Why did right-handed Ernie Isley, already a rock-guitar legend for the Isley Brothers’ 1973 hit “Who’s That Lady?”, spend eight hours a day learning to play left-handed as well? Common-sense answer: he’s a ham. “If the game’s on the line for the Chicago Bulls,” says Isley, 38, who first performed (on drums) with his famous family at 14, “the ball’s going to Michael Jordan.
With the Isley Brothers, I wanted to be the one.” Mystical answer: a dream of sainted southpaw Jimi Hendrix. “He reaches down into, like, a cloud bank,” Isley recalls, “and pulls out his left-handed guitar. He hands it to me–and I’m playing it, left-handed! He said, `That right-handed-let-handed thing doesn’t matter where we are’.”
Now that might be weird if you dreamed it. But when Ernie Isley was 12, Hendrix, then guitarist with the Isley Brothers, actually lived at the family house in New Jersey. Last month Isley released his first solo album, the appropriately titled “High Wire” (“Take a look at me!” he boasts on the title cut), on which he sings and plays most of the instruments. To show off for studio engineers, he played left-handed rhythm guitar on one song. (“They took note,” he says.) But it’s the shapely shriek of Isley’s lead guitar–played right-handed for convenience–tightrope-dancing above his bass and drum tracks that carries the record.
Nobody ever knew how to peg the Isley Brothers. Were they rock (“Twist and Shout”), soul (“It’s Your Thing”) or funk (“Who’s That Lady?”)? Brother Ernie will have the same trouble when radio programmers start fretting over “High Wire.” “Stations that play this but can’t play that–please,” he says. “If you’re trying to be musical, you include.” It seems silly to get in a dither about whether rock guitar belongs with funk bass and soul harmonies once you’ve journeyed where right-handed and left-handed don’t matter.
Children who take lessons on standard band and orchestra instruments can start as early as the second grade. But if a student wants to play guitar, he often has to wait until middle school or even high school to find an in-school program that addresses the guitar on an organized, structured level. As a result, many guitar teachers find themselves in the position of facing older beginners and dealing with the special dynamic that creates in the classroom.
“Older students can be much more results oriented,” says Glen McCarthy, MENC guitar mentor and a guitar teacher and assistant band director at Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax, Virginia. “It’s part of the whole problem with our culture and instant gratification. And I think that’s becoming much more apparent with kids than it used to be. If they have to work really hard at something, that’s when you’ll find the student wants to quit.”
McCarthy sees the early lessons as critical for enfranchising these older students. “I look at the period from the beginning of school to winter break,” he notes. “I call that the ‘honeymoon period’ for teaching guitar. You can pretty much give anything to the kids and they will respond to it, as long as you provide what I call ‘a tune of the day.’ You give them something where they’re strumming some easy chords — whether you’re just playing along with ‘A Horse with No Name’ or some little strummer.”
Another challenge beyond keeping students’ interest high is that guitar is often not part of the established curriculum, like band is in the fourth grade. It’s often presented as an elective. “An elective means they are electing to take it,” emphasizes McCarthy. “So you have to make sure that they are getting out of the class what they are expecting. But at the same time, it’s important for you to give them a really balanced approach to the instrument.”
In guitar teacher code, a “balanced approach” translates to “tablature versus note reading.” McCardiy agrees, adding, “I don’t subscribe to the doctrine that ‘tab is the only way to win them over,’ because if the students don’t really learn how to read music, they’re going to be illiterate. Some teachers feel you can present just the tab, and that will turn them into good guitar players. Well, the students might be able to get good at the guitar, but if they get into high school and they’re asked to play in the pit for the musical, how are they going to do it? However, if you’re successful, you can have your kids buying into the importance of reading music as well as learning songs.”
McCarthy finds that older students are more sophisticated in their listening habits and that he has to update his repertoire from traditional children’s songs and folk songs. “I will often say to the student, ‘What kind of songs do you want to learn?’ and that’s part of the hook,” he reveals. “There are some songs that are classics — ‘Dust in the Wind,’ ‘Blackbird’ — but some of the more contemporary examples include Queensryche’s ‘Silent Lucidity’ and ‘December’ by Collective Soul, which both have nice finger-picking patterns. And everyone wants to learn ‘Sweet Home Alabama.’ Is there a better exercise for learning hammer-ons and pull-offs? That intro is awesome!”
Improvising melodies, variations, and accompaniments: Students will improvise short melodies, unaccompanied and over given rhythmic accompaniments, each in a consistent style, meter, and tonality.
Objective
• Students will improvise twomeasure melody solo answers at the end of each phrase of a 12-bar blues in the key of E.
Materials
“Rock Trax #1″ and “Rock Trax #3,” in Rock Trax-l by Will Schmid (Milwaukee: Hal Leonard Corporation, 1985), book and compact disc or audiocassette
“Good Morning Blues,” in The Chord Strummer by Will Schmid (Milwaukee: Hal Leonard Corporation, 1982), or in Contemporary Class Guitar, Book 1, by Will Schmid (Milwaukee: Hal Leonard Corporation, 1982)
Audio-playback equipment
Prior Knowledge and Experiences
• Students can play melody notes E, E and G on string 1 and B, C, and D on string 2 of their guitars.
Procedures
As students are entering the classroom, play “Rock Trax #3.” Have students tune their guitars to the tuning notes at the beginning of the Rock Trax-1 recording and warm up with other songs, chords, or melodies. Tell them that today they will begin learning to play one of the greatest African American styles of music–the 12-bar blues, which gets its name from its 12 measures, or “bars.”
Have each student locate first-string notes E (open) and G (third fret) and briefly practice playing these two notes by themsleves. Be sure students are using the third finger for the note G. Explain that they will practice playing all solos together by echoing what you play. Say: “I will play measures 1 and 2 (eight beats) like this:”
Then say: “In measures 3 and 4, you echo on your guitar what I have just played. I will always start and end on the open E (first string). Try to play exactly what I play, using the same notes and rhythms. Later, you will have a chance to make up your own solos.” After students have echoed the above example, play each of the following examples and have students echo them:
3. Repeat step 2 using second-string notes B (open) and D (3rd fret). Create patterns similar to those above and have students edco them.
4. Combine notes E and G on string 1 and B and D on string 2 (see example) for a two-measure teacher’s “call,” and have students echo. To make it easy for students to follow you, start and end each call on either the open E or open B. Be ’sure that students can see your left hand.
When students seem to have grasped the concept of echoing a call, repeat the process by having them play along with “Rock Trax #1,” cut 2, in Rock Trax-1.
5. Have students turn to “Good Morning Blues” (12-bar blues in E) and learn to sing it with the background on “Rock Trax #3,” cut 10, in Rock Trax-1. Ask students how many phrases the song has [three] and whether any of the phrases are almost the same as each other [first and second]. Show them how the phrases can be labeled “A A B.”
6. Ask students to locate the two empty measures at the end of each phrase (measures 3-4, 7-8, 11-12) of “Good Morning Blues,” and point out that the E chord is played in all of these measures. Tell students that they will learn the E chord later, but first they will be playing solos in the “open” measures, using just the notes E and G. Have the class sing “Good Morning Blues” and play the following solo in all of the open measures:
7. Have students sing and play along with “Rock Trax #3,” singing each phrase with you and then improvising their own solos all at the same time in the open measures. Note that they should start and end on the note E. When students are successful in doing this, have them expand the scope of their solos by adding the notes B and D but still beginning and ending on E.
Indicators of Success
• Students improvise two-measure solos using the notes E, G, B, and D in measures 3-4, 7-8, and 11-12 of a 12-bar blues, beginning and ending their improvised solos Within the prescribed measures.
Follow-up
• As students indicate that they are ready to improvise individual solos, have volunteers take turns while the rest of the class sings and supports them. Encourage students to create interesting syncopated rhythms, which are important to the style.
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