I teach classical guitar to a 52 year old man with one big problem, his memory. No matter what I do, I can't seem to find a way to get him to remember things. So his technique is pretty good, if I give him 4 bars to practice over a week, he'll come back and play them very well but if I give him something else the next week, the last piece of music, is completely forgotten and if he sees it again, it's as if he's never played it before.

The biggest problem is he can't read music fluently (every time he has to do every good boy deserves football, face in the space, etc.) and when he does get what note it is (which isn't correct 40% of the time), he then has trouble finding the note on the guitar and often plucks the wrong note.

So what have I done to try and help him? Well, I've done tests and it would seem he's neither a kinaesthetic, aural or visual learner so I tried all three and nothing helped. I tried to get him to relate the notes to events. I tried all sorts of various exercises. I've even got him trying cod liver oil tablets! Then I found out something that works a bit, if I give him certain tests, his note reading gets quite a bit better and so I move him onto music, still doesn't solve the slow time to find the note on the guitar (the speed at which he does this has stayed the same), but then next week he's back to square one with his note reading.

This is so unique to me though, whenever my students have had problems, I've always found a solution and it's not been an issue. It's come to the point though where I almost feel like I'm robbing him of his money because he's not really making any progress, he insists he enjoys it though and often gives me tips. And it's not as if he doesn't practice, he really really does, he's retired (due to an unfortunate chest problem) so he's got plenty of free time on his hands (hence he took up the guitar) and so he practices for hours!

So, please, anybody, if you've got tips, give them! Has anyone else had a similar problem?

Have you tried getting him to sing as he plays? This is really helpful in finding the right note to play (before you play it). I teach piano not guitar, but it is useful in whatever instrument you are teaching. Also have you tried getting him to play really simple songs by ear (having learned them off by heart and then singing them as he plays)? This will help him find his way around the guitar as well.

The singing will engage the brain much more - it's like when you teach a child to read he does so aloud, learning how the words will sound. You don't teach a child to read only by sounding things out in his head!

How about improvising using the notes his pieces involve or in the key of his pieces so he gets to find the notes without the barrier of the printed page. Singing as well - he could sing la, or note names.

I wonder if using a Kodaly book - use of solfa may be helpful - perhaps Cyrilla may comment on this....

Be interested to hear how you get on. Sounds a very difficult problem.

(Student here)


I can't memorise clarinet music but I think one of the reasons why I've been able to memorise some piano music recently is because it's a song and I enjoyed singing along to it. I'm pretty certain it helped memorisation (although I don't know for sure).

Yes, I agree with barcarolle (naturally !) - singing could be a way to help his memory.

As barcarolle says, singing engages a different part of the brain and also develops the inner hearing.

Solfa is a wonderful tool for helping memorising. If I hear a song and I learn it by rote, quite often the next day I've forgotten it - or parts of it. But if I sing it in solfa I never forget it - because each note has a name and a place in the melody.

Even if he just sang something like the three-note version of 'Hot Cross Buns' (mrd) and then tried playing it in different keys it would be a start.

Do PM me if I can help further.

Best of luck!

If he is practicing for hours I was wondering what and how he practices? Is he improvising a lot and not really playing the pieces you have been doing in the lessons, in which case the whole reading music thing is going to be slowing him down. Can he play by ear? if so as Cyrilla and Barcarolle says singing and playing along will really help.

If he is spending hours trying unsuccessfully to read the music I would imagine it would be very frustrating for him. I would keep plugging away with the note reading as you have been but spend quite a bit of the time working on playing by ear and improvising.

Which books are you using with him?
What sort of level is he working at?

Has he tried using TAB at all? That might make things easier as he won't need to work out the note names and it'll tell him whereabouts on the fingerboard he's supposed to be.

I play a bit of classical guitar and have never really got to grips with playing from sheet music. I always worked it out really slowly from the staff notation and then memorised it as a sequence of patterns on the fingerboard.
And it's not that I can't read staff notation - I'd been reading it for 9 years when I started guitar. There's just a sort of "blind spot" for me when it comes to reading guitar music.
I'm getting better at it now that I'm making myself sight-read a lot of lower grade pieces, but the gap between what I can play and what I can sight-read is still a lot bigger on guitar than on other instruments.

T.

I use The Guitarist's Way, if you're not very familiar with it, it's very gentle and eases you in ever so slowly.
He's capable of playing four bar sections at just below the grade one standard.
He hasn't tried using tab but he doesn't really have a natural sense of rhythm, I'll tap a simple 1234 beat and he won't be able to tap it back, so I don't think tabs would help him much. If you have other suggestions though that might help him with tabs do say.

As for the people mentioning singing, sounds good, I will get onto it and let people know how it works out for him. I'm still not entirely sure how it will help with his note finding however.

I've tried getting him to memorise that from ABCDEFG it's a tone, a semi tone, a tone, etc. but it's not seemed to work. I think it's too much to memorise, are there any simple logical approaches to playing the guitar that I may have missed?

I know it and have it here. Learned with Tune a Day myself, but GW is a much gentler introduction and would certainly be my choice for anyone who couldn't already read music.
Whereabouts through the series is he at the moment?



What about TAB and staff notation in parallel? Or would that be just too much for him to read in one go?



How does he get on with chords and chord symbols?
I learned that alongside classical and used to think in terms of chord shapes quite a bit when learning the classical stuff.

T.

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As for the people mentioning singing, sounds good, I will get onto it and let people know how it works out for him. I'm still not entirely sure how it will help with his note finding however.


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If you can sing it you're just far more likely to find it because you already know the sound you're looking for and the fingers learn to just find their way there....

Ok, tried singing with him, disastrous, in fact, for a second, I thought he might be tone deaf but I did some tests and figured out he clearly wasn't. However, when I tried to get him to sing, he just couldn't get the pitch at all. I think he was rather embarrassed about the whole thing too.

Teigr, he's about half way through the first book, which isn't great considering he's been learning for a year. I don't think he could do tab and notation in parallel, I've tried giving him fret numbers along with string numbers underneath the score but it just confuses him no end. As for chords, I tried them briefly but he took literally a minute to get into different positions and couldn't do it without prompts, even after a week of learning two chords.

Don't give up on the singing, sing with him / for him and he may get it eventually, I know it can be embarassing but so long as you are singing with him it won't be so bad and you will both get used to it. Encourage him to sing as he practises at home, sing to the radio etc. etc.

Have you tried playing by ear? Twinkle or cobbler cobbler mend my shoe?? Also you could play a one / two / four note phrase and get him to play it back - having told him what note you're starting on.

I agree with barcarolle - don't give up on the singing!

If we were all disheartened and gave up on something if a student couldn't do it first time of asking, we wouldn't get anywhere as teachers!

I'm quite sure he is not 'tone deaf' (VERY few people are) and at least he is copying another male voice, which helps when people have pitch-matching problems (it can be hard for such male adult students to find the pitch from a female voice).

The more you make it a 'normal' part of the lesson, the less embarrassed he will feel and the more progress he will make. A lot of people don't pitch-match accurately when they are feeling nervous or embarrassed, even if they actually CAN.

Hang on in there - and best of luck!