How To Teach Guitar To Guitar Students Who Are Advanced
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So, you have some guitar students who are advanced, and you wonder how to teach guitar to them?
You are in the right place.
In this article, I’ll show you guitar teaching principles that help you teach advanced guitar students and make them very happy that you are the one teaching guitar to them.
The first thing to know about teaching guitar to advanced guitar students is…
Advanced guitar students are very rare.
Most guitar players who look for someone to teach guitar to them are beginners or intermediate-level.
EMAIL TO GET ACCESS
By submitting your info, you agree to send it to Tom Hess Music Corporation who will process and use it according to their privacy policy.
So, if you’re thinking about starting to teach guitar (and you’re not an advanced guitar player yourself) but are concerned about having to teach many advanced guitar students – don’t be.
Most advanced guitar students either don’t look for lessons at all… or they know exactly whom they want to study with.
This means: that you’ll likely only end up teaching guitar to guitar students who are advanced if you are the one who has taken that student through the ranks to make them advanced. (This means teaching advanced guitar students will be easier than you might expect).
That said, here are five guitar teaching strategies and tips for teaching guitar students who are advanced:
Guitar Teaching Tip 1 For Teaching Advanced Guitar Students: Train More Than You Teach.
Even advanced guitar students have weaknesses that keep them from reaching their goals. Your job (while teaching guitar) is to spot them, point them out and train your advanced guitar students to fix them.
What are some of these weaknesses common to guitar students who are advanced?
Here are a few examples you’ll often encounter in your guitar teaching career:
Example 1: Fretboard Visualization
Some advanced guitar students will know many scales, but only superficially. This will make it very hard to play guitar solos and improvise (yes, even for guitar students who are advanced).
Here is what this looks like and how you might track your advanced guitar students to overcome this weakness:
Example 2: Phrasing
Often advanced guitar students put all their “skill points” into technique (and guitar speed) but neglect the one area that makes their playing sound GOOD: phrasing.
Phrasing refers to how you play the notes you play.
The good news for you (the person teaching guitar) is that this creates many opportunities to train your advanced guitar students to make their playing sound better as you teach them guitar.
Here is an example:
Example 3: 2-hand synchronization
Many advanced guitar students develop good speed in their hands but struggle to make that speed sound clean and accurate. Then, they often ask you (the person teaching guitar to them) to help them play guitar faster.
At this point, a guitar-teaching amateur will take their advanced guitar students at their word. And he will then show his advanced guitar students all kinds of exercises and practice routines designed to increase their speed.
While a true guitar teaching pro will first educate his advanced guitar students that their problem isn’t lack of “speed” – it’s lack of 2-hand synchronization.
Then he will train them to get their hands in sync.
Fortunately, the lack of 2-hand synchronization is a simple problem to fix when you know how to teach guitar to advanced guitar students.
And when you are good at it, you will make your advanced guitar students’ speed sound better, faster, and cleaner (even if the number of notes per minute they play never changes).
Here is what I mean:
Guitar Teaching Tip 2 For Teaching Advanced Guitar Students: Show Your Advanced Students New Ways To Apply What They Already Know.
For example: train your students to write songs, improvise guitar solos and analyze other people’s songs using their ear and music theory knowledge.
Get Results For Guitar StudentsTeach your guitar students how
to practice in order to get results.
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Test Your Guitar Teaching SkillsLearn the areas of your teaching
that need the most improvement.
This is one of the most fun things to do when teaching guitar to advanced guitar students.
Case in point: back when I was teaching guitar offline, I used to teach guitar classes (full of advanced guitar students) analyzing Yngwie Malmsteen solos.
Note: analyzing guitar solos is much different from learning to play guitar solos.
For one thing – your advanced guitar students save much time they’d otherwise spend just woodshedding and memorizing guitar parts they don’t need to memorize.
Second – with proper training (and an understanding of how to teach guitar to guitar students who are advanced)…
… you can give your advanced guitar students, even more benefit from analyzing a guitar solo than they’d get from learning how to play it.
Guitar Teaching Tip 3 For Teaching Advanced Guitar Students: Teach Your Students Non-Guitar Related Musical Skills.
Your students may have advanced ‘musical’ skills but zero knowledge about recording, performing, and the music business. Create new classes for your advanced students on these (or similar) topics.
Question: “But Tom Hess – these new classes don't have anything to do with “guitar lessons.” When I teach guitar to advanced guitar students, don’t they expect to learn more about music and guitar?”
Answer: Not necessarily. For one thing: guitar students who are advanced often already question if they even need someone to teach guitar to them.
So, if you can create new classes where you aren’t “teaching guitar,” per se – but are still adding guitar teaching value to your advanced guitar students…
… your advanced guitar students get to feel special (and accomplished).
While you (the person teaching guitar to them) fill their mind with all kinds of new knowledge and skills.
Besides, skills like recording, performing, and the music business may be very relevant to advanced guitar students. (Because many of your advanced guitar students may want to play gigs, record their music or build music careers.
Here is an example of music career insights you can teach to your advanced guitar students:
Guitar Teaching Tip 4 For Teaching Advanced Guitar Students: Upgrade Your Own Skills As A Player AND Teacher..
Your ‘teaching’ skills matter far more than your ‘guitar playing’ skills, but if you want to teach advanced players – you need to be working on your own playing too.
Guitar Teaching Tip 5 For Teaching Advanced Guitar Students: Be On The Lookout For Guitarists Whom You May Hire To Teach For You.
‘Some’ of your students will want to become guitar teachers. And if/when this makes sense, you may train them ‘how to teach’ and then hire them to help grow your business faster.
That said, here is what to remember about (possibly) training your advanced guitar students to teach guitar.
Don’t assume that just because you have some guitar students who are advanced players, they all want to teach guitar. Believe it or not, most guitar players (even advanced guitar students) just want to play guitar as a hobby (no matter how good they are at it). Many play guitar for fun, have lucrative careers outside of music, and prefer to keep it this way. Respect that.
Don’t take it personally if your advanced guitar students don’t want to work with you (or for you) as guitar teachers. In almost every case, their rejection has nothing to do with you as a guitar teacher or a person.
Don’t get too attached to any one person whom you are thinking of hiring someday. Often it doesn't work out (through no fault of your own).
That said, if you want more coaching on how to grow this part of your guitar teaching business – I can help you with this inside the Elite Guitar Teachers Inner Circle.
Now that you know how to teach advanced guitar students, the next thing to know is how to fill your guitar teaching schedule with new students who can then transform into advanced guitar students. I can help you with this in my free eGuide: Do THIS, And You’ll Get More Guitar Students. Download it today and discover the guitar teaching secrets most guitar teachers will never know.
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