable of playing an all-twelve keys of the musical universe, but we don't want to overwhelm beginners with too much information. It's good to just start with one key, develop a small repertoire of folk songs in the first position, usually just in one octave that you can play, and once you successfully mastered that group of curriculum, moving on to either doing other songs in a different key or trying to relearn the songs you just learned in another key.

It's what we call "transposition," guitar is great at that, and it's a really effective way of building your progress in the early steps. So, find a qualified instructor, focus on your posture, and follow the curriculum as it progresses point by point.

Question 2: "How young can a kid be to learn guitar?"

Well, there are physical limitations to the instrument, but music can begin at age 0. There are many early childhood music courses around the country, lead by incredible instructors who have spent their lifetime developing quality curriculum that can be used with very, very young kids. Seeking out some of these programs in your local community can help your child start their musical journey before an instrument is even in their hands.

As far as playing the physical instrument itself, this is dependent upon what style you're learning. Electric guitars are only made so small. There's also quite a bit of dexterity needed in playing an electric instrument that I think, personally, should wait until a little bit later on in a person's growth.

The classical guitar, however, has had a long successful history with starting young beginners on fractional-sized guitars. Fractional-sized guitars are guitars that are made specifically for children to use. Finding a quality guitar can be hard, but they are out there. There's also a lot of junkers out there.

Here's an example of a fractional-sized guitar that can be used with young children. It's specially sized to be the right scale length, meaning the length of string, and body size for a young child to play. This is a real instrument, not a toy.

It's made out of quality sound wood and set up for great tone production. Finding an instructor who's skilled in working with young children will take a little bit of effort on your part, you'll have to call some people, ask about their training and their background, and find someone who is trained in working with young kids. But a great instrument like this can set kids up for success right from the beginning.

You'll find that there are methods out there that specialize in teaching children from about age 3 up. Many instructors will often encourage you to go through an early childhood curriculum until the child is age 3 or 4, and then pursue formal instrument training at that point. I think that's a great approach.

You develop a lot of fundamentals, and a lot of rhythmic skills of the instrument before beginning an instrument itself. Then, after you've gone through that early childhood curriculum with a young infant to toddler, to then young child, they have the focus and the knowledge already built up to be successful at those first steps of instrument instruction.

I, personally, begin kids as young as 4 on classical guitar. I do encourage them to through an early childhood process first.

Question 3: "How would you break up your practice sessions?"

With our next question, we're moving into some nitty-gritty here about practice. The question is, "How would you break up your practice sessions?"

That's a great question, especially when you're pressed for time, or you're working on something incredibly difficult and demanding, and you physically need a break for that. Regardless of whatever the reason is, breaking up your practice sessions into small bits has been a successful tool used by a lot of musicians through time. I'd encourage practicing technique and foundational skills in scales, chord progressions, etc., in one practice session, and then, later in the day, or shortly thereafter, after a small break, working on your repertoire.

And then, after working on your repertoire, you can work on polished pieces in a third segment of the day, pieces that you can already play with ease, and with good musicality and tone production. This way, you're covering all bases: your technique that always needs daily attention, your working pieces, and then your polishing pieces. It's a great way to break up your session into those three segments.

How long those segments are depends on the level of playing that you're currently at. Many beginners could put all of these three segments into about a 20-minute to 30-minute session. After that, you can take a break for a while, come back to another session in 20 or 30 minutes, covering all three of those points later in the day.

When you're an advanced player, you often find that you can spend 20 to 30 minutes on each of these points: technique, working pieces, polished pieces. The really advanced players can spend a half-hour, 45 minutes on technique, take a break, then spend an hour to two hours on their working pieces, take a break, and then spend another hour to two hours reviewing their polished pieces.

So, it grows with time, just like athletes. The longer you train, the longer you'll be able to up your level of endurance. But don't push it a lot at first. Incrementally increase that practice time, and doing it under the tutelage of a good instructor is always the way to go.

Question 4: "How to stretch fingers for guitar?"

Our final question in this episode is, "How to stretch fingers for guitar?"

I'm really happy to address that one because playing without injury is a topic really near and dear to my heart. Don't use any apparatus, don't buy any gizmos or toys. The only thing you should do to stretch your fingers is simply holding your hand up, and use small little calisthenics yourself.

Little finger movements like this, finger independence, laterally, horizontally, that's all fine, and it's all you need. You don't need to put yourself through any machines that have stretchy bands. You don't need to use any spring-loaded contraptions that you may see floating around the internet, or in stores.

You don't need those squeezy stress balls. The squeezy stress balls are about the only thing that you could safely use without risking some kind of injury to your very sensitive tendons which you're going to need the rest of your life to play an instrument. So stretching your fingers for guitar, light warm-ups like these, having a warm cup of tea or coffee before practicing, holding your hand on the warm cup, especially if you live in colder climates, then just doing these light motions.

Absolutely nothing aggressive. Don't do push-ups where you'll hold yourself on your fingertips. Don't put your fingers in little rubber band contraptions that go like this. I mean, I've seen it all, folks. I have seen it all, and people will irreparably injure themselves. The famous classical pianist, Robert Schumann, injured himself and cut his whole playing career short by thinking that he could strengthen his fingers further by setting up little counterweights on pulleys to use with his hand. You can look it up. It's a really tragic story and a great artist whose career was cut short by something so avoidable.

Absolutely no contraptions, don't put rubber bands on, nothing. Just your own hand doing little exercises like these, that's about all you need. Just getting into the rhythm of playing.

And as a total beginner, just simply the light technique work you're doing: playing scales and playing chord shapes is all you need to focus on. You don't need to go above and beyond that, and you really don't need to go above and beyond that as an advanced player. I've never met any professional guitarist who says that they have a dedicated finger-stretch warm-up or routine.

It's natural to think that we would, given that so many other athletics encourage stretching to various degrees, but our hands are very fragile, our hands need to be taken care of and protected as musicians, and if you do feel like you need just something to kind of get the cobwebs up in the morning, just these small independent exercises like these, doing, of course, to live long and prosper, always a great one for that lateral stretch.

Fingers to the side, going through these, that's about all you need, folks. Fingers together, fingers over, but don't use any contraptions.

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Keep practicing!