Welcome Students!

Beginning students should purchase the Hal Leonard Complete Edition Method Book.  Click on the book below to go to SheetMusicPlus to purchase.

 

Student Handbook

This document contains all sorts of useful information on being a student at the Root River Guitar Studio. Click on the above link to download the pdf document.

Practicing

Practicing is the only way to become a better guitar player. Kerry has been teaching and playing guitar for many years and has found that structuring his practice times has helped him to accomplish more in less than half the time of a practice which is not structured. He has broken his practice times down into five parts. The items to practice are as follows:

             * Technique                    * Review and Refine
             * Memory                       * Reading
             * New Piece(s)
             
Here is a handy practice check list containing the above categories with space to write down what was practiced in each category. You can download it either as a PDF (viewable with Adobe Acrobat) or in a MS Word format. Click on either of the links below to start the download.
                 
        PDF format                          MS Word format
        (viewable in Adobe)

Expectations (for level one)

       Teacher

       * Model musicianship.
       * Communicate with parents and child/student.
       * Listen for needs of child/student.
       * Be a resource for parent/home teacher.
       * Provide structure.

       Student/child

       * Have fun!
       * Pay attention to instructor.
       * Act appropriately.
       * Give same respect to home teacher/parent as you would to your teacher.
       * Practice only on the days you eat!

       Parents

        * Facilitate listening to recording of book one DAILY!
        * Supervise practice DAILY!
        * Attend all lessons and classes and take notes.
        * Work on child’s nails before EVERY lesson and EVERY class.
VERY IMPORTANT!
Left hand nails trimmed and right hand nails shaped and buffed.
         * Leave cell phone ringers off during lesson and classes.
         Let others know you are unavailable during lesson and class time.
         * Learn to play all of book one.

Special Notes To Parents:
Unsupervised practice should not start until book one is completed. Unsupervised practice could even begin several books later, depending on age and maturity of child.

Supervised Lessons Policy: It is studio policy that all students under 18 years of age must be accompanied by an adult over the age of 18. The adult must be on the premises for the ENTIRE lesson. No exceptions. Please do not "run an errand" or the like during the lesson time or send a nanny or babysitter, who is under the age of 18, to the lesson as a replacement for you. Thank you for your cooperation.

Attendance Policy

[revised 6.2007]:

Students should strive to attend each week’s lesson. Absences for illness, snow days, or bereavement are acceptable. For best results, the student should attend 90-100% of the scheduled lessons. If at any time a student's attendance falls below 80% the student is placed on academic probation. Failure to rectify this before the end of the semester will result in dismissal and the student will not be allowed to study at the studio for one year. Please let the teacher know ASAP if you cannot attend your lesson. 24 hour notice is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

NO SHOWS WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. Please call or email in the event of an absence.

Parents must accompany their children to lessons and classes until they are 18 years old.

Style Samples

Click the following links to hear some of the different styles that Kerry teaches.

           
    Classical                Jazz               Fingerstyle
 file size 1.5M      file size 2.5M        file size 1.5M

      BONUS MUSIC SAMPLES!

      1. Jazz duet sample - file size 2.6M
      2. Additional Classical Sample - file size 1M

Good Guitar Lessons (c) Copyright 2006-2007 Root River Guitar Studio.