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 