Since starting at Emaús and Carmen Bajo, this has been the first time I’ve ever taught guitar. I’ve shown some people a chord or two before, and given instructions on how to hold or tune or play a little bit to people who bought instruments from me at Albemarle Music. But sitting down and having consistent lessons every week and being the teacher is something new for me. It’s been a fun experience, and doing it in Spanish is just an added bonus.
In the South, I have six students for one-hour blocks all day Wednesday, and a couple more on Monday evenings. They range in age from ten years old to one of the priests, and several of them I’ve known since I first came to Ecuador in 2007. At Carmen Bajo, I theoretically have five students on Friday afternoon, all around eleven years old, but the schedule has been a little wacky the last couple weeks, and any time I don’t have a student, one of the other kids that’s there for the compassion program just jumps in, so I’ve had three pretty consistent ones and then a slightly rotating mix.
I’m teaching them all to read music, and my goal is to get them to learn the first couple of positions on the fretboard and then move into chords. Sounds easy enough, but I’ve had to relearn a lot of my music theory in Spanish. In Ecuador, as in most of Latin America, notes and chords are not named by letters, but with a “fixed Do” system. (E.g. C= Do, D=Re, E=Mi, F=Fa, ect.) The good thing for me is that by the time any of the kids work up any speed on any of their exercises, I’ve been through them all with 10 other students, so I’ve gotten quite a bit of practice playing “Mi, Fa, y Sol” on the first string and thinking those names instead of “E, F and G.”
It’s also fun on the student side of things. I have one student just flying through exercises, and she’ll be playing on all six strings before I know it. I’ve got one who’s having a little trouble with knowing the notes on the staff, a couple who just need to work on coordination between left and right hands, and one who started with absolutely no concept of musical rhythm. I’ve played so many instruments for so long that reading music is as easy to me as reading the words on this page. So it’s sometimes difficult to figure out how to explain something in a different way so that they get it. I guess that’s the whole concept of being the teacher. I’ve gone through a whole lot of blank staff paper writing out exercises, and a couple of times I’ve covered my students’ eyes and called out notes for them to play to get them to see that they don’t need to watch the fretboard, but the music.
One of the reasons that I finally switched my major from music was that I decided my goal wasn’t to teach little kids how to play instruments for the rest of my life. And customers who came in to Albemarle Music used to ask me quite frequently if I taught guitar. I’d tell them I just ran the store while everyone else was teaching because I didn’t think I had the patience for it. Turns out I do, and I enjoy it quite a bit. Some of my students will get frustrated if they get hung up on something and can’t get it right, and I know quite well the feeling of wanting to nail it when you’re in front of your teacher. But I keep reminding them that making mistakes is part of learning, and that five years ago I knew absolutely nothing about the guitar. I hope that gives them confidence that they will know how to play music in a very short amount of time, and I’m looking forward to seeing them take off.
