Welcome Letter
There is generally a lot of information when signing up for music lessons. One way to help new students is to create a welcome letter.
This can be saved as a PDF and emailed to the student or parents prior to the first session. It is a great idea to put information such as location, payments, holidays, etc. so they can refer back to it.
There are two recommendations in the welcome letter that I use which help new guitar students tremendously.
Subscription to Chordify
I created a Recommended Supplies for New Students section in the welcome letter which encourages students to get a subscription to Chordify. This is an amazing tool and my students love using it! Chordify is a website that will play the song while showing the current chord and upcoming chord changes. This was such a breakthrough for all the students, but especially for the younger ones.
Back in the old days, a lot of teachers required method books to use during the lessons. However, with technology moving so fast, those books really became limited and very uninspiring for most students. Although I do use that approach for anyone who prefers to use a method book, books are generally reserved for students who would like to focus on reading notes or get into music theory.
Why Use Chordify for 6-and 7-Year-Olds
Since 1st and 2nd graders are just learning to read, it is sometimes very difficult them to keep up with the lyrics. This makes it hard for them to know when to change chords. But Chordify uses an easier method to show the student where they are at. The focus is then on the chord changes instead of the words.
I still supplement the student with the printed song and write comments to help them through the tough sections. But for practice, Chordify is amazing.
Anyone can use the site for free, but the capo section is unavailable and the song speed cannot be adjusted unless you have the yearly subscription. If the student is not interested in reading notes, then instead of purchasing a book, a $20 yearly subscription is well worth it (the first year is $20, second year is $40). Chordify will help with practicing new chords and understanding how the capo can be used in a way that makes any song playable.
Capo
Capo
A capo is another nice tool to have. A capo is a clamp that is placed on the neck of a guitar or ukulele. Sometimes a song is in a key where the chords are very tough to play. By putting on a capo, the student can use new or simplified first position chords to play along with the song.
Another nice use for the capo is to change the song key. If a student would like to sing a song out of their vocal range, a capo can be used to adjust the pitch of the song. I recommend one of these for all my students. They are generally anywhere from $5 to $30.
Hope this helps. If you have any questions about the welcome letter I use, feel free to contact me. I look forward to hearing from you.
