Shearer Articles

To study Shearer, is to study the journey of his evolving pedagogy.   Throughout his life, he tirelessly reworked and refined ideas, always seeking feedback from his students, colleagues, friends and family.  So often, Shearer would labor for weeks, crystalizing a concept in an article to complete satisfaction, only to throw it out and start over the next day.   David Tanenbaum comments, “He was always looking for the right way to do it and more importantly the right way to say it.”  Former student, Thomas Kikta reflects,

During the early 80’s Shearer was bringing into pedagogy class his writings. We literally were the “guinea pigs.” So many times, we would have one class go in one direction, and the next one in the complete opposite.  To most, this would be very frustrating, but it taught us first-hand the value of trial and error. That experience was priceless to me.

Growing up Shearer faced numerous obstacles that would forever change the course of his life.   As a guitarist, he was self-taught.  In the 1930’s suitable step-by-step methods were not yet available and, while he owned a few books, they offered poor or little information.  In his early 20’s a serious car accident left him with a permanent right-arm injury that was further aggravated by countless hours of misaligned guitar practice.  This brought on a condition of severe tendonitis with no hope of becoming a serious classical guitarist. In spite, Shearer was able to turn his handicap into a positive force.

Classic Guitar Technique

With his right hand crippled, performing was limited to jazz rhythm guitar.  But his passion for classical music endured, so Shearer’s only remaining option was to teach.  To pursue fully, he began tackling the issue of beginning-level methodologies.  Shearer sought advice from other musicians and teachers including Segovia, who referred him to his friend, Sophocles Papas in DC.  To Shearer’s dismay, Papas endorsed the Aguado Method, which, like other 19th century texts, assumed a level of musical literacy and included etudes that were too difficult for beginners.  In addition, Papas’s curriculum focused on imitating Segovia; “I wasn’t interested in what Segovia does, I was interested to understand how he learned to do it.”  Shearer emphasized.

This was the beginning of Shearer, the analyst, asking what was wrong with present methods and what could be done to improve them.  He experimented with his students seeing what worked best and in relatively short time, wrote Classic Guitar Technique (1959) the first real systematic method for beginners.

It was designed to quickly get students to alternate rest-stroke melody and free-stroke bass.  First, fingers on upper strings are introduced, then p on lower strings, and finally alternation of p and fingers.  His recommended Procedure of Practice is rather simple: 1) name the notes as they are being played; 2) vocalize the finger alternation (“i,m,i,m.” etc.); 3) count the beats of the measure using a metronome–all seeds for his later, more developed pre-reading procedure.   Despite its simplistic content, an evolving system was born and a book, that Segovia called “worthless,” became the benchmark of American guitar pedagogy.

While the organizational layout is tricky (all technical explanation in Book I, all musical application in Book II), the pedagogical concepts are sound and groundbreaking.  The method opens boldly with Shearer’s favorite Albert Einstein quote:

The last phrase, ‘for the sake of others” is pause for thought and segues directly into Shearer’s ultimate goal for guitar study, sharing music with others, specifically performance.  To this end, he unveils a host of new tools such as Aim-directed movement (ADM), Pre-Reading, and Visualization, all carried out away from the guitar for both learning and memorizing music.  In the very beginning, he offers guidelines for clarifying music by vocalizing notes (fixed chromatic solfege) and counting and clapping rhythms.  Whereas mindful learning is in its infancy in Classic Guitar Technique, it’s in full swing in Learning the Classic Guitar.

On the technique front, Shearer lays down one of his best contributions to date, the Four Principals of Efficient Muscle Function: 1) Alignment; 2) Mid-range positioning; 3) Follow Through; and 4) Uniform Direction of Joint Movement.  From these simple truths, unfold the foundation for all technical development in the book and beyond.  The method’s step-by-step sequence is strong, beginning with p free stroke, progressing eventually to sympathetic p,i,m arpeggio, finger alternation, etc.  All the way, Book II serves to apply the technique in Book I with originally composed, level-appropriate music.  Teacher and student duets, mostly in the first half of the book, allow for a rich musical experience from the very start.

With performance as the ultimate goal, Book III, Interpretation and Performance Development opens an entirely new branch of Shearer pedagogy.  It’s the product of decades of practice in his studios, and validated by the extraordinarily high quality of students he had been producing at both Peabody and UNCSA—virtuosos such as Barrueco, Cobo, Starobin, Tanenbaum, to name a few.   The first half of the book, Interpretation, includes topics such as Rhythmic, Harmonic, and Melodic Attractions, Note Groupings, and Phrasing, all exemplified in simple pieces from the standard repertoire.  The second half, a collection of articles on Performance Anxiety, Memorization, Positive/Negative Concerns, Stage Conduct, Developmental and Expressive Performance, should be essential reading for all aspiring musicians.

Classic Guitar Technique Volume I, 3rd Edition

While the three books of Learning the Classical Guitar (LTCG) represent one of the most comprehensive guitar methodologies to date, Shearer grew increasingly concerned with its somewhat unwieldy design, the minor bumps in technical sequence, and lack of standard repertoire.  In addition, though the text clearly explains every detail of technique, it’s a lot to digest for raw beginners, especially younger students.   In many respects, this was not the target audience.  At the time of LTCG, Shearer had been working with high-level college students, many of them remedial who had to be stripped of bad habits by starting over from square one.

By 1995 Shearer retired from full-time teaching, and turned his attention to refining ideas introduced in LTCG, specifically, Visualization, Habits, and Performance Anxiety.  The first significant work produced was the 1998 unpublished article, An Innovative Approach to Learning Musical Instruments. The article is considered by many as one of his best, and forms the basis for writings on mindful learning in the later Shearer Method.

Kikta and Shearer

The Shearer Method

By 2008, Shearer finished the 400-page manuscript, The Shearer Method, knowing that he would not live to see it to print.  He handed it to Kikta one month before his passing with the instruction, “get it published, it’s really good!”  The text is essentially a total makeover of LTCG.  As he states in the Forward, “Although many of the terms and ideas remain the same, some differ in application, others have been replaced, and some important new ones have been added.”

The success of Classic Guitar Technique sparked a new direction for Shearer.  Kikta reflects on the early stages of working on the project:

Around 2000 or 2001, Aaron was thinking about his magnum opus, his final word on how the guitar should be taught.  Since he was regularly teaching at Duquesne University, we had a lot of time to discuss the content, curriculum and approach.  One comment I made was that it would be so much easier if we could use video to tell his story.  If a picture was worth a thousand words, then a video was infinite.  We hooked our homes up with “CU See Me” and I would provide video examples of his technique.  More often than not, he would say he “didn’t understand how it was all going to work.”  I think it was the “midrange position of the joints” video when he finally realized the potential and new direction for his method.

Bringing in Kikta, was the start of making the most collaborative and creative method yet.  Each book would include extensive videos, software-controlled audio to enable change in tempo and volume, and a hefty online supplement.  To take it to print, LTCG composer, Hirsh created all the music and developed the online supplement, while Kikta performed and recorded all selections and produced videos.  By 2012, the Shearer Method Book I, Classic Guitar Foundations was published; Books II (Classic Guitar Developments) and III (Learning the Fingerboard) were published in subsequent years.  The sheer content dwarfs all earlier methods by comparison.  Shearer Method, Book I alone has nearly 200 pages with over 80 compositions, 63 videos, and 34 online supplement links to more articles, videos and music.  “Tom and I knew Shearer had risen the bar, which inspired us both to make it our best,” Hirsh recalls.

With video, Shearer’s instructional language is noticeably lighter.  In LTCG, each new technique is described in step-by-step detail, while the Shearer Method provides only minimal explanation with reference to a video (streamed online or from the accompanying media disk).  For instance, the topic of Sympathetic Movement is only 4 bullets of text, the first of which is “Study the video to form clear aims.”   Each of Kikta’s videos brings all the details of technique to life with high definition image, motion graphics, and clear voiceover instruction.  Articles such as performance, memorization, and habits, however, remain in the full Shearer-force writing style.

The most obvious departure from LTCG is the method’s format, which merges text and music within the same book.  In terms of technique, Shearer began to regard rest stroke as a difficult hurdle for many beginning students.  It’s noticeably absent throughout Book I, focusing instead on setting the optimal hand position with free stroke, follow-though, sympathetic motion, etc.  Book II, however, launches immediately with rest stroke, first on a single line with scales, then later in homophonic texture involving other fingers free stroke.

Of course, the thread of mindful learning is collaboratively interwoven throughout.  Shearer’s concepts are introduced in the text, brought to life with Kikta’s videos, and reinforced by Hirsh’s pre-reading/visualization exercises to prepare students for specific challenges in the music.  In addition, students can view the entire mindful learning process in an 11-part video series at the Aaron Shearer Foundation website.

Since establishing the Aaron Shearer Foundation in 2009 along with its website, Shearer’s legacy lives on.  In his footsteps, the foundation is dedicated to excellence in guitar education.  Hirsh, Kikta, and others have expanded book offerings, such as Shearer’s complete fingerings of Carcassi Op. 60, Classroom Shearer: a Teacher’s manual, and Shearer Method Book IV, Guitar Harmony.  The website offers a wealth of free materials, writings, blogs, and music, while the foundation continues to develop its programs, including Guitar in the Schools, an annual summer institute in Zion, and US Guitar Orchestra.

Remembering Shearer during his centennial year, we can appreciate his many contributions to the guitar world.   His mantra was always to compare pedagogy of the guitar to that of the piano and violin. Those were the “serious” instruments.  Shearer remembers, “In the beginning people would laugh when I would say that someday guitar would be a serious major instrument…well they’re not laughing anymore.”