Guatier Essay, Research Paper

Due to the curriculum of Spring Ridge Middle School, all the students are required to take a music class of their choice. I signed up for mine in the 7th grade, but since I can’t carry a tune very well I decided a guitar class would be the way to go. I’m not musical and besides in Elementary School, this is the only music class that I can vaguely remember taking.

My guitar teacher was Mr. Hoopengardner. He was a loud, red-faced man who had little to no patience for those us of who knew nothing about music; which was essentially all the students. He breezed right through the explanations of sheet music, notes and strings, leaving no time for questions as if all was understood immediately. I think Mr. Hoopengardner knew that the majority of the class was taking it for the fun of it and he wanted us to be disciplined and serious. Mr. Hoopengardner would yell, lose his temper and embarrass you if you weren’t positioning your hands correctly on the guitar or the wrong chords were struck.

I thought learning the guitar would be interesting and fun, but it didn’t turn out how I expected. I had a very hard time in that class and rushing through the lesson plans didn’t help me at all. I left that class feeling it was a bad experience and knowing exactly what I did about guitars before the semester started-nothing.