A Little Victory

Today I would like to share a short story with you. It’s about a young student of mine, aged 7. Before I started teaching her, she attended a free lesson with another guitar tutor who told her that she would never be able to play the guitar. He then proceeded to yell at her, which of course resulted in a very unpleasant experience for both the student and her mum. When her mum first told me this story my immediate reaction was CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. I’m a big believer that anyone can learn to play the guitar, as long as you have at least one finger on each hand and the right teacher. So, I began teaching this student and only after a few weeks she learnt several basic songs, a scale and all five chords from Step A. This was great, but what happened next really blew my mind.

I have written down her chords in her student folder using chord diagrams (pictured to the right), which can be confusing at times and even older students often forget which strings are played open and which aren’t played at all. After being shown how these chord diagrams work, this student is now able to read them and play exactly what the diagram says. AWESOME! I still remember when she first correctly played G Major for me – it completely made my day!

It’s little victories like these that help motivate me to keep on keeping on.