1. 5 Great Tips for Choosing the Best Guitar Lessons
1) Know what you would like to learn on guitar
The more specific you are about your musical goals, the more you will get out of your lessons.
It’s always the students who are the best prepared and who really know what they would like to
learn, who get the most satisfaction out of their lessons.
2) Find the best possible teacher you can find
Do your research, ask around, interview tons of teachers. The best teacher with the strongest
reputation, might not necessarily be “the best teacher for you”. You are unique, but so is every
teacher. While it is true that the top level guitar teachers are fantastic listeners who can easily
adapt to any possible personality type, even then that teacher might not necessarily “feel” right
for you. Always go with your gut feeling.
Either way: you always benefit from going with the more experienced guitar teacher who has
earned a reputation. After all: that reputation is usually there for a reason.
This usually includes:
A teacher with a very open, friendly, patient and caring personality.
Who teaches a strong, solid, structured guitar curriculum with hand outs and exercises,
covering everything there is to learn about guitar and music.
Who gives you weekly homework assignments and exercises.
Who motivates and inspires you, and who cares about giving you the best possible
education you can get in town.
2. 3) Guitar lessons are what you make them
The more regularly you show up for lessons, the more quickly you will learn and the better you will
progress. The teacher is only the guide, everything else is really in your hands. I know people who
graduated from a top school like Berklee College of Music, feeling that “they didn’t get that much out of
it.” A school or any educational system, is only worth it what you put into it.
The more you communicate with your teacher, the better he will know how to make and keep
you happy.
The more regularly you meet for lessons, the more fun you will have in your lessons. Part of
what makes learning guitar so much fun, is that cool feeling of achievement that kicks in when
you see yourself get better.
The more upbeat and positive you are in your lessons, the more fun it is for the teacher to work
with you, and the more you will get out of that teacher. This might for example require getting
used to making mistakes in a teacher’s presence.
4) Measure your progress
Think about it: the “best lessons” really are the lessons that give you the best possible progress and
growth with the least possible effort.
3. If you do the drills and the homework, exactly as the teacher outlined them for you, but you don’t see
progress, then obviously the lessons or the teaching approach are not working for you.
On the other hand of course: if you don’t see the progress you had hoped or wished for, but you
have to admit you’re not really meeting regularly for lessons, or you’re not doing the drills or
exercises diligently, that’s an entirely different story all together. People who meet weekly for
lessons, progress about 4-5 times as quickly as students who only meet every other week. The
difference in progress is unbelievable.
5) What can you afford?
You deserve to get the best possible training and education you can get. It’s been my experience
as a guitar coach, that most people tend to confuse “what they can afford” with “what they think
they can only afford”. As an example: many people who have a choice between a $40/hr guitar
teacher and the $65/hr teacher, are going to choose the cheaper teacher. Unfortunately: what
they don’t take into account then, is that the cheaper teacher only charges that much, because
he (usually rightfully so) doesn’t feel that he has what it takes in terms of teaching skills or
experience, to get the $65 teacher results. These students then end up taking and paying for 2-3
lessons what the $65 teacher would have accomplished with them in 1 lesson. As such: they
actually ended up paying way more than $65 to get the same quality and results the more
experienced teacher would have given them in much less time for much lesser cost.
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