Questions for Guitar Teachers and Students

B

BluesJunkie

New member
I'm thinking about teaching lessons, and I have a few questions for all y'all teachers. (If you're a student, what does your teacher do?)

1. How long are your lessons? (30 min, 45 min, etc)

2. How much do you charge? Is it per lesson, per month, or what? (I know prices change depending on the area, but I'm trying to get a rough estimate. Around here prices range anywhere from $40/month for 1/2 hour lessons to $27.50 for one 45 minute lesson.)

3. What books, methods, or other materials do you use?

Thanks.
 
I charge $15/ 30 minute lesson. YOu have to buy them one month at a time. If you don't show, you get dinged anyway.

I don't use a method. I have them buy a chord dictionary w/ pictures, and then I begin teaching songs. That way I can give them a song, we go through it in class, and then when they get home if they have forgotten a chord they can look it up and see how it is fingered.
I also show them how to read tab, and by that point I generally let them start to pick songs that they want to work on as long as the difficulty level is appropriate.
If they are still taking lessons at that point, (many only want to learn to strum songs and get the basics, and can continue from here on there own) I begin to intergrate more and more theory, and we begin to work on improvising and soloing.

got mojo?
www.voodoovibe.com
 
I totally agree with Aaron... I charge $15 for 1/2 hour lesson... and trust us (Get the full month in advance) when they don't show you still get your $$$. When i talk about payment with my students and/or parent i refer to it as tuition... that way there is a clear unterstanding that if they don't show... they still pay...

I also don't use any books(99% of them really suck.... who wants to learn to play 'On Top of Old Smokey' on guitar anyway). I start with basic chords...then move to some simple songs... then I teach theory, scales, and scale/chord relationships.

My advanced students... get a burned CD of some gooves to practice soloing with...


Most important thing is to get them to play songs as soon as possible to keep the students interest...

Shred
 
The hot local guy here is currently $90/mo for 30 minutes each week. He teaches bluegrass/blues guitar/banjo/fiddle. He uses a laptop and floppies for rock-solid time, and gives a floppy of each lesson to the student so they can follow along at home. Also, the floppy allows the tempo to be changed so you can learn difficult parts at lower tempos and still have a sense of time.

I think he's raising his rates to $110/mo after the first of the year. You pay by the month in advance for the time slot. Miss your time, too bad.

I've been told you need to study your lessons too during the week.

Because he won't slow down the tempo in the lesson room!:)
 
I've been playing for 9 years now, and only started getting lessons a few months ago. So, for beginners, I agree with what people said above, but you may well get students like me:

I learned most of my chords, I can play songs, and have a good sense of rhythm, but what I needed to learn was how it all worked and what to play if I am playing lead, or how to improvise.

I was okay for a while, but being self-taught, I didn't know some real basics, and thus my technical prowess just up and stopped one day.

So for some students, you just need to assess/ask what do they want to learn? Where do they want to take it?

The two most valuable lessons I got in the past few months were:

Basic chord theory ...ie what chords work in what key? ie major-minor-minor-major-major 7th-minor-suspended

also know what is the relative minor in a scale? I had no idea that you used the relative minor of a key to choose the appropriate minor blues pentatonic scale to use for soloing.

None of this required books, just a few sheets of paper with the stuff written out, scale boxes/chord diagrams


Next most important lesson has been harmonizing a major scale with chords... amazing stuff.
 
cstockdale,

I currently have 5 students that are in your same position... and I approach them in a slightly different way...

I usually take them every other week for an hour (the $$$ turns out to be the same) they then have more time to work on the more advanced stuff (it seems to work out very well for them this way)

Also, these are the students that ALWAYS show up!

I teach them the very things your learning about theory and get them a solid foundation in that... then we move on to exceptions to the classical line of theory... and real world examples of this.
 
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