Solo Career
Federal legislation in 2002 made a college degree mandatory for teachers’ aides, so despite her three decades of experience in the classroom, Campbell found herself out of work. When a friend and opera teacher heard Campbell’s story, she offered her a room and a chance to teach guitar privately. “I was not brave enough to do it before,” she explains. “But I was almost forced into it.” Campbell currently has about 21 students, many of whom are working with SmartStart. Two of them are classroom teachers themselves.

And Campbell is still helping students get their hands on a first guitar. “When a kid comes for lessons, I lend them a guitar for 30 days,” she explains. “That way, their parents don’t have to lay out any money for a guitar right away, and they can see if they like it. After that they usually want to get a guitar of their own.” Not surprisingly, Campbell has specific ideas about what to start beginners on. “If you give a kid a full-sized instrument, it’s not going to work,” she observes. “I love the three-quarter Fenders, or half-size guitars.”

That’s understandable, considering that she currently teaches students as young as five years old. “They play in open G,” she says, “and we do ‘A Tisket A Tasket’ and the alphabet song.” Those lessons last for just 15 minutes, which, Campbell observes with an understanding laugh, is about as long as you can ask a child that age to sit still. “Once kids start approaching age six, their fine motor coordination between their thumb and finger begins developing, and we can use two chords,” she says. “There are a million songs with two chords—just G and D—so I transpose them all.”

Early Successes
Campbell’s first priority is for students to experience “the pure joy of music” and she emphasizes learning songs over scales and music theory, drawing an analogy between music and language. “We learn to talk before we learn how to write the words,” she points out, “so we need to learn to have success first” by playing songs and having a good time with the instrument.

Campbell holds her student recitals in a local nursing home, which, she says, works out for everyone. “All my kids have this attentive audience,” she explains, “and the seniors have all these beautiful young faces to look at.” She adds, “I’m just a good old country girl. When I was growing up, I thought, ‘If I make it to the Grand Ole Opry, just backing someone up on the guitar, I will have arrived.’ But when I’m in that nursing home, I wouldn’t trade places with anybody.”

David Hamburger is a guitarist, writer, and guitar teacher who lives in Austin, Texas. A contributing editor to Acoustic Guitar, he is also the author of several instruction books, including Acoustic Guitar Slide Basics and The Acoustic Guitar Method (String Letter Publishing).


Resources
Guitars in the Classroom, guitarsintheclassroom.com
SmartStart, smartstartguitar.org

Ellen’s Advice
• When kids who don’t get along work out musical problems together in class, they often find common ground.
• Start younger students off in open-G tuning with one- or two-chord songs to give them a sense of accomplishment.