Guitar is the most popular instrument in the world. While some may lists may claim piano is, I can guarantee you, more people have attempted or started learning guitar or want to play guitar in comparison to piano.
Compared to piano as well, there’s no ‘one way’ to learn it. To become a professional pianist, you need to learn to read, you more likely need a teacher, and you would have to develop certain skills and techniques properly.
Guitar though? You got a range for those who self-learned, who had a private teacher, and who went to school. Some focus on lead and soloing, some focus on rhythm for acoustic playing, other’s focus on fingerstyle. There’s so many genres and so many different skills and styles to learn that no guitarist could possibly master everything. And this is where our dilemma comes from.
When a student is looking for a teacher, you really don’t know what you’re going to get because so many have learned by themselves or through another self-learned teacher. There’s no standard structure on how to learn guitar, so many just jump in. Also, many guitarists don’t know much, if any, theory, so the musical aspect of guitar is missing from a lot of lessons. “Just learn some shapes, feel the music, and just play!” Some may learn well that well, but it will hold others back and continue the cycle.
Hi, I’m Nostalgia. I’ve been playing guitar for just under 3 years, over the span of 5 years. In my first year, I was doing really well as a self-learner, but like many, I decided I wanted to take guitar seriously so I sought a teacher. I’ve tried a couple others since then, and honestly, Guitar Tricks was better than all of them.
While I don’t doubt there’s many great guitar teachers out there, I also know there are many self-taught guitarists who decided to teach for some extra money, and have caused the downfall of many eager and enthusiastic students.
If you’re reading this, you may be a student looking for green flags, or you may be a guitarist who is starting to teach and you want to do right by your students. Whichever one, welcome! I’m going to share my own experience with bad teachers, share other stories I found online, and then give 10 tips on what I believe makes an amazing guitar teacher.
My Personal Experiences With GUitar Teachers
My First Teacher (2017)
My first teacher was so bad that I actually put the guitar down for a couple years. I was doing pretty well as a self-learner. I had my open chords down, started on barre chords, and I understood theory enough to improvise.
As this point, I was mostly focused on lead, but my fingers were still pretty slow at this time. I wasn’t sure where to go next in my learning (especially since I didn’t have internet at home at the time), so I sought a teacher. I found one on Kijiji who was in my area and covered Eric Johnson’s “Cliffs of Dover” which I really admired from Guitar Hero, so I figured he’d be a safe bet.
The first lesson, he spent time analyzing what I could do. He was impressed with my improv skills and understanding of scales and progressions. I only really learning the 3-note-per-string method from him. His homework for me was to create a solo, and within a couple days, I created 3. He was surprised but happy with my potential.
After the 2nd lesson, he gave me homework, to learn Still Got The Blues by Gary Moore by ear. I did my best during that week. I figured out the notes pretty easy and just worked on getting it up to speed. When I came in to show him, I thought I did really well, but he said I ‘got it all wrong’.
I had to do it above the 12 fret (never played there before), with distortion (never used my amp since I shared a room), thus needing to mute (which I haven’t practiced), and also incorporating slides and bends, (all pretty new techniques)….And he wanted me to do it on the spot…at full speed.
I did my best, and at times got close, but open strings would ring out due to the distortion, and my bends were flat due to the speed. I got frustrated and had to give up. It was clear he was disappointed, but that was made worse by his comment saying ‘we’ll have to start over from the beginning’. It made me feel like the last 7 months was a waste of time. I said I’ll come back after I learn it on my own, but I just lost my motivation and spark and just didn’t play again.
My Experience With Guitar Tricks
When I picked up guitar a again in 2020, my family had internet, so I had a lot more resources available at my fingertips. Like many, I started with Youtube, but it can certainly be overwhelming. Too many teachers, too many styles. It was easy finding an absolute beginner lesson, but hard finding late beginner material. I also didn’t like that it would jump all over the place.
So, after seeing ads for Guitar Tricks enough times, I decided to give it a chance. $120 or so for a year, unlimited lessons? Hell ya. I really liked that each lesson was under 5 minutes long, as I could just jump in whenever I had some time. Trust me, I had many 20+ minute videos on Youtube that I saved to my ‘Watch Later’ list that I have yet to see.
I took the first two beginner core classes and it was amazing! It helped me to double check my technique, patched up the wholes in my foundation, and also got me to really work on my rhythm and strumming. While I knew chords, I didn’t work much on my transitions, nor played to songs. Guitar Tricks also showed me how fun rhythm guitar could be and I’ve been obsessed with that since then.
After I finished the core stuff, I did look around at their other lessons and packages, like fingerstyle and jazz. While I got to learn about new techniques and other chords, I felt like it wasn’t what I wanted to learn the most. Ultimately, I was focused on Japanese music and I knew what that sounded like, but I couldn’t find much lessons or styles that sounded like it. Thus, my journey into theory.
My Background & Exploration Into Theory
Now, I did take music through school, casually played keyboard, took clarinet 3 years in band, was in drumline, learned the basics of viola, was in choir and all that, so I have a pretty good music foundation. I also learned to read sheet music back then, but only after picking up guitar did I realize I didn’t learn much theory.
I knew what the C scale was, but I didn’t understand how a C scale was made, nor know the difference between major and minor. But as I was learning the basic open chords, I realized…hey, A major and A minor are just one note apart…and B is just A moved up, same with F and E. Things just started to click. It didn’t take long to start putting progressions together and improvising with confidence, something I was never able to do on previous instruments.
Digging into theory has been very insightful and impowering. I really couldn’t find much lessons on how to make Japanese music outside of the anime progression, so understanding theory helped me put the pieces together myself, and I even wrote a book and lots of articles regarding that on my blog. I’ve spoken to other guitarists online and they’re often surprised at all I could do despite only playing for a year or so, but I only have theory to thank for that.
My 2nd Teacher Experience
Earlier this year, after my 2 year mark, I saw an ad in a Facebook group asking for guitar beginners to give trials to. I figured, why not? They had a website where you would do a lengthy questionnaire about what you know and want to learn. Then, they would give you personal recorded lessons, and you can join in on group lessons. There was also private lessons if you wanted them.
The setup wasn’t too bad. I like the organization and it was cool learning with another lady, even though she was a true beginner in comparison to me. In a chat on the website (the private coaching section), my teacher asked for songs that I wanted to learn, but he never had the chance to listen to them.
During the class, he just pushed me to learn western songs, and that lead to lead like the other newbie was learning. When it came time to choose to pay to continue, I didn’t. It was clear it was going to be pretty general stuff, not something catered to what I personally wanted to learn.
My 3rd Teacher Experience
The next guy found me on Instagram. He was a coach helping guitarists bring their dreams to life, and I guess my account caught his attention. I’m not a fan of coaches after feeling ripped off from a blogging coach who promised to help me monetize my blog in 6 weeks, but ended up trying to turn me into a coach like her over a good 8 month span. I quit because it wasn’t what I signed up for nor wanted to do, but I got to learn a lot about coaches and their financial intentions.
Anyways, this coach tried to offer his *amazing* coaching package to me, and I wasn’t interested, I had yet to find a good teacher. But I guess he had a previous student who was into similar stuff and had an idea, so I was open to hearing him out.
Our first into video call, he spent the time getting to know me and my skill level. He kept asking about my dreams, but I was going to achieve my main guitar dream of playing with a band in a month’s time and I wasn’t thinking beyond that yet. I know what he’s trying to do though. He did give one trial lesson as well, which was quite insightful, though his exercises following it was mostly on lead, even though I made it clear I cared most abou rhythm.
So now comes time to hassle me out of money. I was in a tough spot financially and was recently scammed as well, so I really couldn’t afford the ‘$2700 Canadian for a 6 week program’ he wanted. I was interested to see what else he could teach me though, so we worked out a payment plan.
Despite me paying the first installment, there was a switch in his attitude. He was very ‘on my back’ before the payment, checking in and seeing how the exercises were going. He promised he’d be the same after, and how he’ll be available when I had questions and such, but after the payment, it would take an average of 3 days before he’d read or respond to my messages.
The first official lesson, he had to reschedule last minute. Second lesson, he was an hour late, as he got the timezones mixed up. He said his girlfriend/wife got him a planner and it won’t happen again. Third lesson, I got ghosted completely. I sent messages before and during the lesson, but he didn’t respond to it til a couple days after, when he taught our lesson was, but even he admitted he got the date wrong. I didn’t really care to continue after that.
While his lessons were certainly insightful, it wasn’t worth the money. I didn’t feel like I was a priority in his life (he had a lot of other side hustles going on) and I wasn’t getting the attention through the week like promised. I definitely would have felt scammed if I paid the full amount upfront like he wanted and that’s how he was going to treat me. Funny thing is, his 6 week program is set, but after just 2 weeks, he realized there wasn’t much left to teach me, so the rest would have been learning songs.
My Personal Conclusion
Anyways, I think I’m done with teachers I feel I have a pretty good foundation to move forward on my own, especially in a genre that most guitar teachers don’t know about nor care to know about.
However, I acknowledge that I had it lucky. I had a good musical foundation from school, and also took a shot with Guitar Tricks which was very detailed, interactive and thorough. With the two of them, it was a lot easier to tell if a teacher didn’t know what he was talking about, or if my time and money would be better spend elsewhere.
When I feel I have exhausted all I have to learn at the moment and I still feel I’m missing something in my guitar skills, maybe I’ll seek a professional teacher then, but definitely not anytime in the seeable future.
Negative Reviews From Students
Sadly, many students are true music and guitar rookies. They don’t know what they don’t know, so they they put a lot of trust in their teachers, hoping to progress quickly so they can become an amazing guitarist. Sadly, many of them end up with the wrong guy and end up feeling like they wasted their time and money.
Don’t believe me? Read the stories below. These were taken from Reddit threads Worst Experience with a Guitar Teacher, What’s Your Worst or Funniest Guitar Lesson Experience, More Guitar Teacher Horror Stories, and So We’ve Heard About Students, How About Guitar Teacher Horror Stories?
I’ll start with sharing my worst experience. I was in the 4th grade and had been about 3 weeks into a new teacher. I really liked my old teacher, but I had to get a new one. I was still getting used to my new teacher, but he wasn’t very inviting. A very cold person, but great at guitar playing. We were practicing for a recital I had coming up and I messed up the solo a bit. Now keep in mind I was only 10. HE FLIPPED OUT. He screamed at me for a solid ten minutes about how I don’t practice enough, and every moment should be spent playing guitar. He yelled at me to the point I cried and couldn’t play. I spent 30 minutes a day practicing that week and I really tried. I was devastated. I refused to pick up the guitar for 4 years. I ended up getting back into it, but I still think about how horrible that was.
Tater_Tot_Cassarole
My guitar instructor had just moved away and before deciding to take lessons via skype with him, I thought it was time to get a new instructor. my mom found a pianist that dabbled in guitar and he said he could give me lessons. I went over to his house and he seemed more like a hobbyist than a professional musician. He had me read from a method book for one hour and then more or less demanded $60 from me. I paid him and never went back. That’s one of the reasons why I’m so careful when it comes to choosing new instructors, I don’t want to get gypped again.
[deleted]
Find a local teacher, and explain I want to work on my finger picking, so he plays a few songs, and I’m thinking this guy is great, and I can learn from him. Pay for the month in advance, and he hands me six sheets with six jazz standards he nicked from The Real Fake book. I ask how this applies, and he says I should trust him. Over the next month he then informs me that he has all of his students go to a hall, and have a recital. We’re gonna play those jazz standards. He still claims it will get me to my finger picking goal. I tell him I’m uncomfortable playing in public, and he assures me it’s only students attending. I go out one night to see him play at the local Moose, and he’s good, and I’m happy with him until he introduces me to other students in attendance. They say I should bring beer food and friends to the recital, and when I cornered him on it, I find I’ve been his pawn for the last month or so, as he was prepping me to play at some large public gathering with tons of non student folks. Took me for two months of fees, never learned a thing I didn’t already know, and he bold face lied about HIS plans and goals for my playing.
old_and_in_the_way
My teacher would be drunk for my lessons. They were at noon so who knows how long he’d been at it. That was fine by me. I’m not a prude, but he was also teaching very young kids, which just didn’t sit well with me. We weren’t getting anywhere so I stopped going after about 5 or 6 lessons.
ninjaface
I started learning guitar when I was 12. I couldn’t afford lessons, so I bought some sheet music of songs that I liked and taught myself. After a few years I started jamming with friends and my playing ability really improved, I was even invited to join a few bands. SO, after about 20 years of being self-taught and jamming with friends, I decided to take lessons from a professional teacher. Wow, what a disappointment. Even though I had told him that I had been playing for 20+ years, he wanted to start at the same point that he would with a newbie. He spent the first 2 sessions telling me how to hold the pick, what the different parts of the guitar were, etc. But, the worst part was that he wanted me to learn the songs “Mary had a little lamb” and “Twinkle, twinkle little star”…because that’s what he started ALL of his students with. I told him that I’ve never gone to a jam session and had someone ask me if I can play “Twinkle, twinkle little star”. Then, I told him to go f__k himself and walked out. He sent me a bill for what amounted to 6 months of lessons, saying that I had broken our contract…there had been no written contract. He threatened to take me to court, to which I said “Go ahead. You can’t even prove that I was ever in your studio. Nevermind trying to prove a non-existent contract.” Like you said, OP, there are good teachers out there, but the bad ones are easier to remember.
[deleted]
I took guitar in high school, all four years. Same and only guitar teacher. His name was Mr. Smith. This guy was a sax player that learned guitar because the high school asked him too, some 10 or 15 years before I met him. He was the worst. Hated tabs, hated anything that wasn’t jazz or classical. He pretty much hated guitar. He also had no clue how to teach. We always had the exact same music test (name notes on the staff etc.) every week, and a different playing test. Even in my last year there was still people that failed every written and playing test and just took the class to talk. I gotta thank him for teaching me how to read, but I just could not stand his attitude. We had a ton of arguments, many that involved yelling. By the third and forth year, I hardly spoke to him.
TL;DR smith can go suck a bag of dicks.
[deleted]
I was very lucky to have had two great teachers when I was a kid. A few years later I decided to take lessons to learn more theory. I’d been playing for about 8 years at that point. That guy was always condescending. Told me everything I was doing was wrong and that I should quit playing. Then he offered to buy my guitar from me.
meltyman
During high school I taught myself basics using books. I learned open chords, power chords, pentatonic scales, ect. When I moved for college I decided to take formal lessons. I signed up for lessons at the music store I was going to. The teacher turned out to be a metal head, which was fine. I was into punk and grunge at the time, so it worked.
Unfortunately, I hoped to learn more about theory and it quickly became evident that my limited knowledge of theory was already greater than his. He was definitely a much better guitarist, but he didn’t know much about theory. I liked the guy and enjoyed playing with him, so I took a handful of lessons anyway. One day I showed up for my music lesson. The owner of the store told me my teacher had been fired. I wasn’t surprised or too disappointed because I wasn’t learning much anyway.
JGladney
I had 2 guitar ‘teachers’ (using the word teachers very loosely here) for a very, very short time. First one was actually a bassist and all he knew about guitar was barre chords and a couple of scales in open string position only. I virtually knew nothing about guitar at the time, so I didn’t say anything. He always made me meet him at public places where we’d look weird just sitting there, playing guitar. He was such a douchebag and only thing he cared about was money. He ended up ripping me and a friend off.
Second one was a little better; an actual guitarist but very moody and short-tempered. Most of the ‘lessons’ were just him playing and saying nothing. I was basically paying him to go watch him play. Whenever he tried to teach me and my friend a bit of theory, he ended up confusing everyone, including himself. He called me stupid to my face because I couldn’t do a certain finger exercise. After that, I stopped taking lessons from him, started teaching myself and made it one of my life goals to get better than him at guitar.
The look on his face when he couldn’t play the stuff I played him after a year or so of self-study was well worth it.
nomadskills
Signed up with a guy who had played with Carlos Santana (!) and was an awesome guitar player. I paid him $50 (big mistake). In return, he smoked cigs for 20 minutes and then started throwing tons of theory at me while showing off how well he could play stuff by ear. That was my first and only lesson with the guy, and I’ve been teaching myself since. I feel like I could benefit from some lessons, but after that awkward experience I don’t think I’ll get them again
[deleted]
I went to college in Boston and decided to take advantage of the fact that the town was littered with epic guitar teachers. I had Played about ten years and thus wanted to really start learning theory. Didn’t know where to start, this was pre-Internet lessons sites booming, so I went to guitar center and asked around. They put me in touch with the “best theory and playing” teacher from the new England conservatory of music. I was psyched.
Go in my first day and play for the guy. He assesses my ability and says he will come up with a plan. I was to pay $40 per hour for weekly lessons. Seemed reasonable. But the guy was a scam. Every time we met he spent the first 10 minutes tuning up, would then spend another 10 minutes going on about the latest gear, at times would take non-emergency phone calls during lessons, would promise to teach me theory saying he was working on stuff for me and never delivered. After four lessons I bailed.
[deleted]
I take lessons over at this guy’s house because the store that he usually teaches at takes a 40% cut from him, and I’d rather give all the money to him directly. I’m probably getting him dirt cheap because he bases how much he charges on what the store pays him, which is jack shit. Plus, he lives about 5 minutes away from me so it’s not a bad drive at all. He knows his shit and knows how to teach, at least most of the time.
First time I showed up to a lesson, he had already downed about 6 cans of Steel Reserve and was opening his 7th when he came to the door. The lesson went alright, all things considered. Second lesson was great, but he seemed to not really know what he should be teaching, so I had to throw out names of scales and modes I thought I should be learning and have him go over them. Third lesson, I show up at his house and knock on the door, and his Dad answers the door. It’s 6 PM, and his Dad says he’s not sure where he is. His Dad walks upstairs, knocks on the door and says, “Hey buddy, you doing guitar lessons tonight?” and I hear a slurred yell, “RESCHEDULEEEE ITTTTT.” Then his Dad comes down and says, “Yeah, he’s had a couple drinks today so you are probably going to have to reschedule.” I agree and have a laugh with his Dad then I hear a horribly slurred “FUCKIN RANDY RHOADS WHOOOOOO” chant coming from upstairs and I leave. About 30 minutes later, I get a text from him saying, “Sorry, think I got the flu or something, can we reschedule lessons?”
He’s a friend of mine and a stupidly good guitarist, but sometimes I wonder about him…
[deleted]
My teacher has two other jobs and is pretty lazy. It’s always whenever he can practice that I actually get to learn. He always just looks up shit on the internet and never really has any idea what else to teach me besides chords, tabs and scales. He says his favorite genre is reggae, but has a Jackson Tinybody as his only electric. Plus he still plays buzzy barrechords and can’t play a Jack Johnson song to save his life. But you can’t pay yourself, so its the best option i guess.
The_LuftWalrus
Took lessons from this guy who the very first lesson he asked me what songs I wanted to learn, I was very confused as I had yet to even really play guitar, He then proceeds to give me tabs to “breaking the law” by Judist Priest then as I struggled to figure out what I was even looking at he just sat in the corner playing the solo to stairway to heaven, So that was the worst. After that took from a different teacher about chords and about chord theory and all the goodies, Techniques I now use as a teacher.
SouthboundChase
In college I was mostly into heavy metal, rock, etc. but I wanted to learn more, so I signed up for a Beginner Jazz Guitar class. Thought I’d branch out and learn a different style, get some solid theory, etc
The teacher was an arrogant jazz guy (like the guy in another comment who said he walked out of a Hendrix concert) and the students varied from complete jazz noobs (me and a couple others) to people who had obviously been playing for a long time and just wanted credit for the class. The teacher completely pandered to the experienced players and dismissed the beginners (you know, in the BEGINNER jazz guitar class), insulting us if we couldn’t play something right the very first time we were introduced to it. You can’t play this triplet run? Psshh, look at Douchebag over here, he can play it fine!
I dropped that class.
drakar
I took lessons from a world renowned shredder who would start to show you the lesson then go on a 10 minute wanky solo on his 8 string guitar and then just be like “so where were we?” He is an amazing guitar player and I had friends that took lessons from him for like 5 years or more but I couldn’t take more than a few months of this because it was fucking bullshit. He would literally waste half or more of my 30 minute lesson each week.
brainscatter00
When I first started taking lessons I had an AWFUL teacher.
This man would come 15min late for a half hour lesson and on more than one occasion he FORGOT HIS GUITAR. So he’d take my guitar and noodle around and write me down some songs to learn in the last 5 minutes. And it wasn’t just a one time fluke – it happened about 4 times in the few short months I had with him.
I’m so thankful for it though. Because of him being an awful teacher he taught me the most useful thing I’ve ever learned: how to teach myself.
[deleted]
Worst would probably be when the instructor thought it was a good idea to start dissing the music I had on my iPod. The dude was a fucking dick, so that was one of my last lessons from him. He turned me off to lessons, and now I’m basically 100% self taught
[deleted]
How To Be An Amazing Guitar Teacher
So based on my experiences, along with other student’s complains, I have compiled a list that I feel every great guitar teacher would do. If you’re not doing this yet, it’s not too late to apply it!
1. Ask What They Want To Learn
I put this first because this is so important. Before you start teaching, you should know what the student wants to learn so you can cater your lessons to them and point them in that direction. As I said in my intro, guitar is just so versatile in regards to genre and techniques. Don’t try to teach them everything nor teach what you feel like teaching in that moment, you should have a focus and a goal.
There are certainly some basics and skills that everyone should know, like chords, scales, and rhythm, but otherwise, be sure you know what they want to achieve.
Do they just want to play open chords so they can sing their favourite pop songs? Do they want to learn blues improvisation? Maybe they want to write songs and be in a band one day. Knowing this up front will help you figure out what topics you will focus on the most moving forward. Ask first, teach later.
2. Test Your Students
Instead of jumping right in, test your students to see where they are at. At your first in-person meeting, maybe offer a free 15-30minute session just to test and assess them so you know what you’re starting with. Not all students learn the same way or have the same studying materials. It’s not like a Grade 3 teacher who can teach everyone with confidence because they all learned the same things in Grade 2.
Do they have all their open chords down and memorized? How about barre chords? How good are they at transitioning between chords? How is their rhythm? Can they keep time? Do they know a few strumming patterns? Is their technique okay or are they jerking and awkward? Do they know their scale shapes already? Do they understand how scales work? Can they improvise? Can they read tabs or do they play by ear?
All this is so vital to know as there may be some parts that need fixing up before you can move forward. There’s nothing worse for you than preparing an intermediate level lesson thinking your student already learned something, just to find out it’s a completely new concept for them and now you’ll have to rearrange your lesson plan.
3. Reject Students If It’s Not Up Your Alley
One sign of a great teacher is that they don’t put money or their ego before what’s best for the student. If the student wants to learn classical guitar, but you’re more of a rock and metal guy, don’t promise them you can make them better and try to cram things last minute. Same with if the student is quite advanced already and there’s not much more you can personally teach them to help them grow.
I’ll admit, I’m a little because I’ve told teachers from the very beginning that I want to learn Japanese music progressions and they say they can teach me, but they never listened to it nor looked into the theory, and end up teaching me basic western stuff that I already know. Just like how different genres have their own style, progressions, rhythms, and techniques, different countries can have their own style as well. They don’t really care though, they just wanted another student and more money.
One thing that they teach a lot in business and especially blogging is that it’s best to have a focus, a niche, something specific that you are known for. If you try to please everyone, you’ll end up pleasing no one. Even if you could play a genre or you know a bit about a style, if you don’t know too much or can’t teach it well, just say that. That doesn’t mean you’re a bad guitarist, just that someone else may be better for the student.
Perhaps you can connect with other guitar teachers in your area and refer potential students to each other based on your specialties. You’ll be the rock and metal guy, one can be the jazz and theory guy, one could be the pop and classical guy. And trust me, students who you reject will respect you for being honest and not wasting their time and money. They may even recommend you to another student who could benefit from your lessons just because of that. I know I would.
4. Be Punctual and Present
This goes both ways, but I had a pretty bad experience with this. For a guy who was charging me a ridiculous amount for his supercalifragilisticexpialidocious coaching, he was the least punctual of the bunch. Our first official lesson, he rescheduled last minute once. Next one, he was an hour late next, and third, I was completely ghosted.
I work from home and have a pretty flexible schedule, so I allowed him to choose the date and time…yet he still wasn’t punctual to the lessons he booked. Since these were video zoom lessons, I still had to set time aside, get dressed, hook up my guitar, set up a good angle and lighting and all that…and then I’d sit there and wait in silence, hoping he’ll sign in or respond to my messages.
Adding on, his price included his availability throughout the week for questions and coaching, but he was rarely online. At the end of a lesson, he’d promise to give me certain exercise material, but that also took days, if he didn’t forget it anyways. I know he had other side hustles, so I didn’t feel like I was a priority to him. I don’t deny that the lessons were beneficial, but if you’re not keeping your promises and you’re showing up late every single lesson, it’s snot worth the pretty penny I was paying.
By being present, I mean your focus should be on the student and the lesson at least 95% of the time. Don’t be on your phone texting throughout, don’t be having a full-on lunch break in the middle of your session, and don’t take 3 10-minute smoke breaks. Most importantly, don’t go on a shredding spree. I’ve read too many stories of students feeling like they are paying to watch their teacher play. Go off on your own time.
If you’re charging $40 for an hour, the student expects you to be on time and be present for the full hour. Wouldn’t you hate it if you spent $100 for an hour long massage, but your masseuse showed up late, took a while to set up, spent 10 minutes talking about oils and it’s benefits, took a few 5 minute pauses to rest their hands, then kicked you out early to prepare for their next client? You’d feel a little ripped off, wouldn’t you?
5. Take Your Time Explaining New Concepts
Not everyone is meant to be a teacher. You can be an amazing technically skilled guitarist, but that doesn’t mean you can teach others music or to do the same thing. The issue with a lot of self-learned guitarist is that they never got to experience being taught and they also never had to explain what they are playing to someone else.
I’ve read many stories online about teachers having trouble explaining simple things to them. The funniest one I read was that a student was left-handed and the teacher was fumbling after every instruction and frustrated due to it….but the student was like ‘shouldn’t it be easier to teach me since we are mirroring each other?’
In my case, while not an issue with a teacher, I would sometimes ask advanced online guitarists a theory question or for help with a guitar concept, and they couldn’t help me. They didn’t know theory or wasn’t sure about a certain technique. Most of the time, I was told to just ‘play around, have fun, feel it, don’t think about it!’
Well, for one, I am a logical learner, so I learn best when I deeply understand something, and two, I’m not technically skilled enough to just play around and ‘have fun’. In fact, fumbling, stumbling, and playing lots of bad sounding notes is the opposite of fun for me. It feels like a waste of time too. But once something clicks, it’s like a lightbulb moment, and I can then make connections to other things and start doing more.
If I had a teacher who just plays but can’t explain, or they can’t explain things well, I wouldn’t stay long. I’d probably find more useful content online. A teacher should be able to teach, and music shouldn’t feel like a guessing game. If it was, then there wouldn’t be courses. There’s a specific way to do things and play things. There is a lot of logic and math included, and that leads to the next point.
6. Be Sure To Include Some Music Theory
I’ll make a controversial statement because I feel it needs to be said. If you’re a guitarist who has technical skills to spare, but you don’t understand music nor know the terminology to communicate with others, then you’re not a really a ‘musician’. Just because you could make a baking soda volcano doesn’t mean you’re a scientist.
While some newbie guitarists may just want to play and shred as well, or the genre they want to play doesn’t use a whole lot of theory, that doesn’t mean you can’t throw in a concept here or a lesson there.
Don’t just teach chords blindly. Help them realize that A major and A minor are pretty much the same, just one note is one fret lower, and that’s a flattened 3rd. Show them that, because scales use the same pattern, you can just move a scale box up and down, or that modes are the same major scale, just starting on a different note.
If you’re teaching songs, teach the degrees of the chords alongside it. If you show them that C-F-G is I-IV-V, when they come across a totally different song with G-C-D, they’ll realize it’s also I IV V. Same progression, different key. Now, it’ll be easier to learn and remember both songs instead of learning them both blindly and through sheer memorization.
I have seen a lot of guitarists who have been playing for a decade or longer and are only now learning theory, and so many of them are like ‘if I knew that earlier, I’d be farther ahead right now’. So many only learned songs blindly but never took the time to analyze them and see what’s going on. But, if they learn songs and theory side by side like I did, they will progress so much faster and gain confidence a whole lot sooner. They’ll definitely appreciate a teacher who will give them the step-up against other rookie guitarists.
7. Share Your Resources
There’s thousands and thousands of free resources online and your students are well aware of that. I get that you may want to seem like an all-knowing guru and would want them learning everything from you (aka more cha-ching!), but a good teacher would always look out for their students growth and would not keep something of value from them.
If you teach a lesson on a topic, feel free to share some supplementary Youtube videos online that they can use to review or exercise with. If there’s a valuable book you read and loved, tell them about it. A teacher is not just there to teach concepts, but to show them how it’s done, correct their technique, and guide them to whatever goal they have in mind, so don’t think that an ebook or Youtube video can replace you. A teacher knows what the student doesn’t know, and it’s your job to lead them in the right direction.
For a personal example, I shared a few songs I really liked with a new guitar teacher, and while listing things I’d need to learn to play the songs I liked, he mentioned 16th beat funky strumming patterns. I never really noticed it until he said it, but once I was aware of it, it became something I really wanted to master. While I could find lessons online for that, who knows if or when I would have noticed that on my own. And just for that knowledge alone, I’m very grateful.
8. Help Them Expand Their Wings
While you shouldn’t force a student to learn genres they don’t care for, it doesn’t hurt to still encourage them to listen or explore other artists and styles. I’ve read many stories of students who never heard of something or someone until a teacher share it with them and they ended up really loving it.
I, for one, never really looked into the blues until a teacher gave me an assignment on it. When I picked up guitar again years later, I really enjoyed listening to the darker, slower, whiskey blues. I don’t think I could really play it just because my soul isn’t that dark or depressed to play with feeling, but I can appreciate the use of simple progressions and very short licks to still drive the point home.
If there’s a guitarist you admire, or a genre you think they’d like, or even just something you saw on Youtube the other day that you thought sounded pretty rad, share it with your students. And that goes the other way too. If they have something they admire, take the time to check it out and listen to it. Maybe you can learn something as well!
This can also lead to new ideas for lessons and give you something to bond over. There’s nothing cooler than having a teacher that you can have more casual convos with and just share your love about music. And who knows, maybe you’ll introduce them to a genre or style that they will later choose to specialize in!
9. Don’t Hold Them Back
While I’m sure most teachers actually teach with pure hearts and they want to see others learn and grow, there are still lots of guitarists with egos that can get jealous and bitter when they see high potential and talent. Instead of helping that student grow and eventually pass them, they would consciously or subconsciously get in their way.
As said in my intro, I put down guitar thanks to my first teacher pushed me to do many new things on the spot, and when I failed, he made me feel like I had to start over from 0. But as I’m seeing now, he was wrong. I was on an amazing track for someone only playing for 8 months, I just needed to play with distortion more, get used to playing in those higher frets, and get some exercises to work on my bends and slides.
Along with this comes the ‘teachers’ who love admiration or attention so much, that they would actually take up time during a lesson to shred and improvise. A demonstration really shouldn’t be more than a minute, and that’s only if it’s related to the actual lesson. We aren’t paying to watch you shred, nor to be your backing track.
You’re getting in the way of their growth because they could have spent that time watching a free youtube video that actually teaches them something, but instead their paying to watch you play. If you want attention that much and still need money, make your own Youtube channel, do an open mic, busk or something! Please don’t be that guy.
10. And Finally, Have Patience
Before getting into this point, there’s a difference between a motivated and unmotivated student. A young student who doesn’t really care for guitar but their parents are leaving you with them, there’s not much you can do in that case. And hey, I get it, not all students practice throughout the week or work on their homework, but as long as they have a will to learn guitar, have some patience.
A lot of guitarists got to start young, and thus, they had years to fumble and play around and have fun. To them, everything is so easy. Their beginner days are so far behind them that it’s a bit hard to comprehend why a beginner is struggling with a chord or why their playing their scales so slow.
This goes for concepts and such as well. Some people may need a bit more time to process things or remember it. Guitar is complex both mentally and physically, and it has such a high learning curve, so give em some time.
I’ve been told by my own teachers to play something faster in a lesson, like you just taught me this technique 2 minutes ago! I care a lot about my technique and I want to ensure I’m playing things right and accurately, and that things are coming out clear, but they’re always pushing me to bump up the BPM. Like relax! What’s the rush!?? I can’t play full speed just yet, but I will work on that during the week on my own time. I don’t see why I have to be at a certain level or speed to please some teachers.
Yes, you’re a guitar teacher, and it’s definitely important that you push them, especially to do harder things they may be avoiding or may not like, like barre chords, but if you’re only a week or two into a new technique or concept, give em some time and some space.
Be patient with their chord capabilities. An F major barre chord may be child’s play for you, but it is painful and very awkward for them. Be patient if they keep forgetting some scale shapes, it’s a lot to process. They keep messing up a passage, give them time to practice it on their own time. Things aren’t going to suddenly be amazing just cause you’re there forcing them to do something.
Conclusion
I hope this article has been insightful to both guitar teachers and students hoping to find a good teacher. Of course I could give other more obvious tips, like try to make the lessons fun and engaging, or to be ready and prepared, but those are a given. The points above are things I don’t see many teachers doing, or that many students have complained about.
While it is true that not everyone is meant to be a teacher, if you have a calling to teach, I think anyone can become a good teacher if they try. As long as you’re humble enough to learn and take advice, you can easily blow other teachers out of the water. Here’s to a new generation!