An extremely effective way to become a great guitar teacher is to NOT make some of the biggest mistakes made by other guitar teachers. When you do this, Guest Posting your students are more likely to improve their skills faster and take lessons for longer.
Don’t commit these huge, yet very common guitar teaching mistakes:
Guitar Teaching Mistake #1: Teaching All Your Guitar Students In 1 to 1 Lessons Only
Your guitar students are going to require much more than just private lessons in order to become great players fast Bass Lessons. If they only take one on one lessons, they won’t get the chance to play with other musicians in real-life musical scenarios. This also means they won’t be able to work on eliminating performance anxiety or performance.
The way to fix this issue is to teach in different formats. Combine 1 on 1 lessons together with group classes and other unique formats.
Guitar Teaching Mistake #2: Not Teaching Your Guitar Students To Apply The Skills They Already Know
Your guitar students need you to show them how to apply all the skills they already have into actual music. If you don’t do this, most of your students will never think to do it on their own and will have difficulty making progress.
Try to find a balance somewhere between demonstrating new concepts to your students and showing them how to apply what they learn into music.
Guitar Teaching Mistake #3: Teaching Guitar Using Songs Only
You can certainly use songs as part of your guitar lessons, but ONLY teaching songs is not the best way to turn your students into great players.
Instead, improve your guitar students’ general musical/playing abilities. Use songs to showcase specific concepts you teach, but not as something to act as a replacement for actual teaching.
To discover more about becoming a better guitar teacher, fill out this guitar teaching self-assessment.
Guitar Teaching Mistake #4: Teaching All Your Students How To Read Music
Only teach your guitar students how to read music if:
- This is needed for their long term musical goals.
- They are at very least intermediate level guitar players.
If you teach your guitar students how to read music too soon, they’ll become bored and disinterested (quitting lessons in the process).
Guitar Teaching Mistake #5: Not Actively Training Your Guitar Students On How To Practice
Don’t assume that your guitar students understand how to practice when they are own their own at home. Most don’t, unless you:
- Observe them during lessons and make corrections.
- Train them on how to think in order to fix problems during their practice.
Training your guitar students to practice in this way will make them great guitarists a lot faster.
Guitar Teaching Mistake #6: Not Getting Your Guitar Students To Practice
You must inspire your guitar students to practice consistently (and have fun doing it). If they don’t practice on a consistent basis, they won’t get results. This makes you look like a poor guitar teacher.
This article explains how to motivate guitar students to consistently practice.
Guitar Teaching Mistake #7: Not Teaching Your Students As “Human Beings”
Remember, you don’t just teach guitar… you teach people. Your students need to know that you relate with them and understand their challenges. This is what will truly motivate them to get better.
Get to know your guitar students as people. Learn what motivates them to take lessons. Then customize your lessons using this knowledge to make each lesson more focused on their specific interests.
Note: Be subtle when you do this.
Guitar Teaching Mistake #8: Asking Your Guitar Students What They Want To Learn In Every Guitar Lesson
Your guitar students aren’t taking lessons with you just to learn whatever they think they should learn. They need you to show them how to fix their problems and accomplish their musical goals.
As a guitar teacher, you must lead your students down the right path towards becoming a great guitarist. As a guitar instructor, it’s up to you to build a system your students can follow to become excellent guitar players. To find out how, get guitar teacher training.
Guitar Teaching Mistake #9: Not Keeping Track Of Your Students’ Progress
These are the four ways tracking your students’ progress helps everyone involved:
- It gives your students unquestionable proof that they are getting results. This gives them motivation to practice and get better faster.
- Your students get the proof that YOU are a great teacher, and they feel inspired to study with you for longer periods of time… helping you make more money.
- Since your guitar students see that you care about the progress they make, they become more encouraged to take lessons with you.
- You better understand what your students need to learn to achieve their musical goals. This makes it much easier for you as their teacher.
Guitar Teaching Mistake #10: Not Teaching Your Guitar Students To Integrate Their Skills Together
You also need to help your guitar students tie everything together. Show them how to integrate everything they know with the new things you teach them. By doing this, you will give them the power to really improve their skills fast.
The concept of integration tends to be a hard one to understand for many students. As their teacher, you need to make this easy.
Guitar Teaching Mistake #11: Overwhelming Your Guitar Students With New Information
Stop teaching new things to your guitar students every single lesson. This makes it more likely that they will feel overcome with too much information and quit lessons altogether.
Bring together teaching with training your students on apply and totally master the things they already know. This will massively accelerate their progress and keep them from becoming overwhelmed.
Guitar Teaching Mistake #12: Not Helping Your Guitar Students Achieve Particular Goals
While not every student you have necessarily wants to become a virtuoso, EVERY student wants to get better by studying with you. Learn what their goals are, then break down these goals into long/short term goals and figure out the steps needed to reach each one.
Additionally, your students need to know that the things you are teaching them are helping them reach their goals. This encourages them to do what you tell them to do so they can make faster progress.
Guitar Teaching Mistake #13: Teaching Guitar Using A Linear Approach
Your guitar students will become better players a lot faster when they learn with a geometric approach instead of a linear one.
Guitar Teaching Mistake #14: Teaching Music Theory The Wrong Way
Don’t do the following things when teaching music theory to guitar students:
- Teaching it in a linear fashion starting from the core basics before teaching chords/scales, etc.
- Teaching it as a standalone, rather than showing students how to apply it on guitar.
To teach music theory correctly, you need to:
- Help students understand how music theory helps them play guitar the way they want.
- Teach music theory in a way that is congruent with your students’ musical goals.
- Train your guitar students so they can apply theory into context.
Guitar Teaching Mistake #15: Teaching All Guitar Students The Same