Getting into Teaching

I'm thinking about getting into teaching guitar soon. I've been playing for over 5 years and am a music minor in school so i think i could do it well. for those teachers out there i was just wondering if you had any advice. what's a good place to start, any tips. i'm primarily a metal guitarist and shredder so i guess i would lean a lot in that direction, but i know i'd have to branch out a little. is there anything i should focus on, especially for brand new beginners. thanks for any help



ps. i'm sure this has been asked before, so sorry about repeating

1. Have them learn where all the notes are on the neck.
2. Teach them the basic chords.
3. Teach them the basic scales.
4. Teach them how to use scales with chords.

I've found that most students don't want to learn this stuff, they just want the instructor to teach them songs they want to learn. Every student is going to be different, so just ask them what they want to learn, whether it be theory, certain songs, how to improvise, etc......But let them know that it will pay off a lot more to learn the notes, chords, scales, and how to apply them.

If you ask me, every guitar student, indeed any student of anything, who is going to pay for lessons, has a right to quality instruction.
If you feel that your offer that, quality instruction, then go full steam ahead and you have my best wishes.
As for your musical inclinations, I have no beef with metal, tho' I don't particularly like it, but my feeling is that a guitar teacher ought to have a broad musical base, both in terms of what interests them and what they can play to a convincing technical level. I guess you could specialise and still do well, but I'm suspecting you'd do better if you had more variety.
Or may be I'm jealous coz I've owned a guitar for close to five years now, and I'm not anywhere near considering myself as qualified to teach.
Anyhow, good luck with the lessons.

Teach them a nice mix of everything and don't overload a newbie guitarist. Teach 'em scales, intervals, chord construction, and modal theory and how those things are all inter-related.

Do you know how to teach? Teaching on its own is a skill to master. Just make sure you know how to tell the kid with 10 thumbs why the top/1st string is on the bottom... Another note is that not every student will have the same ambitions with music. Some just want to pass the time and be decent, others may be practicing 5 hours a day. But it'll also be a good experience, best of luck to you.

imo you want to learn everything you possibley can can once you know everything then you can make your own stuff

Originally Posted by: Akira... You can improve your own knowledge of guitar 10 fold from teaching...

[font=trebuchet ms]For sure! You don't really know something until you can explain it to someone else.[/font]

Originally Posted by: Lordathestrings[font=trebuchet ms]For sure! You don't really know something until you can explain it to someone else.[/font]

That's why the bright kid in class always got smarter, coz everyone took any question they had to him or her, and they thus got the best and varied revision material anyone couild get, and the only place they could go was better.

i tried teaching once... i hope you're patient!!!!
as i'd been playing for a few years and needed some cash i offered to teach one of my mum's friends's son when they asked.
on top of wanting to play some of the most craptacular music i've ever heard, this kid was thick as two short planks, wouldn't listen to a word i said and made stupid (and horrible) remarks the whole time.

on top of this, any time i left the room he would de tune my guitars or mess around with them.
the last straw came when he turned the volume on my amp to the top and nearly burst the speaker (not to mention deafening anyone in a 20 mile radius).
after that i told his mother to leave and never darken my door with her son of Satan again. :D

i was probably just unlucky, but it put me off ever teaching again! but if you actually want to teach and aren't just desperate for money, you'll probably be more tolerant than i was.
hate to be the voice of doom, but there you go! :)