What Makes a Good Guitar Teacher?
What Makes a Great Guitar Teacher?
Since I started giving guitar lessons I have learned as much from my students as they learn from me. Specifically, I have learned how to be a better guitar teacher.
WHAT MANY GUITAR TEACHERS DO WRONG
I welcome beginning students, but many of my pupils have some playing experience, but they are "stuck" at a certain point and what they need is a breakthrough. The first thing I do with these people is listen to them play. I need to see what they can do naturally, what they already do well, and where they have gotten stuck.
There are a lot of places a beginning guitarist can get caught, so I don't personally believe there is just one way to teach guitar to avoid all problems. I believe that people develop individual habits, and the key to moving them forward is to identify which habits are good, and which ones need to be addressed.
This is does not mean I only identify what they are doing wrong. I always point out what a student is doing well and encourage them to keep it up. Then I show them how to accomplish the step that for some reason they just didn't get before.
MY STORY
I started playing guitar at age 11 with a much older guitar teacher. He taught me how to count music (a very good thing) and how to read notes on a staff (not the most important thing to teach a guitar player first). His focus seemed to be on getting my mom to open her checkbook, so he taught me how to play her favorite song, "Besame Mucho" by reading the notes alone. I learned nothing but cowboy chords and how to read and play notes on the first four frets with absolutely no technique at all.
This was not fun, nor was my playing impressive to anyone. Guitar is not an instrument designed for playing single notes on just the first four frets. It is a "multitimbral" instrument designed for chords and for playing much more expressive notes much higher on the neck. It wants to be "played with expression" - not just plucked.
"TONE IS IN THE FINGERS"
This is a common expression among guitar players. It means that when you play guitar people sense that you feel the music you are playing. You convey a sense of control and expressive confidence with your playing that makes the music "talk to" the listener.
So - one of the first things I teach students is to play with conviction. A simple example is playing with vibrato. The correct approach to vibrato makes the note sustain longer and gives it the "singing" quality that vocalists put into their melodies.
There are additional stylistic "tricks" to make your playing more expressive. You can use the "hammer-on" or "pull-off" techniques, or you can bend notes far beyond their original tone to make your guitar "laugh" or "cry." There are even more advanced techniques; tapping, pinch harmonics, legato and more. The goal is to have all the tricks at your immediate command so that you can really communicate what you are feeling when you play guitar.
HOW I CAN TEACH YOU
I can show you the one breakthrough I had that made me a better player than years of lessons with the wrong teacher. The key is getting the right guidance. Guitar playing can be like riding a bicycle. Once you learn how to get started the rest of it comes far more naturally than you ever expected. That is just one of the secrets.
Paul Motter: https://www.guitar-lessons-motterpaul.com/
Since I started giving guitar lessons I have learned as much from my students as they learn from me. Specifically, I have learned how to be a better guitar teacher.
WHAT MANY GUITAR TEACHERS DO WRONG
I welcome beginning students, but many of my pupils have some playing experience, but they are "stuck" at a certain point and what they need is a breakthrough. The first thing I do with these people is listen to them play. I need to see what they can do naturally, what they already do well, and where they have gotten stuck.
There are a lot of places a beginning guitarist can get caught, so I don't personally believe there is just one way to teach guitar to avoid all problems. I believe that people develop individual habits, and the key to moving them forward is to identify which habits are good, and which ones need to be addressed.
This is does not mean I only identify what they are doing wrong. I always point out what a student is doing well and encourage them to keep it up. Then I show them how to accomplish the step that for some reason they just didn't get before.
MY STORY
I started playing guitar at age 11 with a much older guitar teacher. He taught me how to count music (a very good thing) and how to read notes on a staff (not the most important thing to teach a guitar player first). His focus seemed to be on getting my mom to open her checkbook, so he taught me how to play her favorite song, "Besame Mucho" by reading the notes alone. I learned nothing but cowboy chords and how to read and play notes on the first four frets with absolutely no technique at all.
This was not fun, nor was my playing impressive to anyone. Guitar is not an instrument designed for playing single notes on just the first four frets. It is a "multitimbral" instrument designed for chords and for playing much more expressive notes much higher on the neck. It wants to be "played with expression" - not just plucked.
"TONE IS IN THE FINGERS"
This is a common expression among guitar players. It means that when you play guitar people sense that you feel the music you are playing. You convey a sense of control and expressive confidence with your playing that makes the music "talk to" the listener.
So - one of the first things I teach students is to play with conviction. A simple example is playing with vibrato. The correct approach to vibrato makes the note sustain longer and gives it the "singing" quality that vocalists put into their melodies.
There are additional stylistic "tricks" to make your playing more expressive. You can use the "hammer-on" or "pull-off" techniques, or you can bend notes far beyond their original tone to make your guitar "laugh" or "cry." There are even more advanced techniques; tapping, pinch harmonics, legato and more. The goal is to have all the tricks at your immediate command so that you can really communicate what you are feeling when you play guitar.
HOW I CAN TEACH YOU
I can show you the one breakthrough I had that made me a better player than years of lessons with the wrong teacher. The key is getting the right guidance. Guitar playing can be like riding a bicycle. Once you learn how to get started the rest of it comes far more naturally than you ever expected. That is just one of the secrets.
Paul Motter: https://www.guitar-lessons-motterpaul.com/
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