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  Principles
    General
     Teaching in a group

  I.  Holding Positions
     1. Sitting position
     2. Ancient Guitar Position
     3. Left Hand
        a) Placing the hand
        b) Mark and Press
     4. Right Hand
     5. The plectrum

  II.  Playing
       General
    1.Contents of playing
        a) Open string
        b) Open string and 1
        c) Open string + 1 + 2
    2. Music Creativity
       General
        a) Composing
        b) Improvisation
        c) Solo playing
       
  III. Music pieces
      
  IV. Two strings
       1. General
       2. The pieces

The New Music Educational Project - My Ancient Guitar

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Principles of playing How we will learn to play an Ancient Guitar

General    
Learning the holding positions will last from about three weeks to a month.
After the students have acquired the principles it will be necessary to review these positions and improve them using the material played. Teaching the principles will not constitute the whole lesson but only about one third of the lesson. The rest of the lesson will include the experience of playing in pairs or groups of three, and each lesson will end with orchestral playing. You can prepare simple material in order to make sure this is a successful experience for all students.

This booklet, 'Play Ancient Guitar' offers plenty of material, and since it will not be possible to review all of it, every user will adapt the material for his class/course.
Teaching the principles is sometimes considered to be a problematic stage, because we have just finished the exciting building stage, but we do not really know how to play, and learning requires work, patience and cooperation, which students sometimes lack. Therefore we should prepare a number of pieces which may bring pleasure (and motivation). The formula is to offer very simple pieces with accompaniment (or playback). 'Play Ancient Guitar' will offer many pieces, but the teacher must be capable of writing some material for his class on his own.

Note: It is important to introduce musical concepts so that each student will know the following definitions at this early stage: 1. Music - organized sounds (noises...?) 2. Sound - two definitions: a. An acoustic definition: The pitch of a certain sound frequency with a certain length and duration. b. An objective definition: An action sensed by the sensory modality of hearing.

3. The qualities of sound: Each sound has 4 basic qualities:
a. Sound pitch (low, high and intermediate)
b. Sound duration (short, long and intermediate)
c. Sound intensity (volume: loud/strong, soft/weak and intermediate)
d. Sound timbre (the acoustic characteristic of the sound - not based on the previous three qualities)
The qualities of the sound are the foundation on which we will base a large part of our composition and improvisation lessons. These qualities can be taught by a quiz: we will play two contrasting sounds, for example, the first sound will be played loudly and the second one softly. Then the students will have to point out the quality - intensity, and so forth...How about mixing two qualities of sound, for example: Long and high sound...

Puzzle me...

It is important to note that students should be acquainted with the potential of the instrument before they learn how to play it. Therefore it is recommended to teach a piece which consists of playing an open string prior to learning the basic principles - simply in order to create a successful experience. The students will play a rhythm repeatedly, while you will play the theme and improvise:

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