In this essay, I will outline my initial lesson plans for teaching classical guitar to beginners and embed my evaluations of the effectiveness of different teaching styles in teaching students of different instrumental disciplines. Over the course of the semester, I taught two vocalists, a bassist, a pianist and a drummer, which provided a variety of initial technical ability and knowledge of music theory. For some of these lessons, I taught groups of two students, I will take this into account and evaluate how this changed my style of teaching compared to that of private lessons. For these lessons, I needed a classical guitar for each student. A guitar for myself was also preferable however, when teaching in the conservatoire, the availability of classical guitars was limited and I could only teach without a guitar of my own. I also required a clip-on tuner or a tuning app. Following is my lesson plan notes that I used to teach each lesson…

LESSON NOTES

You Will Need: Classical Guitars (at least one per student) and a tuner

1. Tuning Pegs

• Demonstrate what they do
• Let them have a go

2. Tuning

• Show them how a tuner works (either clip on or on my phone)
• Tell them the notes of each string
  • Elephants And Donkeys Grow Big Ears
  • Picture of an elephant and a donkey

3. Frets and pitches

• Show them that the frets are semitones and ascend and that in standard tuning, the first four frets can be used alone to move chromatically up the guitar

4. Finger Names

• Explain the names of the fingers
  • Piranhas In My Aquarium
  • Picture (cartoon) of piranha or aquarium, let their brain do some of the work

5. Arm Position

• Show them where to position their arm so their hand rests over the soundhole

6. ‘i ’ And ‘m’ Fingering

• Get the student to copy me and move their fingers away from the guitar imagining their fingers are legs pedalling on a bicycle
• Students try to pluck one string at a time, starting slowly
• Explain the importance of letting the string fall from the finger
• To implement using their ear, they can try and match the timbre of theirs to that of mine
• They can also watch where my hand sits

7.  Fretting

• Explain where to place the thumb on the back of the neck
• Practice with all four fingers placed on individual corresponding frets
• Move hand on and off fretboard to practice this position
• Show where to put the fingers behind the frets for the clearest sound and to use the right fingers in correspondence with the frets

8. Hand Strength

• Demonstrate left hand exercise

9. Practice both hands at same time

• Gradually increase tempo

10. Start work on score reading exercises
11. Worksheet

• Diagrams of each hand with blank labels for each finger
• Diagram of the strings with blank labels for each string (use mnemonic)
• Written explanation of hand exercises

My first objective was to explain and demonstrate the physical aspects of the classical guitar. Firstly, I demonstrated how the tuning pegs worked, showing how they changed the pitch of each string in relation to the way I turned them. I then let my students try it themselves to get a feel for how much they needed to turn each peg in order to make major and minor changes to the pitches. I then showed my students how a tuner worked, explaining how the interface shows how sharp and flat each string pitch is. To help my students to remember the pitch of each string in standard tuning from lowest pitch to highest pitch (E, A, D, G, B, E), I told them the mnemonic ‘Elephants And Donkeys Grow Big Ears’. This is an example of accelerated learning (Renaissance, 2022). The last important piece of information about tuning is the importance of tuning up to each note because this more effectively allows the string to stay in tune. Each student then individually tuned their own guitar based on what they had learned. I made it clear that they could ask for help at any time, including a picture of an elephant and a donkey that I could show them to remind them of the mnemonic. For my student Alex (a bassist), this task proved easy so, for this part of the lesson, I asked him to see where he could give feedback to the other student in his group, India (a singer) as she tried tuning her own guitar. This, I found, was a very effective use of peer teaching (Nielsen, Johansen and Jørgensen, 2018) and helped India feel more comfortable making mistakes and receiving blunt feedback. I found that the other students needed more time and I often had to use the picture. The use of the picture was very effective in reminding them of the mnemonic and, other than some verbal help in adjusting their tuning technique, they were able to do this easily.

My second objective was for the students to learn the names of the fingers on each hand which is important for reading music in future. On the left hand, the fingers are labelled 1, 2, 3 and 4 from index to pinky finger and on the right hand, the fingers are labelled p, i, m and a from thumb to ring finger. This can be hard for students to remember, especially the fingers on the right hand which use the Spanish mnemonic for Pulgar, Indice, Medio, Inular. I then introduced another mnemonic to aid the students memory: ‘Piranhas In My Aquarium’

The next important thing to learn before playing was positioning. First is the positioning of the right arm, having your elbow sit comfortably on the top of the body so that your picking hand rests naturally over the sound hole. The way I taught my students this positioning is by getting them to first place their thumb on the low E string and their index finger on the high E string with their elbow raised above from the guitar and then allow their elbow to rest on the body naturally. They can then adjust the guitar on their lap accordingly. For most students of different instrumental discipline, this was a relatively easy exercise and each student was able to adjust their position according to their own size. This actually proved most difficult for Alex, who was used to a similar hand position on bass but with his wrist bent so his fingers hovered over the pickups, which are closer to the bridge than the sound hole on a classical guitar.

Now that my students had their right hands in the correct place, I moved on to plucking the strings. I wanted my students to imagine their fingers are legs pedalling on a bicycle and got them to copy the motion I am doing to try and get their fingers moving as smoothly as possible in a cyclical motion. This is an example of multi-sensory learning (Stover, 2012), a teaching style I’ve found to be very effective when it comes to technique. For Alex and Tom (a pianist), their level of dexterity in their fingers was already very developed so, after a short time practicing this technique, they were doing it very well. My other students struggled slightly more as it takes a lot of practice to get this motion right. If I were to teach this lesson structure again in future, I would have each student practice this technique for longer and possibly dedicate a whole lesson to right hand fingering, however, time constraints meant I had to fit more in to a shorter lesson time and having more than one student meant some were at different levels to others so I had to make sure each student was getting everything they could from the lesson and keep moving through my objectives at a faster pace. When I first learned classical guitar, I was in a group of 4 complete beginners all the age of 8 and 9 so I would prefer to teach private lessons for adults with prior musical experience to give each student the time and attention they need to develop their technique. Once the students understood this finger motion, I directed their attention to plucking the strings. First was the thumb picking which tends to be the easiest to learn as using the thumb is often the first instinct of inexperienced players anyway. I explained that the best way to do this is to softly brush the string and encouraged them to start as softly as possible and gradually pluck it harder until it made a smooth sound. This was a great way to implement my students’ musical ears, taking advantage of their musicianship. Swanwick, 1988, said that “the teacher of music is a music critic and needs to acquire a critical vocabulary”. This exercise allowed me to give friendly advice on their hand position as they play to develop their timbre. This is an example of a formative assessment (Utley, 2017). After this, I introduced the same process to them with their fingers i and m incorporating the cyclical motion they learned earlier with the plucking technique they learned on the thumb. One problem I encountered teaching a bassist was that with fingers i and m, Alex’s instinct was to use rest stroke technique, which involves your finger resting on the string above after plucking. Despite this being a technique on classical guitar as well for fortissimo and tremolo passages, most right hand fingering uses the free stroke technique. As well as the arm positioning, this meant Alex had some trouble adjusting to the technique as he had to almost retrain his hands from their muscle memory. This is a good example of students of other instrumental disciplines actually struggling more with beginner techniques than those with no previous experience; something I will endeavour to account for in future.

The next focus of my lesson was to introduce fretting with the left hand. The first step is placing the thumb firmly on the back of the neck, followed by placing fingers 1 to 4 on the corresponding frets on the high E string. This stretch proved challenging for the singers as they didn’t have the developed dexterity of pianists or bassists. This provided a great opportunity to introduce one of the hand strength exercises I included in a worksheet at the end of the lesson for further practice. Making sure each student wasn’t pushing their fingers too hard, I showed them an exercise for the left hand that involves pressing each finger tip to the thumb individually until the finger bends slightly back at the uppermost joint. Another exercise I made sure to include was placing the fingers back on the frets and then taking the whole hand on and off the neck and trying to return to the same position as quickly as possible. I could see a clear difference in how fluently each inexperienced student’s hand returned to the neck after repeating this a few times. This also helps avoid problems in future with incorrect or inconvenient hand positioning as, especially for people with smaller hands and children, people instinctively slide their fingers up the fretboard and avoid using their pinky.

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The final objective is to combine both hands and practice reading music from a score. All of my students had experience reading music in treble clef so my main objective was to get them comfortable with their coordination between both hands. In order to achieve this, I started off with an exercise using both hands that involved the left hand playing the open E string and first four frets one by one alternating their i and m fingers in line with usual picking technique. I spoke a four count as a metronome for them to follow, using my voice so I could start very slowly and gradually speed up as they got to grips with using both hands simultaneously. Tom struggled with this coordination the most as, on piano, the coordination between hands is often very much independent from one another and, because, more than one finger is often in use, he struggled with using each finger independently on his left hand while maintaining consistent, effective pressure with his thumb to give the notes clarity. Some students had troubles with using their pinky but I made sure to reassure them that pinky strength is something that comes with practice and that its very rare to be able to do it straight away. This encouragement was especially important because these two students were each in groups with those who didn’t struggle so much with finger strength. After the students had begun to find this exercise manageable at a faster tempo, I introduced them to the notes E, F and G (open, 1st and 3rd fret) on the high E string. This gave me an opportunity to ask the students which string was the E to keep the names of the strings and, if needed, the mnemonic in their minds for practice at home. Due to their previous experience with reading from scores in treble clef, they were able to easily identify which of the three notes were which on the guitar and I began to run them through some exercises. Before each exercise I involved Dalcroze Eurhythmics by getting the student or students to clap the rhythms to each 4 bar exercise before playing it, encouraging practice rhythm and involving physical movement into the lessons, a proven method to improve learning of music. As we progressed through the 4 exercises, each student except Alex found it much harder to alternate their picking fingers while following the pitches on the score. I made sure to stress the importance of ‘playing through mistakes’ as I kept the tempo going. As we repeated each 4 bar exercise, the students found it easier to keep going and just move past wrong notes or missed strings.

For the end of my lessons, I sent the students away with a practice worksheet. Half of this worksheet was done as a plenary before the lesson ended to recap all of the information covered and test them on their knowledge and the other half contained useful information about practice and hand strength exercises to be done at home.

I learned a lot over the course of this semester as I tried different methods of teaching and different structures for my lesson plan, refining it as I went and as I learned how different students understood certain aspects of beginner technique on classical guitar. In future, I would make sure that any complete beginners have at least 1 or 2 private lessons before joining a group in order to get their technique (or knowledge thereof) to a standard where they can at least play singular notes and read them from a score. This is also important for students with other previous music experience as having groups with uneven playing and reading levels can create unbalanced lessons where either the teacher progresses too fast for those at a lower level or too slowly for those of a higher level, paying too much attention to the student or students who need more help. Unfortunately, over this short time frame with 1 to 2 lessons per student or group that were all under 20 minutes, I was unable to progress beyond simple technique with any one student. In future, I would also like to focus more on combining my praise and feedback into the same vein so I can target it more towards each individual activity. I found myself rushing through activities accidentally and I feel as though that could have detracted from the quality of each individual lesson. One thing I was sure of entering this period of teaching was that teaching students to read and play from scores on classical guitar should be saved until the 3rd or 4th lesson when the student has had time to practice their technique, like many other classical instruments where the technique is very refined. I felt that the introduction of scores to the 2nd lesson and sometimes the end of the 1st was pre-emptive and students would struggle to remember all of the information taught in the lesson, hindering their practice. Finally, its important that in future lessons, I have access to enough guitars to demonstrate things beforehand.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Nielsen, Johansen and Jørgensen (2018) Peer Learning in Instrumental Practicing https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5862820/ [Accessed: 12/04/2026]

Renaissance (2022) Accelerated Learning https://www.renaissance.com/edword/accelerated-learning/ [Accessed: 23/03/2026]

Stover (2012) From Multisensory Activities to Musical Knowledge https://songworkseducatorsassociation.com/articles/from-multisensory-activities-to-musical-knowledge.pdf [Accessed: 23/03/2026]

Swanwick (1988) Music, Mind and Education [Accessed: 15/12/25]

Utley (2017) Formative Assessment Strategies for the Music Classroom https://themusiccrew.com/formative-assessment-strategies-music-classroom/ [Accessed: 12/04/2026]