What makes a good guitar teacher?

What makes a good guitar teacher?

It’s not so obvious what makes a good teacher, having knowledge of the subject is important obviously, but if you’re the sort of person who cannot transmit that information to somebody else, you are not a good teacher.

I have come across many people who are experts in their subject, but are unable to appreciate where the pupil is at that point in time in order to instruct them.

I have also come across people, who are only slightly ahead of the pupil in what they really know, but they are excellent at transmitting that information; they in my opinion are good teachers!

If you go back to when I started there was no formal training in contemporary guitar styles, and there were no exam qualifications at the time. If you wanted to do gradings you had to study a classical instrument. If you were a young whippersnapper like me and you just wanted to just go out and change the world by playing rock guitar,  you were unlikely to go and study an instrument like the piano in order to get a piece of paper to get a job.  I would still rather work at getting in through the back door by gigging and making connections. This was the way that things used to be done in the past, and I suggest actually that this should be more of the way of doing things now.

A good teacher is a mind reader

If someone is able to look inside the mind of a pupil knowing exactly where they are, and is able to read the rules that are laid out in front of them to see the problems and how they can be best corrected they possess a skill of teaching.

This skill requires someone to be focused on the subject, in other words the pupil.

A good teacher is an iconoclast

Break the rules in order that people can be free, so they can get out of the cage they have created by the way they think and by the way they play. This requires the teacher to think outside the box, for instance what do you do when somebody comes along who has a deformity in their hands or their fingers? If you are playing classical guitar how do you get on with the fact that they’re not going to be using the ‘correct fingers’?

What happens if they have some problem in the way that they see the world?  You have to inhabit their world in order for them to express themselves through music, there is no school curriculum or syllabus that will help you, it’s completely down to your own genius. Take the labels like ADHD and throw them away.

A good teacher knows that they are rubbish.

All of the things that one holds dear are only ideas. For everything a teacher tells a pupil about technique there is a great player who is doing the exact opposite. You can never know it all and you are never truly correct.

A good teacher is also a good business person

 Charging a high rate for what they do, but giving incredible value in the way they do is important. A teacher should not be held to account by other teachers who are undervaluing themselves. A teacher should make sure that they earn a good living from what they do, because it will add life force to the work.

If you don’t charge enough you will resent working!

A good teacher is organised, punctual and reliable.

Many things that are taught and not direct, are implicit in what they do. Being an organised and reliable one inadvertently teaches a pupil to be the same. To succeed as a musician, if that’s what they choose, one of the most important skills that you need is reliability. This is because no one wants to work with an idiot who forgets what he or she is booked to do, who is late and unreliable. They will make one or two gigs by being like that, but after they will not be hired again, ever. And the same goes for a teacher.

Remember that Bluescampuk are running free Q&A sessions the next one is one July 21^st at 7.30pm contact us for details

Vic and the team

The received wisdom is wrong and expensive.

The received wisdom is wrong and expensive.

The received wisdom states that to be a good musician you need go to Music College, learning what someone tells you is right. Learn what others do in such a way that you sound like them. In the past that is not how the great players learned, they did refer to other players by studying recordings and working  it out for themselves, and that is an important difference.

If you work music out from a recording, you often get it slightly wrong and in that way one starts to sound like yourself, and not like somebody else. Think of Jimi Hendrix, he was a consummate guitar player who took from all styles and other peoples playing, however, when Hendrix played an idea taken from someone it always sounded like Jimi.

 Now I’m not saying that a modern approach doesn’t work technically, but there is an unintended consequence to the way that we learned in the past, we do not make the type of mistakes that create our personality within the music if we learn by rote.

 Our education system has created a clone factory that might be fine if you want to play in the tribute band, playing exactly like Jimmy Page or Steve Vai, but the drawback to this is these people still exist and therefore you are only a copy, and like any impersonator you can never be better than the original. If you take their ideas and deconstruct them, then reassemble you are able, with your own skills, abilities and personality, to create something that is for want of a better word, unique!

Teaching within a framework of a lesson plan is restricting and uncreative.

It is difficult to teach creativity because it’s so hard to define, whereas teaching something note for note is easy to measure and therefore mark. So the system itself causes a distortion in our approach, and this is as true for other subjects as it is for music.

Saying to a bunch of musicians ‘I’m going to give you five little tricks and tips which will transform the way you play and it will only take me half an hour’ doesn’t make for a good two year college course, and would be almost impossible to mark. However, from a transformative point of view that is the quickest route and the most effective way of teaching.

I have said it is important to have lessons BUT

My last point is the real killer, many music tutors think that teaching is showing a pupil what they (the teacher) can do, it isn’t, it’s finding out where the student is on their journey and helping them to achieve their potential. This I think is the mark of really good teaching, and you can see this in your own work if you are producing different types of musical personalities from your pupils.

 If you find that your pupils are becoming bass players, guitarists, singers, songwriters, actors or music therapists you are a good teacher. All of these people are expressing their desires and their abilities and not trying to copy yours; you have no control over what they become.

Finally, how much is a college course now? £10K per year? What you need is time to practice and people to play along with and then the contacts………….

Vic 

www.bluescampuk.co.uk

www.vichylandcoach.com 

5 things that improve your Guitar playing

5 things that improve your Guitar playing 

Write out your short-term goals which should be measurable and achievable, long-term goals should be aspirational.

Short term

Making your short-term goals measurable and achievable means that you can really get some positive traction on your progress.

Learning a musical instrument takes time but you also need to focus that time. When one practises you will see no immediate improvement. I liken this to taking a long journey, at no point on the journey have you arrived, it doesn’t look anything like the place that you are going to. However, as long as you are heading in the right direction you will arrive and suddenly you are there!

By having achievable measurable short-term targets we can take each leg of the journey in a way that is motivating, and inspires us to get on with the job.

If you make a written list, as you accomplish each item cross it off, this is very powerful. I cannot stress this enough that making something physical like a to-do list and then actively crossing off the items as you do them really motivates you.

So to achieve the items they must be measurable and achievable. For instance, play the A major scale ten times is better than saying learn the A major scale. Even if you get it wrong you can still play it ten times!

Long-term

Your long-term destination should be something that inspires you to take that journey.  Going back to the old idea of a pilgrimage these were truly aspirational destinations which would involve great sacrifice both physically and financially, but the rewards were enormous.  In  order to gain merit in life and to enter the kingdom of heaven going on a pilgrimage was a very positive way of dealing with your sin; that is a powerful motivator.

Think of something that will be that powerful in your mind, be a rock star, travel the world, think of the great adoration of people. If that stuff doesn’t float your boat then find out what does, and make that your long term goal

Make it fun

How much of what we do is boring? When I was at school, teaching was based on the principle of boring kids to sleep in order to teach them!  This does not work, make things fun and you will learn more and learn faster!

Set yourself easy achievable targets (as above) and practice while you watch a film or listen to something you find interesting such as an audio book. When you achieve something reward yourself, even if that is just having a cup of tea. Make learning into a game; in fact make life into a game.

 Practicing chords can be boring, so find a song that has those chords in it and have some fun learning! Same with scales, make everything meaningful and fun; having something musical to learn is much easier than playing something that is a boring exercise.

Leave the guitar out of its case

‘Out of sight, out of mind’.  This could not be any truer when it comes to learning a musical instrument a guitar in its case, under a bed will never be played. So make sure the guitar is on a stand in the way or in a place that can be seen, for you to develop the habit of picking up and playing, the instrument needs to be at hand.

Train yourself to use downtime to practice the guitar, so if the guitar is out of the case and in your hands as much as possible,  you could play while watching  TV programmes, YouTube clips  or listening to a podcast; it’s a really good way of finding extra time for practice.

The more you can do multitasking, for want of a better term, and it really is a case of finding certain things that can happen at the same time. I was taught this by  my guitar teacher when I was in my teens,  to watch a film and practice the boring bits of the technique such as scales,  fast fingerpicking or chord changes whilst watching something on the television, to take me away from the boredom of doing the same thing over and over again.

Over  the years I actually learnt that this was a really powerful way of getting information into my unconscious; whilst the conscious part of my mind was watching something I was building muscle memory. It was like these techniques were slipping in through the back door. However, you won’t be able to do these things unless your guitar is readily available somewhere in the room.

Practice every day

If you practice every day you will make more progress than doing a lot of practice on one day during the week .This is because the mind needs revision; to bring memory patterns forward from the back of the mind to be re seen, literally revisioned.

Getting into the mind-set of building a habit is one of the most powerful ways of becoming a good musician.  I often tell my pupils that everybody can play a musical instrument ,and the skills that are required are not musical they are physical and mental.

 These are the same skills that you would require to be a good sportsman or a good artist or good at languages, because you are dealing with your mind and your muscle memory.

In the case of music there are no special skills or talent other than the fact that we are all geniuses potentially. Build this habit of practice into your daily routine, and you will see incredible results.

If you play the guitar for a little period of time after you’ve cleaned your teeth  or just after a mea; building a habit  by practising guitar is easier if you link it to another habit or ‘ritualistic behaviour’, hence choosing cleaning your teeth or eating a meal is something that is baked into our day.

If the guitar is in the way and visible, that will help, but I cannot stress enough that the frequency of practice is the most important thing. So practise which happens more than once a day and certainly happens every day, are the surest ways to become an accomplished player.

Relax it’s a journey

Practice is a journey and like any other journey it looks nothing like the end, until the arrival.  So keep going until you get there, every step however wrong it might seem at the time is correct, as long as you keep the end in sight. Also there is on any journey constant adaptations to the plan to cover deviations caused by events, same with practice. The British army moto of ‘no plan survives first contact’ also applies to you keep adapting to how you learn.

It is one of the most important skills in learning, just putting one step forward at a time and keep doing it. You can master anything this way; remember that the way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time!

Look forward to seeing you for the Bluescamp Q&A on Tuesday 23^rd June at 7.30

Make sure you send an email to confirm so we can send you a Zoom link

Remember to send any questions that you might have

Vic and the team