Basic Ukulele is a new Ukulele Method authored by Consonus Music Institute Director of Curriculum Mike Christiansen. This method is particularly appropriate for Classroom Ukulele teachers and students. Read More…
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Classroom Guitar Curriculum Change Up
Why Change Your Classroom Guitar Curriculum? Changing the way you do something, or the way you teach something, is scary. It's comfortable to continue teaching the … [Read More...]
Private Guitar Teachers: What to Look For
With summer coming on and your classroom guitar class winding down you may be interested in continuing your guitar studies with a private guitar teacher. In this … [Read More...]
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Classroom Guitar: Tips for Tuning the Class
An Easy and Fun Way to Tune Your Class One of the most fun ways to tune is with the video at the top of this blog post. This video, called "Tuning Pitches," is also found in the video library that comes with every course in the Consonus courseware library. … [Read More...]
Memorizing Music
In this video blog Classroom Guitar expert Mike Christiansen gives you tips and tricks for memorizing music. Here's a short summary: Before you even play the music...look it over Before you start playing the music take some time to look the music over. Count … [Read More...]
Classroom Guitar: How, When and Why to Use a Capo
In this video blog, Consonus Classroom Guitar Curriculum author Mike Christiansen discusses how, when and why to use a capo. Probably the most common use of a capo is to change key but when teaching very young classroom guitar students, and using a full … [Read More...]
Classroom Guitar: Silence is Golden
When teaching classroom guitar or classroom ukulele having some tools to get your class to quite down can be essential. In this video-blog Mike Christiansen teaches the concept of "rest position" and gives you some tools to help calm the chaos. … [Read More...]
Teaching Classroom Guitar – Flipped
Flipping Your Guitar Class Consonus Music Institute's Classroom Guitar and Classroom Ukulele curriculum provides everything you need to "flip" your class. In fact, this is one of the most productive uses of technology in the classroom.<?p> We asked … [Read More...]
Classroom Guitar Concert Tips
It's that time of year when classroom guitar teachers are putting together concerts. Of course, any time of year is a good time to put together a guitar concert. Nothing, and I mean nothing, will motivate students and stimulate practice like concert … [Read More...]
Rhythm Studies for Classroom Guitar Are Here
For many students reading rhythms accurately is a challenge. When I was a guitar professor, I noticed that when students would audition to enter into the guitar program, reading rhythms was a stumbling block. I think this was because many of the students had … [Read More...]
Blues Licks for Classroom Guitar
The blues song form, chord progression, and signature melodic motifs are elements that inform many genre’s of music including jazz, rock & roll, country, and gospel music. The blues is of particular interest to guitar players as as it originated on the … [Read More...]
Practice While You’re Teaching Guitar
Many music educators reach a point where they’ve mastered the material in the classroom guitar curriculum they’re teaching and find themselves becoming a bit bored with their own playing. If you can relate then keep reading. The guitar class offers the … [Read More...]
Advanced Warmups
Warm up drills for guitar serve a few purposes for both students and teachers: They get the left and right hands synchronized on a purely technical level without concern for the music that is being produced. This is especially important before learning or … [Read More...]
