Guitar Electives: A Gateway for Growth

The introduction of a Guitar and Ukulele elective in 2019 at Springfield High School in Pennsylvania has been a key driver for growth and expansion within our music department. Since then, we have added a full-time music staff member and introduced Guitar Level 2.

For the 2025-2026 academic year, we introduced two more music electives — Modern Band and Fundamentals of Piano — and revived our Introduction to Music Theory course, which hasn’t been offered since the pandemic!

Break Down Barriers with Guitar Courses

Guitar and other chordophone courses are especially unique tools for engaging students beyond core ensembles. The Guitar and Ukulele elective course ushered in hundreds of students looking to not just learn about music in, say, a Bach to Rock class but to actually make music! The overwhelming majority of guitar students had not taken any other music elective during their high school experience.

Why is guitar breaking down barriers for student access to music education?

• It has mass popular and cultural appeal.
• It meets students where their interests lie: The artists they enjoy play these instruments.
• Guitar can be played in many popular styles or genres.
• It easily facilitates a natural sound before sight approach to learning music.
• With good instruction, success can be achieved quickly!
• With the guitar, students can play melodies and harmonies
• It doesn’t require a reliance on traditional notation.
• No ensemble is required with the guitar!
• There is a wealth of high-quality and low-cost method books, YouTube channels, apps and websites dedicated to guitar instruction.
• Guitars are reasonably priced and readily available at local and online distributors. We like and use the Yamaha GigMaker Deluxe Package.

The guitar is an incredible engagement tool for music education.

Engagement from Guitar Courses

As music educators, we know how awesome music is! It’s fun, expressive and part of the shared human experience. Through guitar, we are able to share that message and inspire a passion for music with a much larger student population. We are planting a seed.

From that touch point, we can do two critical things in elective guitar courses:

1. Find out what and how students want to learn about music and offer courses and curricula that meet their needs and interests.
2. Direct students to course offerings that already exist to meet their interests and needs.

Surveying your courses and providing music offerings students want is a surefire way to grow and expand your music program.

Pathway to New Courses

This year, we are expanding our instruction to include Modern Band and Fundamentals of Piano courses. Many of our guitar students who progressed into Guitar Level 2 were looking for a way to apply their skills and Modern Band provides that opportunity. This course also opens the door for other musicians such as bass players, drummers, keyboardists, etc. and allows guitar students to apply their skills in the context of an ensemble.

The piano elective came at the request of elective guitar students who were interested in learning piano. Some felt that guitar wasn’t for them, but they wanted to continue making music. Others simply had a piano at home and were looking for instruction. Fundamentals of Piano is structured in a similar manner to our guitar electives, so students will already have knowledge of chord symbols and notation.

Pathway to Music Theory

The Guitar and Ukulele elective has been a catalyst for reviving our music theory program.

Playing guitar requires students to interact with basic music theory concepts and vocabulary. As a fretted chordophone, guitar lends itself as a powerful teaching tool for both melodic and harmonic concepts in theory unlike many traditional ensemble instruments. In my courses, learning to play major and minor chords, structuring progressions and reading music piqued the curiosity of students from our guitar classes. Basic theory concepts that must be taught in a beginning guitar class plant the seed for further music theory learning.

This year, the majority of Introduction to Music Theory students are not in an ensemble, but they have taken guitar or another music elective — this is the first time this has happened! These students are on a path to potentially take AP Music Theory and earn college credit.

Pathway to Other Electives and Ensembles

Once students opened the door to music education through guitar, it was a lot easier to get them to stick with music by offering and promoting more music classes that appeal to their interests. Guitar and Ukulele allowed our department to cast a wider net and create a captive audience. It gave us the opportunity to do what really grows music programs — build relationships.

Use guitar classes to recruit students for your other courses, especially when you identify a talent or interest. All you have to do is talk to your students about taking Digital Music Production or putting in a recommendation in your class-management system. I identified good singers for chorus through guitar class and even recruited a guitar player for Jazz Band!