Anyone can play guitar

February 8, 2008 10:05 AM

Advice and resources for a guitar teacher?

I've recently taken a new job at a music store/school where I teach 55 students a week for half an hour each. I have students as young as 8 and some in their fifties. Most of them are 12-16. They range from brand new musicians to a few that have played for a couple years. My place of work is a fairly traditional music school that offers guitar, vocal, piano, drums, and woodwind lessons.

I've played guitar for about 7 years and I went to school for composition, so I tend to focus more on theory than technique, although I have a decent array of chops-builders. I usually start students off with Hal Leonard's Guitar Method for reading. I try to spend half the lesson working on reading/theory/exercises and half working on music of the student's choice, if they have any.

I'm interested in any web resources for guitar teachers (good exercises or etudes in particular) as well as any general advice on how to be an effective guitar teacher. I have a couple of specific issues as well:

1) A few of my students are bassists. I usually work with them on scales and arpeggios and rhythm exercises and reading, but I've never owned a bass and don't have any bass technique to speak of. Is there a particular approach I should take with them, or a book I should pick up that will help?

2) I took over this schedule from another teacher who left. I get the impression that his lessons were very unstructured, and it doesn't seem to me that his students were learning much, but they seem to have liked him. I'm having a tough time transitioning with some of them. Some of the ones that have been playing for 2 years+ have decent technique, although most are lacking in theory, chord vocabulary, and reading. However, some seem resistant to learning these things, but are also unwilling/unable to tell me what they do want to learn or what exactly they were working on with their old teacher. Any ideas on how to approach this?

posted by ludwig_van to media & arts (5 comments total)

I used to use this for teaching basic strumming. I had an older guy who really had trouble grasping basic strumming and these exercises were helpful.

When I taught, I used the opposite approach than you. Once the student had a grasp on enough chords I focused on learning songs. It was song first, and then I'd introduce any theory, scales, etc as it related to the song. As they progressed, I'd take a lesson here or there and we'd just do scales or arpeggios or whatever exercise was needed.

For the students who were advancing rapidly, and the ones who really wanted to play guitar (you'll know fast), I would spend a lot more time with theory, scales, arpeggios, reading, etc. than the others.
posted by eightball at 10:29 AM on February 8, 2008

As someone who took guitar lessons, I'd offer this advice. Ask the student what they want to learn. I wanted to be able to strum guitar when we sang by the campfire, but I had zero interest in any more music theory. After seven years of piano, I'd had theory aplenty. What I wanted to learn was technique.

My teacher couldn't really adapt to what I wanted to learn. Lessons and practicing were pure tedium to me. I ended up quitting lessons and giving my guitar to a friend.
posted by 26.2 at 10:41 AM on February 8, 2008

26.2, I always ask the students what they want to learn, but most of them either say "I don't know" or "I want to get better."

A couple more things I forgot about on which I'd appreciate some input:

1) What to do/say about students who want to improve but don't practice?

2) Any good exercises or techniques for developing a sense of time/understanding of rhythm? I see some students who seem to have no grasp of the fact that music is not just about playing notes in the right order, but playing them with the right timing and a steady beat.
posted by ludwig_van at 11:51 AM on February 8, 2008

I'm a bassist and I took lessons from a guitar player (who knew his way around bass) and I taught bass for a while. In some ways, learning bass with someone who plays guitar is ideal; in some ways it falls short.

For students that want to learn how to accompany a primarily chordal song, you're an excellent partner; you know how to teach them about root notes and triads and arpeggios and scalar runs to connect the note choices together and you can play against them so they can get the feel of either playing a pattern from a book (to build their vocabulary) or constructing their own and finding out what works and what doesn't - which is difficult, for a bass player who's playing "in a vacuum". That kind of meat and potatoes stuff "should" be in anyone's vocabulary, at least a little bit, so as much as you can without being totally stifling, try to work it in, especially for people that are starting. One significant difference between bass and six-string is that - since it's typically a single-note line - reading traditional notation, as opposed to tab, for bass is DEAD EASY, and there's no excuse not to learn it.

If you have someone that's primarily interested in heavier music, often times the bass is very locked in to what the rhythm guitar's doing. The focus there is much more on acquiring technique; it's very physical, you have to learn how to pick (or finger) rapidly and evenly; muting (and "noise control" in general) is a big deal, and so on.

If you have someone that's interested in truly idiosyncratic facets of bass technique, like slap styles or fretless technique - probably you don't have so much to offer except as a partner to play against, if they're already comfortable with their technique. But that can be pretty valuable if they're trying to better their improvisation skills or ensemble-playing ability - again, that's stuff you just can't do well by yourself in a basement.

The bottom line is definitely, no matter what - make sure they make progress in being able to play the songs they want to play. A lot of your role in that is just to be a critical ear - "you think you're playing this part right, but..."
posted by Wolfdog at 12:09 PM on February 8, 2008

If your students don't know what they want to do, ask them which song they want to learn. Even if they can't play it yet, you get to show them a thing or two about its structure and teach them part of it/give them exercises to hone their technique for the parts they can't play.

You can't do much about students who don't practice. Try convincing them to double their practice time just for one time; if they see the results they may keep it up. Remind them it's playing, not practicing.
posted by ersatz at 3:36 PM on February 8, 2008