My name is Samuel Edvardsson and I am the one who teaches on Optimum Guitar School. I am a trained guitarist and guitar teacher with a degree from the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, Sweden, and have been active as a guitarist and guitar pedagogue for 20 years. I started playing guitar when I was 13, first my dream was to play electric guitar and to become a rock hero, but soon I discovered that the acoustic guitar was my destiny.
I have been teaching at public music schools and high school music programs and not least I have been teaching many private students.
As a guitarist I have played hundreds of concerts all over Sweden and I have also played in Brazil, Germany and Switzerland. I play mainly classical guitar music, butI also have a passion for Brazilian music, Bossa Nova and MPB. I am also very fond of playing with singers, which I have done for the best part of my guitarist career. I also enjoy very much to play contemporary music, and composers from different countries have written guitar music especially for me.
Eureka moment
I was teaching for years without managing to actually teach my students that much. I was trying different methods and different approaches but the students only reached a certain level. I especially found it very difficult to teach how to read scores. Then I discovered two things that changed my teaching fundamentally.
The first was the method to start by playing with the thumb on the bass strings, which I first saw in Mårten Falk's book Gitarrmästaren, which is a great book for children learning to play from the beginning. I modified this method slightly and have since used it in almost all of my teaching.
The second thing, which I discovered as a consequence of the first, was that I teach so my better when I teach what I really love and and know, which is classical guitar, or more accurately, classical guitar technique. The goal with my teaching is to give my students the tools to play the music that they like and then a classical guitar technique is the way to go. I became happier and the students became happier too.
I use a method where you start by playing, with a closed hand, simple melodies and scales with the thumb on the bass strings. After a while you can start opening your hand and play with the fingers too. With this method you achieve a good right hand position and technique which will help you develop further. At the same time you learn the notes of the guitar and to orientate yourself on the fretboard in a very natural way.
How my courses are constructed
I use two different courses, one for children and one for adults. The border between them however is slightly blurry and an adult can very well learn from the children's course and vice versa.
In both courses learning how to play by score, developing playing skills and learning how to play chords are processes that run parallel. The steps are small so that you feel that you are in control and always feel prepared to take the next step.
