ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to examine whether teaching activities aimed to improve musical knowledge and skills of students, who took classical guitar lessons in individual instrument education classes, had an effect on the success of students’ performances. The study group of the research consisted of first year, second year and third year guitar students who took classical guitar courses within individual instrument education classes at Karadeniz Technical University, in the Music Education branch of Fine Arts Education Department in the academic year of 2012-2013. The research was designed according to the model of experimental design with the control groups for pretests and posttests. After reviewing the equivalency of guitar students, experimental (N=7) and control (N=7) groups were selected with the help of the impartial assignment method. In research, while the experimental group was introduced with special guitar education lessons prepared according to the systematic education model, for two successive periods of five weeks each; the traditional teaching method was employed for the control group. Pretests and posttests were administered two both groups. Based on the results, it can be said that classical guitar performance successes of students in experimental group have increased to a greater degree than those in control group after the treatment. In conclusion, it was found that the special guitar education program, which aimed to increase musical and technical knowledge and skills in playing classical guitar, was significantly more effective and improving than the traditional teaching methods.
Keywords: Instrument Training, Curriculum, Classical Guitar Education, Eclectic Approach.