Teaching guitar using lesson plans

As a guitar teacher I use custom lesson plans with my students for several reasons. This is different to teachers who teach their students using a standard guitar book found in any music shop. If you’re a guitar teacher or want to teach guitar, it’s worth making the comparison between guitar books and lesson plans.

Here’s a few reasons why I choose to teach using lesson plans over any guitar books:

• You can change direction at any time with lesson plans instead of having to teach whatever is in the book
• If your student doesn’t like the way the book explains topics, or doesn’t like the exercises used, it’s makes your job hard
• You can create a unique curriculum to fit each student’s needs using lesson plans
• Every student learns in different ways and many wont learn effectively from a book
• Lesson plans give you freedom as a teacher to teach the way you want to
• Guitar books suggest to the student that they could learn without you as long as they have the book

My experience as a student

As a student I had a teacher who gave me a guitar book (actually I had to buy it) and in the first lesson we started on page 1 then worked page by page towards the end. It was the worst experience because I didn’t like the songs and exercises in the book and the teacher didn’t have any backup material. Obviously he wasn’t a good teacher (for various reasons) but the fact that he simply followed the book was a clear sign that he didn’t really know how to teach properly.

After I left that teacher I found another teacher and this time instead of giving me a book, this teacher would hand me new pages filled with relevant exercises and songs to learn based on my current abilities. I would put each new lesson in a binder and if I didn’t like certain materials she gave me she would make a note and next week we would have something completely different that suited my learning needs.

Needless to say the distinction between the two teachers was obvious. As a guitar teacher I now ensure that each of my students receives the same high level of tailored lessons that I received. None of my students learn from a book and in actual fact a few of my students mentioned they were relieved they wouldn’t learn from a book when they started with me. I now write guitar teaching resources for other guitar tutors to use and once they start using them they realize how much freedom it gives them as a teacher.

It’s your choice as a guitar teacher

I’ve mentioned my story here not to say you should do one instead of the other but to show you that as a teacher you have a choice. Most people when they decide to teach guitar simply teach out of a book because it’s the default option – they didn’t choose, they just didn’t consider the alternatives. If you currently teach out of a book and feel it’s working, then that’s fine. Just realize there are other options and you may in fact be better off not teaching from a book.

Something to think about.

If you learn guitar from a teacher, leave a comment whether they teach out of a book or using custom lesson plans.

Not all guitar sites are equal

Quick tip for anybody learning guitar from resources off the Internet:

Never trust a guitar site that talks about how they will help you master the ‘acoustic or electronic guitar’.

If they slip up with something so basic as calling an electric guitar an electronic guitar, just imagine what else they might get wrong. Although I won’t name the site, it’s a good reminder to make sure you use a combination of different sites when learning something new. This way you can cross reference any material so if something stands out, you can figure out which resource has it right. Otherwise one day you might walk into a guitar shop asking to see their range of electronic guitars…

Can you teach guitar?

I have been teaching guitar for approximately 8 years now and the most common question I receive from guitarists is, ‘what does it take to be able to teach guitar?’

I used to say that anybody can teach guitar. But after some time coaching other guitar tutors I realize the answer is a bit more involved.

To be able to teach guitar you need three basic things:

1. Good quality teaching materials
2. Patience
3. Good understanding of guitar and music

I could nitpick and break down the requirements into many more areas but I believe if you get these three areas under your belt, you can become a great guitar teacher. Let’s have a quick look why.

Why you need good quality teaching materials

I started off handwriting my lesson materials. They didn’t look too professional but they did the job. Bare in mind that I started off teaching my friends so they didn’t care about professional looking materials. They knew I had the expertise and trusted my level of knowledge. That changed when I started teaching other people.

As soon as I started teaching strangers guitar, I needed to change the materials I used. This is because the new students didn’t know me and had to judge my expertise based on what I said during lessons and the materials I gave them. Even if I explained concepts perfectly, handwritten notes would create doubts in their minds.

Key Point: Handwritten material creates doubt in your student’s mind about your level of expertise

So I turned to guitar instruction books. I would buy a book for each student and teach out of it. But there is a significant problem with this method: teaching out of a book sucks! I can’t make that statement any bolder although I want to. It sucks because you have no control over the content. If your student doesn’t want to learn about the C Major Scale and half the book is dedicated to teaching the notes in that scale, you’re in for problems.

Key Point: Teaching out of a book sucks because you have little control over the content and what direction you can take

I now write lesson materials for Live and Teach Guitar, a site dedicated to providing guitar tutors with high quality lesson materials they can download and print off as they need. The reason I am so active in promoting this way of teaching is because it works. You have full control over how you teach and can change direction at any time. You can’t do that with a book.

Why you need patience

One of the most frustrating things you can experience as a guitar tutor is when you know your student hasn’t practiced all week. They show up for the next lesson and have forgotten absolutely everything you taught them last time. No matter how good you are as a teacher, you will eventually come across someone like this. How you handle these situations says a lot about how good you are as a tutor. If you can relax and figure out a way to encourage your student to practice during the week, you will succeed in the long term. If on the other hand you get angry and tell your student off, you won’t succeed and your student will give up on you.

You need patience when teaching guitar because it can get frustrating when you see your student play the same mistake over and over. It can get frustrating when you tell your student to keep their thumb in the correct position then see them straight away place it in the wrong position.

If you have patience, these problems stop being problems and become minor challenges for you to work around. If you can relax you can think up a way to overcome any issues your student is having. That increases the chances that they learn over time and stay with you.

Key Point: If you have patience, you can overcome any issues your student faces

Just keep in mind that patience is a skill like any other. So even if you think you don’t have any patience now, you can find ways to develop your patience over time.

Why you need to have a good understanding of guitar and music

It almost goes without saying that you need to have a good understanding of guitar and music in general to be able to teach effectively. But you don’t need to already be an expert. Having a ‘good’ level of understanding is okay. You can start teaching children and other beginners and still think of yourself as an intermediate player. It doesn’t matter if you only have a few years of experience because that’s a whole lot more then your students will have.

When you want to start teaching more advanced students, you need to make sure you level of understanding is still a high level above your student. This is so you can always effectively answer their questions. For example: if your student asks you, ‘can you explain modes to me?’ you need to have a very good grasp of the concept or else they will get confused by your explanations.

Key Point: Although you don’t need to be an expert to teach guitar, the more you understand, the easier your job will be

Just remember that nobody knows everything, so even if your student asks you a question and you don’t know the answer, you are allowed to tell them you will find out and let them know next time.

Summary

At the start of this article I mentioned that I used to tell people that anybody can teach guitar. Now I tell people that if they use the right materials, have patience and have a good understanding of guitar, they can teach it. Fortunately there is nothing here that you can’t learn so effectively everybody can teach guitar. How good a teacher you become is dependent on how seriously you take these three points.

For more resources, guides and articles to help you teach guitar, visit the Live and Teach Guitar website. If you have any questions on what it’s like to teach guitar, feel free to ask me in the comments section below.

Guitar challenge: What can you do with these two notes?

When you sit down to practice guitar or just feel like jamming, you probably play all over the neck using a few different scales (depending on your scale knowledge). As a challenge, try to spend at least 10 minutes only jamming using these two notes:

Now the rules of the challenge are:

• You must play for a minimum of 10 minutes (set a countdown timer)
• You can only play the two notes only using the two positions shown (in other words you cannot play D or E anywhere else on the neck)

Simple isn’t it?

What this challenge does for your playing

This challenge helps you in several different ways.

The first way is to help you use your creativity to come up with fresh ideas. After about one minute of jamming between the two notes you will start to run out of ideas. Once you reach this point you really need to think about different variations you can use to keep the two notes sounding fresh. There’s no point playing the same things over and over and you won’t achieve anything that way. To improve your playing you really need to push yourself to try something new.

Another way this challenge helps your playing is by helping you learn to use less notes and really make each note speak. When you have unlimited notes to choose from they can become distractions. On the other hand when you limit the number of choices you have, it forces you to really focus on using those notes in the best way you can. If you learn the message behind this challenge today, you will learn to make each note count.

This becomes apparent when you compare an intermediate player against an advanced player. The intermediate player will shred like crazy and run up and down scales as fast as possible. The advanced player might shred and use scale runs as well, but they will combine that with phrasing and note choices that are really thought out and make everything sound more ‘musical’.

What to do after you try this challenge

If you struggle to reach the minimum 10 minute mark, then give yourself a break and try it again later. If you have trouble using two notes in fresh ways for two minutes, you need to learn how to do it.

If on the other hand you manage to reach the 10 minute mark, there’s a few things you can try.

1. See how long you can play past the 10 minute mark
2. Try two different notes that aren’t close together on the fretboard (eg: 4th and 9th fret)
3. Add in a third note and try to come up with as many melodies and ideas as possible
4. See how long you can make one note sound interesting. Yes one note. Now that’s a challenge

Give this challenge a go and share this post with other players. This challenge is a great way to test your creativity so give it a go and let me know how you went in the comment section below. Good luck

Pre-order new Guitar Flash Cards for scales and chords

Tempo Music Card have created a campaign on Pozible, a site used to raise money for projects, to release new packs of guitar flash cards.

They plan to release up to three new packs which will teach everybody different scales and chords. Their first flash cards pack, 50 Essential Chords, has been extremely popular with beginner guitarists. The new packs will expand every guitarist’s knowledge whether you’re a beginner or an advanced player.

To effectively pre-order the new packs of cards, please visit their Pozible page and support the project. They will only be able to release the cards if a minimum amount is raised so if you would like to own the new packs or know somebody who would like them, please support the project and spread the word.

Visit the Pozible page here to support the project

Guitar related things to do in 2012

The start of the year is a time where you can reflect on the finished year and look ahead to new things you want to achieve in the new year. As a guitarist, there are so many different paths you can take and many things you can achieve. If you haven’t already considered what you want to achieve with guitar in 2012, here’s some suggestions for you:

• Try teaching guitar and earn some money
• Build your own guitar from scratch (or a kit if you aren’t familiar with working with wood)
• Learn to write your own Guitar TAB
• Take the plunge and post a video of your playing to YouTube (turn off comments if you fear criticism)
• Learn 50 basic open chords using a pack of flash cards
• Write your own song and record it (remember to start simple!)
• Learn to play in an alternate tuning you have never used before
• Learn a couple songs in a style you would never consider (eg: Flamenco, Country, Islander, Death Metal)

If you can tick some of these items off your list you will grow significantly as a player. Many guitarists would never consider half of these ideas so if you have the guts to give them a go you will already be pushing ahead of the pack. It’s your choice. Don’t hold back. Make 2012 your year.

Any other ideas or goals for your guitar playing in 2012? Put them in writing in the comment section below, you are more likely to succeed if you actually say you will do it.

New eBook included with packs of Guitar Flash Cards

Tempo Music Cards have put together a comprehensive eBook that is now included with every purchase of their 50 Essential Chords Pack which is a pack of 50 Guitar Flash Cards to help you learn basic open chords.

This brand new eBook contains over 80 pages filled with:

• 9 in-depth lessons
• 16 specifically designed exercises for the flash cards
• A 30 Day Practice Plan to walk you through effective practice sessions
• Print-outs you can use to write your own music

For the next two weeks, any purchases of the new Flash Cards package will receive a discount of FREE SHIPPING worldwide. So if you have been thinking about learning guitar or have just started, this is the perfect time to get yourself a pack of Flash Cards to help you out with the brand new 30 Day Guide eBook.

Check out the 50 Essential Chords Flash Cards Pack with the brand new 30 Day Guide eBook here at our online store.

NOTE: This special offer for free shipping will only be valid until the 10th of August. So stop by the store here to place your order

Should you learn on an acoustic or electric guitar?

I have written an article at tempomusicards.com comparing the different type of guitars available and the pros and cons from each type when learning guitar. It’s so important to choose the right guitar to start on so every beginner should read the article to know what to expect from each type of guitar.

Check out the article here.

Each person will end up choosing a different type of guitar so take your time with this important decision.

Guitar lessons: learn to read and write your own Guitar TAB

Guitarists are fortunate in that we have a simpler way of writing music other than Standard Notation. Guitar Tab or Tablature is an incredibly straight forward system to learn. After spending 10 minutes learning how to read Guitar TAB you can already know enough to start learning to play songs. This is a huge advantage of Standard Notation which can take a long time to learn even the fundamentals.

To get the basic understanding on how to read Guitar TAB check out This Lesson Here. It covers the absolute basics with diagrams of the fretboard so you can compare the TAB diagrams to what is actually played on the fretboard.

If you already know a bit about how to read Guitar TAB, it might be time to upgrade your skills to be able to write your own TAB. Learning to write your own Guitar TAB is a worthwhile skill as it will help you remember riffs, licks or any ideas you come up with on guitar. If you want to write your own songs or figure out other songs by ear then being able to write Guitar TAB is something worth looking into. This Lesson Here on the Tempo Music Cards website contains basic information on the steps to take to develop your skill in writing TAB. Have a read through the lesson and apply the ideas. You will find it’s quite a lot easier then you may think. All you need to do is practice it just like any other skill on guitar.

Lessons:

Basics on how to read Guitar TAB

Basics on how to write Guitar TAB

These lessons are very basic to give you an idea on the fundamentals. Once you get the hang of that it’s pretty easy to pick up all the extra things that are included in TAB.

Guitar lesson: Learn to write your own rhythm and strumming patterns for guitar

This lesson on the tempomusicards.com website shows you in very simple terms how you can learn to write your own strumming patterns or rhythm that can be used in so many ways. The lesson will teach you the symbols for all the different note and rest types then show you how simple it is to write your own patterns.

This is a powerful skill that once learned can be used anytime you come up with an idea for a song. You could be sitting on a bus and think of a strumming pattern then properly write it down so you won’t forget it. Below is a short list showing some of the things you can do once you learn this skill:

1. Write strumming patterns for chord progressions
2. Transcribe strumming patterns from songs by ear
3. Learn to play along with a drummer
4. Give drummers ideas for beats and patterns
5. Add an interesting rhythm to your licks and melodies
6. Write riffs that are focused on a rhythm pattern

There are many more things you can use this skill for but it gives you an idea how important it is.

You can access the lesson here

Included at the end of the lesson is a blank rhythm sheet you can download and print off to start writing your own ideas down now.