Mrs. Jack Black

• One student, who is exceptionally small for her age, really wanted to sing a song she had written for the class. She begged and begged, and finally I said, "Ok, let's hear it." She settled into performance mode, holding her tiny guitar on her tiny lap. All the other kids patiently set down their guitars and listened. The junior singer/songwriter took a deep breath into her tiny lungs, starting making some tiny strums, and then opened her tiny mouth and screamed, "RECESS! Ohhhhhh, RE-CESSSSSSSS! I love you RE-CESSSSS!"

• Shortly before the gentle folksinger's debut, I had handed out books for the kids to use. One student, stunned, said, "I feel like I'm in college."

• Another kid raised his hand, and, when I called on him, he said, "Can we have a talent show? Because. Look what I can do." And his piercing blue eyes took on this sort of creepy quality as he began to move his scalp back and forth so that his poufy hair flopped into his eyes and then back beyond his forehead. Naturally, I responded with, "No. But. Look what I can do," and proceeded to show off my ability to wiggle one ear at a time, shake my eyes, and alternate raised eyebrows.

• Sometimes I split the class into groups so that they can learn songs appropriate to their ages and abilities. The group that chose to learn, "Born to Be Wild," decided that they didn't want to use Steppenwolf's lyrics. Instead, they decided to write a parody song entitled, "Born to Be Mild."

Get your fridges runnin'....Lay down on the fuuuuton!.....Lookin' for a channel....Whatever show is on....Born....to be....Mi-i-i-i-i-ild, Born.....to be M-i-i-i-i-i-i-ild......!"

• One kid said, "It's like...we're in the School of Rock, except you're not Jack Black." Then he grinned mischievously. "But I bet you're married to him!" And all the kids made kissy-kissy noises, saying, "Ooooh! Mrs. Jack Black! Ooooh, I bet you loooooove him!"

So...tell me why you want to learn to play the guitar.

It's week six hundred-thousand-million of guitar class, and on the first day of each week (since I start fresh with a new group of beginners each week), I always ask, "So...tell me why you want to learn to play the guitar?" and we go around the room and everyone says something like, "Because it's cool," or, "Because my uncle is in a rock band." It's a chance for me to get a little background information on any exposure these kids have had to playing the guitar, and also a chance for me to practice saying their names in my head while I look at each of their faces.

I was getting all the standard responses today: "Well, I took piano lessons, but I want to really rock out," and, "I'm already in a band, but we don't know how to play any instruments," and that sort of thing.

Then the question came to a 3rd grader little girl with a flippant attitude. "So, Sam," I said, (and, no, of course that's not her real name), "Why do you want to learn to play the guitar?"

She gave me the old hair toss and head tilt. "Well," she said, clearly irritated with the question, "I don't."

I raised my eyebrows and waited for her to continue.

Sighing, she said, "I had other plans for the morning, but they fell through."

Drums

Last week I taught beginning drums and percussion for 3-5th graders. I do not play the drums, and the only percussive instrument I have is my rugged Spanish, save for the occasional tapping on the pick guard of my guitar or inadvertently practicing rudiments on the coffee table while waiting for my bank's automated phone system to grace me with my balance.

Inevitably, my experience as a drum teacher has gifted my pedagogical lexicon with a few new phrases. For example:
"Actually, bongos aren't for sitting on."
"No, no! Don't drum on your neighbor."
"Please hold your drumsticks with your hands."

And, my personal favorite:
"Please take your drumsticks out of your eyeballs."

Not to be confused with:
"Please remove the drumsticks from your nostrils/mouth/ears/etc."

There was a kid who apparently thought it felt nice to listen with his drumsticks lightly resting upon his lower eyelids. Every time he blinked, his sticks would rattle. I had terrible visions of him slipping or sneezing. I can't tell you how many times I actually used the phrase, "Please take your drumsticks out of your eyeballs." It got to the point where I made him hand them over while he wasn't drumming.

Don't even ask me how I liked trying to speak over nine kids with drums. My voice has taken quite the beating. I started using body language to instruct them, rather than screaming for three hours, and I used the games that work really well in pre-school when kids are noisy. In the midst of the cacophony, I would whisper, "If you can hear me, set down your sticks," and the one kid who reads lips anyway would stop playing and nudge his buddy, and slowly, one by one, they would all stop playing and look at me with quizzical eyes. "Why are you whispering?" one would ask. "To save my voice," I'd respond. They didn't get it.

I'm still feeling it in my throat this week, and I'm back to the grind of kids with guitars. After screaming over a room full of nine-year-old drummers, acoustic guitars seem like the most serene instrument there is. Except of course for the part about tuning. But. You know what I mean.

Protest

It's a new week, which means a new crowd of rudimentary guitar students.

In this group, there is a kid who can't seem to keep a grasp on his pick, and every thirty seconds or so it slips from his fingers. I see it almost every time because he sits right in front of me, but I have learned not to make a big deal of it, because he is clearly traumatized every single time. As soon as the pick plops onto the floor, he sinks in his chair and looks from left to right to make sure no one saw the little mishap. Then he leans over oh so carefully! so as to not bump the neck of his guitar on his neighbor's head and stretches hopefully with his short fingers to the floor, where his pick is lying on the ground.

Whew! You can see the relief in his eyes when he silently scoops up the pick and carefully eases back into an upright position, althewhile being very, very stealthy and punctilious about his range of motion so the other kids don't notice.

And he ever-so-carefully sets up his G Chord or whatever we're on, and joins in, seamlessly. Not a word! Most kids would make a big stink: "Liz, we have to stop! Liz, my pick is on the floor! We can't go on!"

This kid, however, keeps it covert as possible.

Then, as quickly as he recovered his pick and set up his G Chord, plop!, there it goes again. I'm not exaggerating this time, it's really that regimented. Almost like he's experimenting with rhythm, or maybe a funky new dance move that entails throwing one's pick on the floor and picking it back up again. And the way he does it, so...quietly and lithely, it's like he's rehearsing for the Ballet of Pick Plops.

Early on, I couldn't help but comment about the pick habit. I acknowledged the behavior by laughing and saying, "Mark, it looks like you keep throwing your pick down in protest." I illustrated my point by throwing my own pick down on the ground and saying defiantly, "I do not want to learn this chord!"

The other kids laughed. Remember, it was early on in the class, and sometimes I err on the side of being a little too informal in the hopes of winning over their hearts, but poor little pick protester looked horrified. Whoops, I thought, this kid is really hard on himself. Note to self: lay off the jokes at his expense. And I quickly changed the subject and have not so much as blinked at the sound of his pick plopping ever since.

Unfortunately, the other kids think throwing down your pick in protest is really fun, and now I have three little comedians who, every time I say, "It's time to learn a new chord," mockingly slam their plastic picks on the floor and laugh and laugh. Oh dear. Another lesson learned for this teacher...

Bass Clef

Guitar Class Day Three:

It was Music Theory time, so I had everyone set down their precious guitars and listen up to the exciting, riveting fun-filled world of basic music theory. I was explaining the Bass Clef by writing down the note names of each line and space on the staff. Skinny, ADHD boy (who had not been paying attention at all until this very moment) exlaimed, "I know how to remember the spaces! It's All Cows Eat Grass!"

I nodded and said, "Yes. You could also say, All Cars Eat Gas."

Skinny Boy said, "You mean All Cars Pass Gas."

I frowned. "No, there is no note called P for Pass. It's E for Eat." I pointed at the E space.

Skinny Boy leaned back in his chair and looked around at his hardcore nine-year-old rocker friends. "It is too All Cars Pass Gas." He paused, smirking ever so slightly. "What do you think the muffler is for?"

Guitar Class Misogyny

It's the second day of Guitar Class. This week I am teaching 4th, 5th, and 6th graders, mostly a class of boys, there is one quiet girl who shyly asked if we could sing something from The Sound of Music in the midst of the boys' requests for hard rock, "shredding" (I don't even know what that is) and riffs from Guitar Hero.

These kids (save for the little Julie Andrews) are not impressed with my folk-singer's voice or my repertoire of children's songs. They want Queen, they want Iron Maiden, they want to sing songs I would be embarrassed to teach them.

One kid, a skinny, itty-bitty nine-year-old boy, who looks more like a six-year-old, raised his hand when I asked, "What kinds of songs are you interested in learning?" The itty-bitty rocker said, in his very small child voice, "Can we play 'Big-Bottomed Ladies?'"

I blinked. There was a chorus of, "Yeah," and "That's a good one!" from four other very small boys. Julie Andrews was quiet.

"I don't know that one," I said, feeling perturbed that these children seem to think it's okay to listen to a song called Big Bottom Ladies and then request that their Twenty-Something Female Guitar Teacher teach it to them. I also felt furious that such a song exists. Granted, I don't know what the song really says, but it sounds like objectification to me. Maybe we should talk about this in guitar class.

I feel like there is a huge culture gap between me and these fifth grade boys. I mean, I want to sing Joan Baez and they want to sing about women's butts and smash their guitars.

Yesterday, another kid starting ripping on Beethoven, saying his music sounds like "High School Musical high-note opera crap." For that, too, I blinked and felt perturbed, and then I took about ten minutes of classtime to talk about Beethoven and his struggles as a composer and musician. By the end of my soapbox lecture, the kids were thinking it's pretty cool to write music when you're deaf. I told them that if anyone rips on Beethoven without being able to play a piece by Beethoven, I'm going to make the executive decision that our recital is strictly classical music, so that they can all spend some time appreciating it. I did not address the "high note opera crap," but the next kid who says anything near to that is going to get a solo recital of opera arias. And, anyway, Beethoven only wrote one opera, and the main character is a mezzo who plays a gender-bending role, so I don't know what this kid is talking about.

Nor did I even attempt to redeem High School Musical crap. He may have had a point there.

So, for now, I am educating myself in the ways of hard rock. But there will be NO Smoke on the Water (unfailingly, two out of the six kids in this class walked in bragging about being able to play Smoke on the Water before they even introduced themselves to me, blah blah blah, I'm so sick of that stupid boring song I can't even tell you).

Any suggestions for hard rock songs for a classroom full of macho nine-year olds with tune-slipping acoustic guitars who are being taught by a classically-trained soprano and feminist folk-singer?

It's Guitar Class

It's almost that time of year again. You know, picks in sound holes, missing strings, Smoke on the Water? Yep, that's right, it's almost time for Guitar Class. After much deliberation and some negotiation, I have decided to take the job again. In an effort to prepare myself for the impending summer months, I am revisiting a few highlights from last year. Let me just say that these highlights, after a year of teaching multiple instruments to dedicated, privately studying, serious and committed students (except for the kid who insisted that he play "Ode to Joy" on the piano with his toes), have reminded me that there really is nothing like a classroom full of eight-to-twelve-year-olds who know nothing about guitars. Imagine the process of tuning. Imagine a soundtrack of wavering microtones beneath a subculture of Sponge Bob Square Pants, Pokemon trading cards, and avid fans of High School Musical. Imagine all of that, and then include snapping wire strings, angry parents, and suburban perfectionism in elementary school kids. What a challenge. Here are some funbits, reprised (if you will) from last summer's "It's Guitar Class" blog series:

*The kid who can't stop dropping her pick in her sound hole...it may be on purpose...she thinks it's sooooo funny....

*The time that same kid came to class complaining of a pesky pick in her guitar, and instead I found a plastic spoon. We were both dumbfounded.

*The kids who show up with missing strings.

*The kids who show up without a guitar. It's guitar class.

*The kid who showed up with a ukelele. It's guitarrrrr class.

*The kid who told me I was brave to live in Saint Paul, where all the gangs were. I misheard him and thought he said where all the gays were. Either way, it's offensive.

*The kid who informed me that a whole note plus a half note plus a quarter note equals one dollar.

*The eleven-year-old, incessantly furious boy who said, "You can't tell me what to do. You're small." Say what?

...Not to mention, the Harry Potter Obsessed Kid (she insisted that she be called J.K. Rowling), the Praise Band Recruiter Mom, the neverending requests for Green Day, the (while flattering) persistent encouragement to audition for American Idol, the older class of angsty pre-teen boys who think my guitar playing is "sick," and apparently that's a compliment, and, of course, the hot-pink Hello Kitty Wal-Mart electric guitars, or, even better, the toy guitars that aren't actually meant for study of the instrument. Oh boy. What a summer I have ahead of me....