Engagement: Practice Pieces
Engaging students in a music curriculum is hugely dependent on how relevant it is to them. Do students see their own musical preferences reflected? The Adapting Guitarist curriculum aims to incorporate musical selections from a broad range of genres, eras, and artists.
This curriculum takes students through each string of the guitar with exercises and melodies, and once they reach the 3rd string, chord accompaniment. It is designed with the public school classroom in mind- not private lessons. Every handout is available in a variety of music notation formats, and every unit goal (for example, playing a melody with the first two strings) is represented with at least two different pieces from varying genres or cultural backgrounds.
Guitar riffs are short parts of songs that are instantly recognizable! As a supplement to the curriculum on Teachers Pay Teachers, students can also learn guitar riffs as they learn to play lead guitar. The riffs on this site are organized by the amount of strings they use. They are available in standard guitar tab, color coded guitar tab, and color adapted tab. These handouts are updated every year- the more artists, genres, and eras of music represented, the better!