How To Get Guitar Students To Do What You Say
How do you get guitar students to do what you say?
A very good friend of mine, Jim, (who started a music school that made over half a million USD per year) once told me this story that illustrates a powerful way to do just that:
One of Jim’s pre-teen students (who had a piano recital coming up, but wasn’t practicing enough) mentioned during a lesson that he was telling his friends about Jim’s lessons.
To which, Jim glared and told him:
“You’re not allowed to tell ANYONE you study with me! Not until you can play this piece properly.”
Now, time out here...
This may seem like a strange thing to say to a kid student (who may throw a tantrum and quit lessons or feel offended).
But Jim was smart enough to realize that – despite not practicing – the student looked up to him and was enjoying the lessons.
And rather than give the kid a boring lecture on “how important practicing is”...
... he turned practicing into a challenge to earn Jim’s approval.
The result?
Within 3 weeks – that kid was playing the piece better than anyone in the class.
And that’s when Jim looked him in the eye and said:
“NOW you can tell all your friends who your teacher is!”
And even though Jim wasn’t teaching guitar, the moral of the story is applicable to guitar teaching. And it can help you to get guitar students to do what you say.
What is the moral?
It’s the idea of teaching ‘people’ first – music second.
See, when you teach guitar...
You will have a lot of students who have self-doubts and aren’t sure of their potential.
And if you struggle to get guitar students to do what you say, it’s not because your students actively resist your guitar teaching.
It’s often because many guitar students don’t believe they can become good players (at least not to the level ‘you’ may believe in their potential).
This lack of belief is the main reason you may struggle to get guitar students to do what you say in your guitar teaching.
That’s why a big part of your job when you teach guitar is to build your guitar students’ belief in themselves.
Here is one example of what that might look like:
Question: “Tom Hess, which approach is best when trying to get my guitar students to believe in themselves? The “challenge” approach your friend Jim used or the one from your video?”
Answer: It all depends. Some approaches work great with certain groups of students and fail with others. What works with kids will typically not work with adults (and vice versa). Getting guitar teacher training will help you teach guitar to all types of students (and personality types) and make it easier to get guitar students to do what you say.
The point is: you need a series of ways to get your students to believe in themselves. That is a pre-requisite to becoming great at teaching guitar.
For more tips that will help you get guitar students to do what you say in your guitar teaching, check out this article about getting guitar students to practice.
Start teaching guitar and making a lot of money doing.
