I’ve spent the last 30 years or so learning how to play guitar – and I’m still learning. Over time, I’ve acquired, or I might say, stumbled upon various techniques that I made part of my playing, and I’ve recently started to share what I’ve learned; that is, I’ve started teaching guitar. I’ve been informally teaching guitar for a number of years, showing various folks how to do this and that, but just recently started doing formalized lessons (read: I’m getting paid now… 🙂 ). Admittedly, it has been a bit of a scary thing. Not having taken a single guitar lesson in my life, I didn’t know if my approach to teaching guitar was going to work. But to my overwhelming surprise, I’ve found that I’m not too bad at it, and my students seem to respond well to what I have to share.
Mind you, this isn’t a plug for taking me on as a teacher by no means; especially if you’re already an accomplished guitar player. I’m only taking on beginning to intermediate guitar players. Besides, my approach might seem a bit cockeyed as I focus less on technique and more on developing musicality. But I digress. The point of me sharing this is that I’m really jazzed at the prospect of teaching! To me, it’s incredible to see the progress people make and it makes me feel good that I can play a part in that. It’s not an ego thing: I truly want my students to develop the same kind of love (or some might call it obsession) I have for the guitar, and it’s very cool to see them gain that as they learn new things.
I can now understand why teachers love what they do. There really is nothing like the satisfaction of sharing what you know, and having people delight in that knowledge. If you’re an accomplished player, I highly recommend sharing your knowledge if you have it in you to teach!
Guitar Gear 
yeah!! learning guitar is a really tough task to achieve…
As someone who’s never taken a lesson, but will likely someday have to teach lessons to bring in a little extra money (parishes don’t pay all that well, as I’m sure you can sympathize), what do you do in a lesson? I’m not specifically talkin’ about teaching technique or anything like that (though that’s a good question, too), but just in general, what do you teach about? My guitar journey has been very unstructured, so I just have no idea how I would structure it for someone else.
I thought long and hard about that and boiled it down to first teaching chord shapes using the C-A-G-E-D technique. Of course, knowing chord shapes is one thing. Playing them is another, so I have both strumming and picking exercises I have my students do in addition to playing the chord shapes. The idea is to establish the sense that they have to cleanly play the chord, but also follow a tempo.
My aim is to teach guitar within the context of making music. To me it’s pointless to learn technique if you’re not going to apply it. That said, I don’t teach any specific songs for the first month or so: Just chord progressions. And during that time, I give them a rudimentary understanding about intervals. It’s actually very cool to see them progress!
Teaching is a very cool way to stay inspired musically. Whenever I have tought guitar I’ve been forced to pick my playing up a notch. Cool Article!
It sounds cliche’ when people say they learn a lot when they teach, but it can be very true.
When you’re dealing with another person’s playing issues, you tend to re-evaluate some of your own, and sometimes that results in some rediscoveries for your playing.
Absolutely! In fact, when I was teaching an A chord, I had to consciously not just bar the D-G-B strings with my middle finger. I had to demonstrate the chord the traditional way.
So I was referred from another blog ,,yours is so much to read Thanks!
Thanks! 🙂
Congratulations on starting the new chapter! I’ve never taught, but I imagine it would open up your eyes to your own technique as you teach it to others. Probably a great way to move forward yourself as a player, while helping others at the same time!
I know this will seem like a shameless plug but anyone can download a free handout for your students for The CAGED system (using the chords C A Am G E Em and D) mentioned by Goofydawg by going to a guitar teacher’s website
http://teachwombat.com
There is no catch. The free handout is on the first page and you can just download it and print it out for your students.
I hope I’m not breaking any rules of the website or anything by mentioning a website?
Cheers!
Rumple, not a problem. In fact, that’s a pretty cool thing! I checked it out. Did you develop these handouts?
Yeah they’re mine.
I got sick of trying to photocopy stuff from books and stuff and basically spent some time putting together the stuff that I would have bought if it were available.
(if you send me your email address goofydawg I’ll gladly send you a link so that you can pick all of the stuff up as a thanks for helping me to get the word out about my site? It really makes a difference!)
If anyone wants to stick a link from their myspace, facebook, blog or or website to
http://teachwombat.com
I’d be more than happy to let them have the Big Grids (100 giant chord grids) to download free to stick on the wall as a study aid.
[…] readers, Ken Potter, recently plugged his guitar instructional site, Teach Wombat, in one of my articles about moving into a new chapter of my guitar life. I normally don’t like random product plugs, but being a teacher, I’m always looking […]
Interesting article, i have bookmarked your site for future referrence 🙂