8 Signs You Have the WRONG Guitar Teacher

-Can you relate to any of these?
Thanks!!!

[rockytrail]

My guitar teacher was a kindly old pensioner who brought music and cheer to a dirt-poor town in the late 1970s. If you didn't own a guitar, he would provide one for you. He would run down to Juarez and pick up several guitars as was needed. He did more for us than taught us music.

[DeathMetalThrasher]

I'm gonna be a guitar teacher after a few more months. I'm watching this to save me the embarrasment and losing students.

[ianwhite]

"Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach, teach gym." Jack Black

[edgarsmithsonian]

I took lessons from Greg Howe for 3 months in late 1987. It was a rude awakening, because throughout high school I had been studying with a teacher who either could not detect my flaws or did not care enough to mention them. The one compliment this person gave me again and again was that he liked my musical ideas. He'd even go a little gaga over them, so my ability to come up with creative ideas became my identity.

By the time I took lessons from Greg, I was four years deep into my self-delusions. I thought I was pretty darn special. I drove 45 minutes to Easton, Pa on a cold night in early October, more giddy than nervous. And I will say this: for all of Greg Howe's genius and virtuosity, he is a nice guy, and a comforting presence. I was not nervous during that first lesson. We did a jam over Far Beyond the Sun. He went first. Any person with their head on straight would have frozen. But not me. Nope. I was inspired! I was on my game! I played with total abandon, I thought I had nailed it! I would have no excuses to save me, nor would I need any. I finished my improv with the fanciest lick I could come up with on the spot. I looked over at the master, expecting the praise I had gotten so used to. You know where this is going. Greg said, "It's not so much the overall feel I didn't like, it's the ideas I thought were weak. And your left and right hand are out of synch. And you don't land on the downbeat enough." And then he demonstrated how I sounded and let me tell you, it is downright disturbing to watch a monster player like Howe imitate a rank amateur when that rank amateur happens to be yourself. He was nice about it, but at that moment I felt really betrayed by my first teacher. It was humbling to realize, especially in that context, that I had been lied to for 4 years.

[designlychallenged]

So... I should see my guitar teacher's daily tradition of throwing a chair at my head while playing out of tempo as a warning sign?

[schreds]

I found that getting an instructor who can teach adult beginners makes a big difference. I was 40 when I started learning guitar and in the beginning, I was treated like a 12 year old. That's seriously annoying. When I got an instructor who treated me like an adult, it changed everything.

[TWHueyGuitar]

What I do is I ask potential students what three songs they most want to learn. I look at what chords, scales, and techniques the student will need to learn for those songs. I spend the first few weeks focusing on those areas (depending on the students' progress), and then start working on the building blocks of the actual song.

[Gabrostil]

The closest thing that i have to a guitar teacher is your channel

[paragang]

i had a teacher like the whiplash guy. I learned so much and benefited a lot believe it or not. I always thought he was just teaching some bullshit songs and stuff but later realized he taught me everything i needed to benefit from music theory and things i could add to my style.

[hohoucgguztizi]

My guitar teacher that I had at school, and the one that sparked my passion for guitar, had a clock on the wall, but he took out the hands and wrote on it, "time to work" he was a really cool guy and always kept me wanting to learn guitar, maybe it was also that it was a class but it worked nonetheless!

[yallevereatenbeans]

I had a teacher for years who just gave me tabs, every week he'd just ask me what I wanted to learn, write out the tab, we'd fumble through it for a bit and that was that. He wouldn't even check how I was doing with the song I learned last week. Had been playing for years and I knew what a pentatonic scale was but had no idea what I was supposed to do with it, didn't know the notes on the fretboard, just really basic stuff I had never learned. Thing was that he was a cool guy and I was pretty young so I didn't know better. It just occured to me years later that I'd been with him a long time and I'd totally plataued. When I switched I actually got the guy who had taught my last teacher and started getting better pretty much immediately.

[skipneumann]

Another interesting thing to look at is how the music store “runs” their lesson program if you are the student or the teacher. I taught at a store where the owner would start flashing the lights, turning off the power, and knocking on the door when the 1/2 hour was over. As a jazz student, I had a teacher who played the whole time- it was never my turn— didn’t stay long

[NeonRadarMusic]

To the second point, I feel like it's useful to ask a student not what they want to learn, but what music they actually LIKE. That way, I use the music they like as a means to let the techniques and theory (things that are near-universal across genres) come in the form of music that they actually enjoy. I find that my students discover what kinds of music they gravitate towards that way and it inspires them creatively and I can use the music they like as a gateway to other styles that inspired the music they like so they can follow the trail and appreciate the history.

[palix]

I had a teacher that overly praised me, and I would get angry every time he did that. He would tell me to "improv a solo" and then stop me after I played a single note and he would write a solo and make me mime it, then say "you wrote that all by yourself. that's awesome!" I'm getting irritated just thinking about it. haha

[challenger]

On the other side of this, I'm an decent guitarist and only play for the joy of it. I write songs and record them and when people hear me play, they like it. I get the occasional person who wants me to teach them. I'm reluctant because everyone I try to teach, never sticks to it. I start out with basic, open chords and show them how important it is to work on making sure all of the notes ring out in the chords. If they return, I'll show them some basic progressions and how to move from one chord to the next and then I never see them again. I'm super patient because I don't want them to fear it and I'm not charging them any money and just want them to learn how great music is but, they just don't want to commit.

[cardmonty]

My initial guitar teacher kept me in Scales & Exercises forever. I had an hour long lesson, and he’d dedicate the last 10 minutes to a song, & made me play rhythm while he played lead. But I wanted to learn lead. I think I was just a warmup to his Saturday night gigs. Ugh!

[jayyoutube]

One thing I noticed about my teacher was we shared internet in the same music (before he passed away) I believe that is how he became my best friend in the end. I had so much respect for him knowing he was a former US Marine with an “honorable discharge” (heart condition) I was devastated to find him sitting on the couch, cold to the touch. He was gone. Find out he stopped taking his heart meds and didn’t tell anyone. RIP Mike Vohar II

[adamcraneguilford]

I am blessed with a fabulous teacher named Jerry Schillinger, a master of jazz chord melody playing. He teaches in the most patient and thorough fashion. I have played for forty years, so the lessons are advanced and the techniques he teaches are quite difficult to master. He is the best teacher ever imho

[urex]

My only guitar teacher was a classmate who showed me how to play E, A and D. From there it was magazines and listening to a given recording over and over again. The internet is such a blessing for young and old guitar players. The same can be said for those of you who share your knowledge.

[dulymaximus]

I cant help but think of that guitar as a red velvet cake