My New Career as a Guitar Teacher!

Voxman

All you have to do is stay one chapter ahead of your student and he'll think you're a guitar God! 

guitarjack66

sev112 said:

Unless he is going to be an acoustic guitarist, don’t spend much time on 6 string chords.  Far too difficult to start with .  Try melodies on one, and then 2 strings to get left and right hand starting to co-ordinate together.,  Try double stops on those same strings.  You can get a major double stop and a minor double stop and get loads of “chords” on just the top 2 strings.  Then you can get him or her playing a song with the standard 4 chord pattern to start to get rhythm going

to extend this, repeat parts of the above on the lowest 2, 3 strings 

I also find the piano app on my ipad is useful for explaining things like chords intervals etc 

I think teaching 5/6 string chords is exactly the way to go as that is how you can understand the shorter version chords playing the 2 and 3 string versions.
 'Why is this G chord only 3 strings?'
'Well rember the 6 string E shaped barre version?' 
'Yes'
'These are the first 3 strings of that.' And so forth.
Well at least that is what worked for me anyhow.

TeleMaster

sev112 said:

 Try double stops on those same strings. 

Sounds like someone is gonna be learning Smoke on the Water!!!!!!

guitars4you

Learning to play guitar and what we want/need to achieve is obviously a matter of taste and a big open discussion about how to go about it

A  Doctor friend of mine the other week asked if I could play Rodrigo's Guitar Concerto - My flippant reply was that he'd probably learn to perform open heart surgery way before I could even achieve a 'feeble' version of it  , and I dare say the same would indeed apply to most FB members

 Learn E + A + D chords and I could play Twenty Flight Rock - Not a big deal, but it got Macca a shot at a relationship with John Lennon - Yet E, A, D on their own is pointless as without you singing along, no one would know what you are playing - So assuming you can sing, you can effectively now become an entertainer/perform as a strummer, with the guitar supporting your singing - Learn the lyrics for another 50 songs, that use E, A, D, and you can strum in any Red Lion in the UK and earn a bob or two each week - I can't sing at all, so that is me out of that option 

 I've heard/known  100's of guitar players that can play a shed load of riffs - Be it Smoke on the water, Stairway to Heaven (not really a riff) ditto Hotel California, All Right Now etc - Yet they can't play the song in a band as they only know the riff - Yet even if you can play the whole of All Right Now, without the band behind you, as such just you and the guitar and no vocals, then what is it all about  - Let's say you are at a party tonight and there is a guitar in the corner and someone say's 'Bill you can play guitar, play us a song' - You now play the guitar part to All Right Now and pretty soon you will find you are playing in an empty room, as it is only 1 part of the song and means little to an audience on its own 

Maybe that is a potential issue with the guitar - Even if Nile Rodgers was at the same party, as above, and played 'Good Times' - The guitar part on its own means little without the band/singer 

 Yet if in the corner was a saxophone and your mate who plays sax was there, they would play a host of tunes that the other guests know - Even if they started off with the Baker St riff/intro, then chances are they would then move on to an interpretation of the melody - Many of us would think learning to play say The Flintstones theme as something corny - A sax player would play around the melody to make it more 'musically interesting' and not a gimmick - Most of us never even ever go there as somehow we think it is below us  - And that is my issue with so many aspects of teaching the guitar - We don't teach melody at all, or very rarely - Admittedly the guitar, certainly on any/many records, is in part recorded as a rhythm instrument 

 I said above, it does of course mean we need to find out what the potential pupil wants - But equally a good teacher helps to lead them towards other options as well, once they can achieve simple parts - Today, most/all of us could quickly learn to play 'London Bridge Is Falling Down' - Yes it is boring and simple - So now jazz it up, make a metal shred version out of it with tapping - Slow it down in a sleazy way - Whatever, make your own tune out of it - Not so boring and bland now and makes you step out of a simple format - Now apply that to say any Beatles song - As I said, sax players, violin players etc can all do this and entertain by playing a melody - Rarely do I hear guitar players doing this 

 Just in case you think melody is boring and pointless, then maybe a quick listen to one of the world's finest guitar players, playing a simple tune, might be a good idea

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQ5VJ4DpMeU

Lestratcaster

I've been teaching for 15 years (16th year now). I didn't really start teaching mates but I remember from the beginning I was pretty bad as I haven't had any relative teacher training, only in learning how to play myself through a music institute degree course. This may have given me the tools to know everything about the instrument but as someone mentioned earlier, its pointless if you can't communicate it well.

I tend not to introduce theory from the start especially if its a total beginner, but if your friend can already play then its probably better this way, as a total beginner wants to play something they know and recognise as opposed to learn what note is what on the fretboard. 2 things that hold back players from advancing to the next level is rhythm and knowledge of the fretboard, so the intervals and how they connect. Rhythm makes for 90-95% of guitar playing so its essential you know all your subdivisions and counting bars. Intervals are important too as they account for how scales work and melody. Being musical with your ear and playing for the song is far more important than knowing how many notes are in this scale or what chords belong in this key etc but no doubt it helps.

I've never been a fan of using a book or someone else's material to teach someone else as everyone is different with their tastes, learning style and how they respond to a concept. So I prefer to work with the individual and see how they respond, some are visual learners, they need a diagram or tab etc. Some never look at it and just prefer to watch my hands and do it that way. 

Tailor the lesson material to what style of guitar its on. E.g if its acoustic guitar there's no point doing palm muted rock songs, and if its electric then 6 stringed cowboy chords would be better on acoustic.

Listen to what they want to learn and don't teach them what you want to play. Lesson planning is important, winging them each week and making it up as you go along never works well as there's no structure and ends up lacking progress.

Good luck!

stickyfiddle

Musical_Mystery_Tour said:

 

…I'd rather be taught by someone who knew eighty percent of a subject rather than all of it, but could communicate that eighty percent well, as opposed to someone who knew a hundred percent of the subject but was useless at communicating any of

… if a student ever asks you something you don't know the answer to, you don't have to get flustered or try to blag it, be honest and say something along the lines of: 'You know I've never reallly known why that is, let's find out together, shall we?'. 

I wish I could wis these 2 bits a thousand times…!! 

BluesLover

Well done for teaching your friend. I hope you have lots of fun, and as you've already observed, you'll learn stuff too.
I've two points to offer.
First, age is not a barrier. I started on the self teaching adventure at age 60, it might take longer than with a young person, but age brings patience and persistence!
Second, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Start with the Justin guitar beginners course, and go through it together.
Good luck.

guitarjack66

BluesLover said:

Well done for teaching your friend. I hope you have lots of fun, and as you've already observed, you'll learn stuff too.
I've two points to offer.
First, age is not a barrier. I started on the self teaching adventure at age 60, it might take longer than with a young person, but age brings patience and persistence!
Second, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Start with the Justin guitar beginners course, and go through it together.
Good luck.

60? I still have time then! lol All I have to do now is learn to play proficiently!
Seriously though,kudos to you.

fretfinder

You could suggest to your mate that he has a look at the Justinguitar website which has loads of excellent teaching videos for all levels from beginner upwards, covering chords, theory, rhythm, whole songs etc. You can pick and choose something really simple to start with. IMO that would be a great place to start and would complement any teaching you are doing with him, and help him practice in between lessons.

allen

I've taught my 2 daughters to play

The song achy breaky heart only has a D and an A in it. And that went a long way.

Lestratcaster

allen said:

I've taught my 2 daughters to play

The song achy breaky heart only has a D and an A in it. And that went a long way.

I thought it was A and E as the chords, well, if you're playing with the original recording anyway.

2 chord songs are good though as there's only 2 to change between so you can concentrate playing the tune without much else. I use them all the time for complete beginners just to get them to strum to something recognisable.

Rob1742

I would take a very open outlook on this.

So as an example I would do as much as I can in the first lesson or two to gauge what the individual is like as a person and what you “ think” they could take in and what you “ think” they want to take in.

I am just going through an intricate guitar solo that I never thought possible from a tab yet know nothing about octaves and semi tones and I don’t even know the names of each string. I  don’t care, I am not bothered and never will be. Yet I get a great deal of pleasure doing what I do.

So to me it is an instrument that can give pleasure in many ways and there is many ways of learning and what people want to learn and so I would really think deeply into each individuals needs and tailor it around there.

I recall my tutor trying to teach me a song and I said “ you are wasting your time as I won’t be excited to learn that even if it’s a good song to learn for many reasons. It will bore me and it won’t make me pick the guitar up”

He read me well after that and I just told him what songs I liked and he did tabs to those songs and he taught me the technique to play them.

He did throw in a few things like scales too so he did try and teach me things that he thought I’d need to go along with the tabs.

You are either a theory person or you’re not and if you are not it’s no point pushing someone down a route that will put them off.

I just loved it when he worked out songs I liked, put it down, showed me what to play then buggered off and left me to it.

Im very happy that I don’t know what an octave is. But im also very happy that I can play the whole of I need you tonight by ZZ Top. That will do me, I’m happy.