BSL Guitar Tuition

This page contains free BSL (British Sign Language) guitar tuition videos and TABs/notation that have been adapted to be as visual and Deaf-friendly as possible.

I also provide in-person Deaf/BSL guitar tuition. Please see this video for more information:

Tom Hunt helping organise the first ever concert at Heathlands Deaf School. — Helping a student perform in the first ever concert at Heathlands School for Deaf Children. I used sound visualizers and my ‘Hearts TAB’ design to help create a visual and exciting experience for the performers and audience.

If you are interested in learning in-person please contact me at tom@tomhunt.co.uk. Lesson fees are £34 per hour or £17 per half-hour (paid as 4 lessons upfront).

I hope the videos and handouts listed below are useful. Everything on this page is free but if you’d like to support me please consider donating money here:

Please use the menu below to navigate the page.

1. Intro
2. Videos
3.’Hearts TABs’
4. Chords and strumming songs
5. Articles

Intro

I have worked as a guitar and bass teacher for Heathlands School For Deaf Children for several years and have really enjoyed seeing my students progress. Working at the school has motivated me to find creative ways to make my lessons as accessible as possible, which has shaped all of the content you see on this page.

For example, here is a video of one of my Heathlands students performing the song ‘Love That’s Gone’ by La Sera using coloured strings and the app Rocksmith:

I am still improving my BSL skills and exploring new methods for tuition, so please check back for more content soon!

Videos

Important Guitar Terms – Strings and Frets:

How To Read My Hearts TABs Using ‘Thunder’ By Imagine Dragons:

Beginner’s Rock Song – ‘Smoke On The Water’

‘Hearts TABs’

My ‘Hearts’ Tabs are also based on the string colours used in the software ‘Rocksmith’. My student electric guitar has been re-strung with these colours (see pic):

Here is how to read ‘Hearts TABs’:

The colours represent which strings to use (see the guitar picture above)
The numbers represent which frets to use
Each heart lasts for 1 beat and all of the hearts move at the same tempo. This means that if there are 2 numbers within 1 heart, they should be played twice as fast as 1 number within 1 heart.
The letter Z means 1 beat of rest (don’t play anything for 1 beat)

See below for an example:

This next heart TAB uses half beat rests:

This classic rock Hearts TAB is a great crowd pleaser:

Chords and Strumming Songs

How to read chord charts (using the string colours seen in the app ‘Rocksmith’):

The chords above can be used to play thousands of songs.

Here is a simple Bob Marley song that uses the A and D chord. You can strum each chord once or keep strumming while you sing the words.

Articles

I wrote this article a couple of years ago to share useful Apps and resources for Deaf music students: https://tomhunt.co.uk/guitar-lessons-for-deaf-students-my-experience-and-some-useful-resources/

Copyright Notice

Any redistribution or reproduction of part or all of the contents in any form is prohibited other than the following:

*you may print or download to a local hard disk extracts for your personal and non-commercial use only
*you may copy the content to individual third parties for their personal use, but only if you acknowledge the website as the source of the material

You may not, except with my express written permission, distribute or commercially exploit the content.