How To Balance Teaching Guitar Students What They Need Vs. What They Want
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In this guitar teaching article, I’ll help you develop a very lucrative guitar teaching skill most guitar teachers do not have.
That skill is:
The ability to balance teaching guitar students what they ‘want’ to learn with what they ‘need’ to learn.
Why is this guitar teaching skill important?
2 reasons:
1. If you only teach guitar students the instant-gratification things they ask you to teach them, your guitar students won’t be likely to become good players (because their understanding of what goes into learning guitar stays very limited).
On the flipside:
2. If you force guitar students to learn the things they ‘need’ to learn without making them ‘want’ to learn them, you’ll likely bore the heck out of them.
The result?
In both cases, your guitar students are likely to quit lessons much sooner than they should... as they miss out on a lot of learning and you miss out on a lot of money.
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.
Balancing what guitar students ‘need’ with what they ‘want’ is the solution.
And here are 5 proven ways to do just that:
Guitar Teaching Tip #1. Give Your Guitar Students ‘Quick Wins’ (Things That Make Them Play Better) Starting In Their Very First Lesson.
This helps you earn their trust and makes them more willing to practice what you tell them to practice... even if those things aren’t immediately gratifying.
Here are a few simple ways to create such quick wins for your guitar students as you’re teaching guitar to them:
- Make them choose any 3 notes (that are in key) and spend 15 minutes refining the phrasing on those 3 notes until they sound pro.
- Get them to hold the pick like this. (this simple adjustment, which you can teach to almost anyone in a few seconds, is almost guaranteed to make them pick faster and cleaner).
- Get them to clap out a rhythm (any rhythm) and then strum a couple of power chords (or open chords) using that rhythm. And BOOM! A riff is born.
- (For complete beginners to lead guitar) Teach them to do picking hand rakes to add punch and power to important notes in their guitar licks they want to sustain. This is a fast and easy way to sound more pro.
- (For those new to improvising) Get them to solo over minor 7th blues chord progression (i minor 7, iv minor 7 and v minor 7). It’s almost impossible to sound bad over those chords
Bake as many of these guitar teaching tricks into your early lessons with your guitar students and they’ll be glad they chose you as a guitar teacher.
Guitar Teaching Tip #2. Create Exercises Out Of The Music Your Students Like And Want To Play.
The longer you teach guitar, the more you’ll hear guitar students asking you for the “best” guitar exercises to develop this or that guitar skill.
And here is the guitar teaching truth about that:
You can use just about any combination of notes (i.e. exercises) to develop pretty much any skill if you teach guitar the right way.
Everything depends on what your guitar students’ brain is focusing on as they practice.
This means 2 things:
- Your real job (when you teach guitar) is to simply train your guitar students to think about and focus on the right things that make them better players.
- You can pull out excerpts (licks, riffs or short etudes) from songs and guitar solos your guitar students want to play and present them as “exercises” in your guitar lessons.
- As you teach guitar (using those “exercises”), train your guitar students to focus on the right things they ‘need’ to focus on to reach their goals.
This makes them feel like they are getting what they ‘want’, even as they practice the skills they normally wouldn’t be too excited by.
Watch this video to see this process in action:
Guitar Teaching Tip #3. Describe What Problem You Are About To Help Your Students Fix (Or Avoid) Before You Teach A New Topic.
This is called ‘selling the idea’ when you teach guitar.
And it is the secret to making your students more likely to practice things they’d normally find boring as you teach guitar.
Watch this video to see a demonstration of ‘selling’ the guitar teaching idea I want to get across as I teach guitar to one of my guitar students:
This guitar teaching idea applies to more than just teaching guitar technique, of course.
For example, watch how I use the same concept of ‘selling the idea’ when teaching guitar soloing to my guitar students.
Guitar Teaching Tip #4. Show Students How Practicing What They Need In The Short-Term Gives Them The Skills And The Fun They Want In The Long-Term.
This trains your students to delay gratification and develop the skills that will turn them into awesome players.
Watch this video to see an illustration of this idea in action:
Question: Tom Hess, how is this point different from the previous one? Isn’t this also the idea of “selling” - just in different words?
Answer: Yes and no.
“Yes” in the sense that you’re always trying to make your guitar students see the value of (and have fun with) what you’re teaching.
But “no”, because the goal of ‘this’ point is to train them to have a stronger mindset and practice guitar skills that aren’t immediately enjoyable… because they know the fun will come later. The ability to do this is one of the keys to becoming a truly great player.
And the ability to teach guitar students to DO that is one of the keys to becoming a truly great guitar teacher.
Guitar Teaching Tip #5. Inspire Your Students
Here are some ways to do this:
1. Tell your guitar students stories of other students just like them who became great players by doing the very things you’re making them practice right now.
Doing this (when you teach guitar) helps you relate to your guitar students (by showing that they are not alone) and further motivates them to do the things you are teaching them to do.
2. Tailor your guitar lessons to your guitar students’ personality type. Some guitar students are weak-minded and others are strong-minded. Knowing how to deal with each one helps you teach guitar like a pro and makes your guitar students better players fast.
This video explains how to approach teaching guitar to each type of guitar student:
3. Turn your guitar lessons into fun competitions that guitar students enjoy.
For example:
Have your guitar students find their fastest speed (so that you and them both know how quickly they play at the start of the lesson).
Then ask them to play the lick they want to play faster with the highest level of articulation they can muster.
Then, to show that you are serious, whip out 100 bucks, make sure students can see it and say:
“The first one to break a string gets this ‘and’ gets to play MY guitar for the rest of the lesson.”
(That will get the students to not be lazy about it and actually try.)
Next, tell them, the only restriction they have is to play slowly enough to keep their fretting hand relaxed, while using maximum pick attack.
This is a really simple process you can do with beginners and advanced students alike.
Near the very end of the class, have all your students measure their top speed again. Most or all of them should be noticeably faster.
Now that you know how to balance teaching guitar students what they need with what they want, I want to show you how to keep your guitar students for a long time (years), so they become better players and you earn even more money teaching guitar. I show you how in my free eGuide: How To Keep Your Guitar Students Taking Lessons With You For Years. Download it today and discover the guitar teaching secrets most teachers will never know.
Discover the world’s best training for music teachers that can help you earn 6-figures (or more) teaching guitar,
