“I want to share the knowledge and love of music,” Mark Damon, teacher of the guitar lessons at the Malden Teen Enrichment Center (MTEC), said.
Every Thursday at MTEC, Mark Damon teaches young teens how to play guitar, whether they just want to learn for fun or if they’re passionate about learning. “I want to know how to play the guitar because I listen to a lot of music and I want to enter a band or something like that,” Miguel Rezende Santos, a student who attended, explained.
Thursday, December 7th was their first class. However, after their second class a week later, Damon was already seeing so much improvement with his students.
“I wanted to start teaching guitar for a little while; I have been a guitarist since I was the age of some of the kids in this class. I thought it would be very good for me to have this opportunity to teach and learn every week,” Damon stated.
In the beginning, everyone started by introducing themselves. Damon went around and asked what kind of music everyone was interested in and what they wanted to learn to play.
“It’s different with a big group of kids rather than one-on-one lessons because everyone has different goals and I try to figure out what every kid's goals are," expressed Damon. "Some of them might want to be a singer-songwriter, some of them might want to be a guitarist who accompanies people, some of them might want to shred licks and feel like a rock star, and everyone’s going to have that different goal. He emphasized that "however I can facilitate getting to their goal, that’s what I’m going to try to do," proving that his students' goals are also his own.
As they began to play, he guided them through which strings to play, when to play them, and at what pace. His extremely encouraging and positive attitude continued to motivate them to keep trying even if they were struggling. Everyone listened attentively and took an interest in trying to learn.
As they discussed the parts of the guitar and learned how to tune the guitars, he went over to everyone separately to hear everyone’s rhythm. He found out what they were struggling with and what they needed to improve on.
“I’m already hearing really nice chords coming from you guys and this is only two days, so I’m really happy about it,” he told the kids while they were playing. Students were never afraid to speak up and ask for help which shows his welcoming attitude.
“Back in 2006 when I was in 10th grade, I went to a guitar studio in Malden, but it’s no longer there. I guess that is the bummer thing about places closing down; but hey, now we have a teen center, which I think was just a senior center when I was in high school so this whole facility is new to me. So now there’s that opportunity for kids, instead of going to that guitar studio in Malden, there’s this.” Damon said.
Many people enjoy donating and helping out the MTEC when they can, but a specific gentleman would always donate many musical instruments and different art supplies to them. He passed away about a year ago and they decided to finally do something with all the guitars. Thanks to him, the MTEC is able to have guitar lessons every Thursday from 4:00 - 5:00 P.M., so if you’re interested in learning how to play guitar, definitely check it out.
“We learned a lot today. We went up and down the guitar with those single notes, we learned the E major and E minor chords, and we learned an A minor chord,” Damon told his students as the class was nearing the end.
When the class ended, everyone was satisfied with how much progress they had made. Damon reminded his students, “The more you can get a guitar in your hands, the better you’ll get. Get the guitar in your hands more and clip those nails.”
