This approach can work but it is time-consuming and long sight reading lessons are usually not very engaging to kids who are trying to learn to play rock ‘n roll.īeing that I have always felt that perhaps the most useful and practical course in any music school curriculum is sight singing and ear training. The strumming style on a lot of those Nirvana songs was highly syncopated and contained a fair amount of percussive rhythmic strokes, with the guitar strings muted, exactly the type of rhythm guitar playing that leaves the beginning student feeling confused and left me as a beginning guitar teacher scrambling for ways to keep these kids engaged.įirst I thought I will teach everyone to read rhythmic figures, strumming patterns, and transcribe the tunes, or simplified versions of them, for them to use as their rhythm reading practice. When I first began teaching guitar for a living the hot thing that all my kids wanted to play was grunge rock, specifically Nirvana and Pearl Jam, in that order.

If You Want To Play It, Then You Have To Say It!

Guitar sight reading trainer