This is my personal take on it:

1) someone who you like, respect and can get along with.
i.e. doesn’t have a pole up their ass and a huge ego

2) Some one who you can talk to and who understands the sort of things you want to learn (technically)

i.e. don’t try to learn 8 finger tapping of some one who has never played with 8 fingers, don’t learn blues form a hair metaler (ever hear Van Halen doing "Ice cream man"....blurghhhhh !)

3) Some one who is sufficiently organized to say OK this is what we are going to cover in the next 6 weeks and it is going to lead to this in the long term, i.e. they have a short and a long term plan

4) some one who is knowledgeable and flexible enough to answer all your questions with out getting sidetracked

5) some one who doesn’t make stuff up (like none existent bits of theory / notation that the following week they profess to have never heard off) to sound interesting ! (Sad but true !)

6) Some one interested enough in your playing to understand what you want to know, identify your week spots and offer constructive criticism

This is why Id suggest signing up for 4 lessons initially to see if you like each other. Remember there is probably more than one teacher in your area !


[Edited by Dr_simon on 05-31-2003 at 04:33 PM]