One thing I did notice when I first started teaching was how much I learnt myself. My playing level advanced 10 fold when I started to teach others. The obvious reason for this is because I started to analyse everything I was teaching and playing. I always suggest to my more advanced lessons that they try to take on a few students.
When teaching always ask yourself… WHY!
- Why can’t the student get a good clean sound?
- Why can’t they change quickly between chords?
- Why doesn’t the student understand what I’m talking about?
I think you get the idea; teaching is all about analyzing the problem and solving it. Until you get to a point when all problems get grouped into categories and you’ve solved them all. Once you get to this stage teaching becomes easy and the challenges are then individual unique problems.
- Does the student have short fingers?
- Does the student have problems bending certain fingers?
- Do they have a disability?
Your personality is a major factor of teaching, are you a placid person or does it frustrate you when people don’t understand what you are showing them. In everyday life you will be placed in situations where you have to show someone something and pass on what you know. Do you find this satisfying? If so then you will probably be good at teaching. Of course there are many more factors involved, what do you think you’d be like at teaching when…
- You’re tired?
- You have a student that doesn’t want to learn?
- You’re feeling sick or (dare I say it) a little hung over?
These are all thing that test your patience. I can honestly say I’ve never lost my cool with a lesson, but I have come close a few times. Teaching for a job is a double edged blade; you have to be disciplined with the student but likeable enough so that they feel comfortable with you. Try to understand that most students that show up to their first lesson will be a little nervous and if they’ve played before then they’ve probably never played in front of a stranger. I usually get a first time student to play me a song so I can get an idea of how they play and where lessons will go from there. I know that this is usually unsettling for them so I usually play along with them for support.
Lesson structure is critical in the first 10 week (1st Term) and these are the main points I focus on with a beginner student.
- parts of the guitar
- correct naming of frets and fingers
- finger exercises (this includes)
- correct picking technique
- correct finger placement
- clean & clear sounding of every note
- fluency between notes & strings
- five basic chord shapes (C, A, G, E & D, this includes)
- correct strumming technique (the right amount of strings)
- correct finger placement
- clean & clear sounding of every note
- Basic Music Theory: theory is usually welcomed by only a few students so I stress to them that they only need to know these basics for now.
- Musical alphabet
- Tones & semitones (steps & half steps)
- The correct steps placing between notes. (this is important for working out bar chords & 5th chords)
- Learning the notes of the musical alphabet backwards as well as forwards
Depending on the speed of the learner this can sometimes be learnt within the first lesson. However I wouldn’t let it go on for more than three as the student will become bored if taught these basics for too long. Just try to keep an eye on these fundamentals as the beginner is moulding their playing style. As for the structure of the other lessons you can get an idea of a student’s progress using the following planner.
Categorising Lesson Levels: planner found here -
http://www.guitartutoronline.com/downloads/lesson_levels.pdf
3 Weeks Ago
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