10 Tips For New Guitar Teachers
Of all teaching jobs, being a private music lessons instructor is easily one of the most sink or swim roles that there is. Whether you're teaching at a music store, in your own home, or at a commercial lesson studio, you're likely going to receive very little training. You'll probably shadow a few senior instructors' lessons. Maybe you'll get a one-on-one with them to ask questions, but besides that, it's pretty much up to you to figure out how to teach.
I started teaching guitar and banjo lessons while studying Music and English at Auburn University back in 2021 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. I had zero experience teaching music lessons, and although I had taught martial arts in the past and had been seriously studying music for over a decade, I was extremely nervous that I was not up to the task.
The imposter syndrome crept in, as I nervously thought of everything that could go wrong. What if I didn't know what to teach? What if a student wanted to learn a song that I couldn't figure out on the spot? How will I teach students with special needs? What if my adult students don't take me seriously? All of these worries and more swam in my head for about a year and returned again when I started teaching piano after graduating college.
There are surprisingly very few online resources geared towards helping new guitar teachers feel comfortable in their new roles. Four years ago, there were even fewer. The aim of this teaching guide is to help alleviate the stress you might be feeling in taking on the challenge of teaching guitar.
Although I don't have decades of teaching experience yet, I have built a roster of more than 40 weekly students across music stores, camps, commercial lesson studios, and students’ homes, in person and virtually. Then, I moved to a new city and did it all again. In this guide, I'll explain the 10 things I wish I knew before I started teaching to help you feel more equipped than I did when I first started.
Develop a Personal Teaching Philosophy
Any successful business or organization is likely to have some kind of guiding mission statement. Although it might feel corny, you need to develop something similar–a philosophy of sorts.
If you can articulate just a few skills that you believe any proficient guitarist should have, that's enough to build your own philosophy. Having one to inform the way you teach ensures that you'll never walk into a lesson having no clue what to teach.
Your philosophy might look different from mine, but that's a good thing because your philosophy is informed by your personal experiences and what makes you unique as a musician.
Here's a brief overview of the philosophy that guides my curriculum as a teacher:
A strong sense of rhythm is the most important skill any musician can develop.
Building and maintaining a versatile repertoire is the most effective way to gain the most skill as a musician.
Learning music theory can only help your students if taught in the right way.
The sooner a student can stop relying on guitar tablature, the better.
Teaching students how to learn songs by ear is the ultimate goal.
A list of 5 bullet points describing the skills you think are most important for any musician to develop is plenty to build your own personal teaching philosophy. I'll go more in depth on some of these beliefs in the rest of my tips.
2. Prioritize Teaching Rhythm Over Everything
Having a strong sense of rhythm is the most important skill any musician can develop. Across all instruments, it's the one non negotiable. Even instruments that don't deal in melody or harmony, the ability to execute rhythms is the one thing you must have.
This might sound like an obvious point, but when I substitute for other teachers, it's clear that some instructors just don't prioritize rhythm enough when teaching their students. It's shocking the amount of students I have subbed for who have told me their teacher has never forced them to play with a metronome or kept tempo for them while they're playing.
Even if you can't read sheet music (which is incredibly common for guitarists), not teaching your students how to feel the pulse of music while playing is an absolute dereliction of duty. It is absolutely critical to teach your students that there is a difference between playing all the right notes in a song, and playing all the right notes at the right time.
When you consider how rare it is for guitarists to be able to read proper sheet music or even execute rudimentary written rhythms, it makes sense that guitar teachers would rarely teach how to read music notation. This is one of the biggest weaknesses in guitar pedagogy overall, and having to learn how to read music to start teaching piano is the skill that has helped me the most as a teacher.
3. Learn From How Other Instruments are Taught
Nothing made me a better guitar teacher more than becoming a piano teacher. Let me explain.
All music majors at Auburn University are required to take at least a year of group piano lessons, and for my degree, it was two years. These proved to be some of the most important classes I took at Auburn.
Being forced to learn a new instrument and become a competent sight reader showed me the importance of teaching guitar students how to read at least some level of music notation.
All of the sudden, rhythmic concepts I was struggling to articulate before learning to read were made simple when I broke them down into written rhythms. As I started teaching as much piano as I did guitar, the way piano is taught out of method books began influencing the way I taught guitar.
At some point I began noticing my piano students all had much better rhythm than my guitar students. This was partially because when you teach out of method books, it forces students to learn very simple, achievable concepts repeatedly before introducing more difficult skills. Method books also prioritize reading and executing simple quarter, half, and whole note rhythms for months before moving onto more difficult material.
Although guitar is one of the most widely played instruments in the world, it is usually taught completely differently than other instruments like piano or violin. Not a single guitar teacher I have worked with uses method books, while every piano teacher I have worked with does.
There are a few reasons for this, guitar method books are generally not as good as other instruments because there is less of a demand for them. Every guitar teacher I've worked with uses pretty much the same approach: teaching songs by writing out tablature with pencil and paper or maybe teaching tabs right off the internet.
Here's the thing, that is also my approach for teaching contemporary guitar. I like to use method books for teaching classical guitar in addition to writing guitar tabs for my students. This gives me the best of both worlds because it still forces my students to read at least some sheet music, but it also allows me to be flexible and tailor what I teach to each individual student.
4. Teach Skills Not Songs
When I say "teach skills not songs," I don't mean you should only give your students scales, exercises, and etudes. You should teach songs that teach skills, especially at the beginner level.
The very first song I teach any beginner student on the guitar is always "Happy Birthday," and I teach it using only one string. Why? Because everyone knows the song, and it teaches students how to read tablature in about ten minutes.
After that, I always teach "Twinkle Twinkle Little Start" because that's another simple song everyone knows, and it gives me the opportunity to teach students how to read quarter, half, and whole notes.
The first rock song I teach people is pretty much always "Down on the Corner" by CCR because it features a simple riff that uses open strings and only two frets. I like to teach "Tennessee Whiskey" by Christ Stapleton soon after that because it teaches students how to slide.
When you rely on songs that teach skills, it sets your students up to be able to later learn songs that they choose, themselves. Just because your teacher might have taught you "Sweet Home Alabama" first, doesn't mean you should too. Most beginners can't pull off chord-heavy songs and hammer-ons at first, and giving your students a ladder of achievable skill-oriented songs will allow them to ascend the skill barriers they encounter.
5. Understand Time Management
Most music stores or commercial music schools offer thirty-minute lessons. When you first start, that might sound like a lot of time you need to fill up. And at first it does feel like that, but the more you teach, the more it feels like not nearly enough time to give a complete lesson.
I've found that especially for children, a repeatable lesson structure is very important for making them feel comfortable. Kids like routine, especially neuro-divergent students.
This is why I always structure my lessons in three phases: warmups, revisiting music from our last lesson, and learning new material. Starting with a warmup is a great way to sneak some music theory into their practice.
Rather than having my students play atonal finger exercises as warmups, I'll have them play scales, arpeggios, and other music theory concepts. Even if they're not fully grasping the utility of theory just yet, framing scales as a part of warmups will at least get them playing their scales.
Reviewing previous material helps with memorization and repertoire building, but be careful about how much time you spend on this phase of the lesson. This point in the learning process is all about improving what your student is still working on, and it's easy to get overly critical if you devote too much time to improving known material. Don't rush their process, and let them learn their music as slow or as fast as they need.
I try to make sure my students learn at least some new material each lesson. This doesn't always have to be starting a new song. If you're teaching a song with multiple sections, don't try to teach every part all at once. Take it slow; teaching individual sections is a great way to spread their learning out and make sure they don't feel overwhelmed by learning too much at once.
Time management can make or break a lesson. It's helpful to wear a watch, so you can quickly check the time without having to look at your phone. If you keep a repeatable structure that keeps students engaged they'll never ask, "how much time do I have left in my lesson?"
6. One Size Does NOT Fit All
There's a reason the timeless adage "different strokes for different folks" lives on. You should absolutely treat all of your students with the same level of respect and patience regardless of their age or experience, but you should absolutely not teach your five-year-old student the same way you teach your 55-year-old-student.
Adults expect the same level of professionalism from their guitar teacher as they would from their personal trainer or physical therapist. You should conduct your lessons as professionally as possible and communicate in a measured and authoritative manner to gain the respect of adult students. Adult students will expect you to be able to answer complex questions effectively and communicate them in a simple way. Being able to do this will gain you infinitely more respect than any flashy solo you can play.
With children, on the other hand, your goal should be to make them feel nurtured and engaged. When teaching children, it's important to adjust your speaking intonation to a warm and friendly tone. Oftentimes, kids get signed up for music lessons by their parents without them even knowing what they're getting into, so it's important for you to emphasize just how fun and exciting learning a new instrument can be.
Not all kids learn the same way, however, so don't try to fit a square peg into a round hole if something is just not working. I try to use the Socratic method a lot–often asking questions that lead students to the right answer, rather than simply giving it to them. This usually works really well, but with neurodivergent and differently-abled students, I've found that the Socratic method can sometimes have an unintended, condescending effect.
With that being said, it's critical to be flexible in your teaching and communication style. Every student learns differently, and as a guitar instructor, you should always adjust to your students' needs and not expect them to adjust to you.
7. Music Theory is Your Friend (Sometimes)
When I started teaching lessons, one of the first questions I asked myself was, "how much theory should I be teaching my students?" I've come to the conclusion that every student should learn at least some music theory.
Earlier, I mentioned that warmups are a great place to sneak some music theory into a lesson. Even if your nine your old student doesn't understand the function of a major scale, using scales as a template for warmups can only help them. Even if you tell them you're just playing the scales to warm up their fingers, they're still playing their scales. Over time, as they learn more and more, you can slowly start to reveal why learning scales is so helpful as a musician.
The amount of music theory that you should teach is one of the most variable elements of teaching guitar, and it should entirely depend on the individual student's interest. Adults typically have more interest and patience for learning music theory concepts, but even some adults have zero interest in learning theory.
I've found that teaching a little bit of theory each lesson and only adding more when they clearly understand the concepts is the best way to go. Overexplaining and intellectualizing theory is a quick way to lose a student's interest and maybe even their business. At the same time, having students who don't know chord names and theory concepts is also not ideal.
8. Don't Teach Kids Chords Too Early
One of the biggest mistakes I see guitar teachers making is teaching kids full 5 or 6 string chords in their very first lesson. This might sound counterintuitive if you play a lot of guitar professionally because most of the time, you're playing a lot of chords.
Here's the problem: kids have small hands!
It might seem like an oversimplification, but playing chords on the guitar, while it is one of the most important skills on the instrument, is very challenging for beginners. Sure, you can get most students to form their hands into a rough G chord, but what is the use if they can't change between chords in rhythm?
The other problem with teaching songs that feature primarily chords is that kids don't naturally understand the role of harmony (chords) nearly as much as they do melody. Chords typically don't carry a tune the way a melody does, so it's a lot easier to make a song sound how a kid is expecting if you teach them a song's melody rather than its chords.
As I said earlier, you should be prioritizing teaching your students to have a strong understanding of rhythm above all else. It takes infinitely more practice to transition between chords than it does to transition between single notes, and you should want your students to progress and advance quickly. Teaching songs with only chords will not do this. Instead, focus on teaching your students songs with single-note riffs or teaching them the simple melodies until they have enough skill to learn songs with chords.
9. Slow Everything Down
Slow everything down, and I mean everything. From the speed at which you speak, to the speed you teach your students to practice, and to the speed that you teach new material; you can never go wrong by slowing down.
One of my favorite tools for teaching is using the "slow down" feature on YouTube videos when teaching new songs. When you play a song on YouTube, you can slow down the audio all the way to 0.25 speed. Doing this when teaching new songs is a cheat code for forcing students to practice slowly while maintaining rhythmic consistency across different tempos. You can slowly move the speed up over time, making this approach a great way for students to see themselves tangibly progressing in real time.
Slow and steady will always win the race when it comes to teaching music, and expedience is never a path to mastery in any domain.
10. Understand YOU Are the Professional
Finally, I'd like to conclude this guide with some words of encouragement. A big hurdle that I had to overcome when I started teaching were many instances of imposter syndrome. I was worried that my younger students wouldn't like me or that my adult students wouldn't take me seriously.
However, with the help of a lot of experience and the guidance of other teachers and lessons administrators, I was able to see that students go into their lessons wanting to learn and wanting to like their instructors.
Adult students are not going to bust your chops, vetting you like a presidential appointee. When adult students pay for music lessons, they are under the assumption that they are paying for a service administered by a professional. Kids go into lessons simply hoping their teacher is nice and that they have fun learning. If you can simply rise to the occasion, and meet these basic expectations, you really have very little to worry about.
Being a guitar teacher is an extremely rewarding and fun job to have, but it is natural to feel nervous when starting a new role of any kind. I hope this guide has been helpful in your journey of becoming a great guitar instructor.