Spectacular teaching tip #96

Week two at the City Lit, in the beginners’ guitar class, and the usual complaints about stretching for a C chord. It’s a leap, it’s true, and the first (of many) point at which the debutant wonders if they’re cut out for the guitar after all. My usual joke amid the grumbles is to say that there are still places on the flute course. I’m hilarious, and they laugh politely as they don’t know me well enough to work out whether I’m kidding.

‘My fingers just won’t reach’.
‘I think my hands are simply too small for the guitar’.
‘Isn’t there another way?’

‘Here’, I say, ‘try this’. They look up, hopefully. ‘Here’s another chord that’s much more difficult. It’s called G7. I’m not expecting any of you to be able to play it straight away, but at least it’ll take your mind off the C chord’.

I leave them to it for a couple of minutes. There’s a cloud of cussing and mumbling in the midst, which eventually clears, and the chords start ringing out.

‘So—how did you get on?’

‘Oh, C’s really easy now’.

‘And G7?’

‘No problem’.

I quote a recollection from the Beano, possibly Billy the Whizz. Perhaps the Bash Street Kids. Someone’s toe has been crushed, and it’s agonising. ‘Can’t anyone get rid of this pain for me?’ ‘Here, let me help’ says a helpful soul, who then promptly stamps on the other foot. ‘See,’ he says, as our hapless victim lies howling, clutching his latest injury, ‘you’ve forgotten all about that foot now’.