Embrace the Noodle in Your Guitar Class
by Nelson Rodriguez-Parada
In an article shared by NAfME, “The End of Noodling or Take Back Your Guitar Class,” an argument is made that noodling, or playing passively while focusing on instruction, is detrimental to your guitar program and should be discouraged at all costs. It goes on to share tips on how to end noodling quickly.
I don’t know if this is such a good idea, especially in a guitar class.
In most cases, noodling is the student’s best way of processing information, and may well be the only true form of practice students will realistically engage in. I’ve found that many times noodling students are constantly listening, but need to apply that practice as they are receiving the information, or else the moment is gone.
If our goal is to engage every student in some form of music education, (and let’s admit that our guitar students are students we never would have been able to reach with our other, more traditional, music classes) then we should embrace every shred of interest a student may exhibit and find ways to teach around that. The traditional way of teaching will argue that noodling is distracting to the other learners trying to receive the information and may not be able to focus. This argument is valid, especially for other subjects, but in a class that should be about musical language and communication, such as a guitar class, maybe noodling isn’t the worst habit to discourage.
Is there a way to encourage noodling, which essentially becomes white-noise, but still give appropriate instruction? Sure there is: Raise the volume of your voice! Once I started speaking into a microphone, I found that the guitar heroes who wanted to move quickly were able to practice while I gave instruction, while still offering the other students the opportunity to process information in their own way and, most importantly, no one was left behind.
Of course, there are instances when silence is appropriate, and following some of the advise in the article may be useful. But I encourage not using it all the time and allow students the freedom of exploring the guitar at their own pace.