The School of Feedback Guitar Blog

Being a voyeur was never so, um, encouraged. Yeah. 

Electronic Lesson Notes are my way of helping every student focus their efforts outside of lessons like a laser beam. Each lesson note has a summary of what I have taught and went over in any lesson, and they also include a five minute practice suggestion too. It's like getting an extra dose of guitar encouragement delivered right to Google Reader, if not your email inbox. Best of all? No lesson note has any personally identifyable information on it. Each one is completely anonymous.

On my lesson notes page, you can easily take a glance at the latest lessons that I have taught. What did I teach this past week? Strumming. Deerhoof. Chord progressions like D, G, and A, Storyville, and The Arcade Fire:

Of course, you may want to know if I have taught anything by Bruce Springsteen in the past few weeks. You can do a customized search! If you find it, I can teach it.

I am really on this kick about lesson notes. It's probably my geek heart gushing, or the fact that I wish I was in my student's positions. I wish I had this sort of thing when I was learning guitar. It would have made learning so much easier. How?

It would have saved me energy and time.

Communication takes energy, as does practicing. Most of the people I get to work with have barely enough time to eat a satisfying meal, so it helps them to know exactly what to work on. I've noticed that the better my communication skills get, the faster they learn. I like how doing my lesson notes manages to get the point across. My hope is that when students are at the point of playing songs, they have barely expended energy in remembering what they were were supposed to work on. Hopefully, they simply read their lesson notes and pin-pointed what needed to do. I wish I had that when I was taking lessons.

I'd have a concrete history of the work I did.

I keep on thinking back to all the education I've have in my life, the hours spent learning from another guitar teacher (to be honest these people were saints to put up with me), and I realize that it's all a blur. I have no memory of the struggles I once had, so every time I reach a block, it feels like the very first one I've run into. Guitar still feels frustrating sometimes, probably because mastering it is just about impossible. Perhaps one of the reasons why I wanted to do this was because I could give someone a concrete history of their work and their progress. It wouldn't be a blur for them.

I'd have encouragement outside of my lessons.

Sometimes we learners have a hard time in-between our lessons. We may learn something, but then it's gone a hour after our lesson. For me, few things are as frustrating. I'm a geek about learning, and I want to learn more stuff all the time. I remember all the Argentine Tango classes I've taken, and how quickly I forgot what I learned as quickly as I left the dance hall. It's nice to have a good understanding of what we went over, at least as a reminder, so we can pick up where we left off. That's encouraging.

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You should click here to read more about online lesson notes.

I am proud to announce that from this day forward, each student who takes guitar lessons at The School of Feedback Guitar will receive an electronic copy of their lesson notes.

Each note shares a summary of the student's lesson as well as a five minute practice suggestion. Lesson notes usually appear on the same day as a student's lesson. These electronic lesson notes are completely anonymous unless a student decides to share them. Each lesson note, however, can be shared with just about any online service, emailed to friends, or even imported into Google Reader.

Learning guitar just got a little bit easier, and more fun too.

What are Lesson Notes, and Why Are They Important?

A lesson note is a plan. Teachers usually plan out their lessons or classes before they teach them. The lesson plan gives them a structure to rely on, a skeleton to fall back on, in case they need it. Lesson plans don't have to be perfect, but they do need to be present. Without one, a teacher has to rely upon their personal energy to create a new lesson plan on the spot, each time. Anyone who creates a new lesson plan on the spot, day after day, for months on end, will tell you exactly how difficult that is.

Typically, lesson notes have been the private domain of teachers. Teachers have hoarded them for their own reasons. To be fair they may have felt that either no one wanted to read them, or that their stuff was just so great that they'd rather not let their secrets out. There is great value however to sharing these notes with the student, and including some kind words of their progress too. If I were taking private guitar lessons, I couldn't be more happy with knowing what I'd be learning next time, how to best prepare, having a history of what I've done thus far, and hearing a couple of words of encouragement from my teacher outside of lessons. They are good for collaboration between both parties, and they give us a reason to share what we are doing with others, if we so choose.

Exploration Made Easy.

When lesson notes for guitar lessons are posted, anonymously, they might have an effect on a someone browsing or exploring them. If one person learns a Neutral Milk Hotel song, another person could find this lesson note and think, "Hey, I want to learn The Two Headed Boy too!" Furthermore, when a user shares their lesson notes, either through an RSS Feed reader like Google Reader for example, another student may want to collaborate. When these lesson notes are shared over Twitter or Facebook, the student is inviting encouragement from other guitarists as well as tips and tricks from folks who play guitar all the time. The ability to connect and collaborate with our teachers, friends, fellow musicians, and people we may never have met before, is just a little easier.

Seeing and sharing our lesson notes will hopefully allow us to see possibilities. Perhaps they will give us courage to come back to the guitar, day after day, to put in a simple five minutes and learn something new. Learning guitar doesn't have to be difficult. The process can be enjoyable, enlightening, invigorating, and (most of all) fun.

This is only the beginning. To read more about electronic lesson notes, you should click here.