Teaching Guitar: The Student Point of View
by Lior Ella
I picked up a guitar for the first time a little over a year ago, and I’ve been assisted by private teachers pretty much from the get-go. Interestingly, the first teacher I studied with was so vastly different than the second one, and the difference between them was so crucial to my progress as a guitar player, that I believe it is nearly a moral obligation of mine to share with the rest of the world what I’ve learned about learning and teaching guitar.
My first teacher, which was recommended to me by the person who sold me the guitar, was a professional flamenco player, as professional as flamenco players can be in sunny Israel, but a professional guitarist nevertheless. He was, at least as for as I could see with my limited scope at the time, a very talented player, but when it came to teaching, he was fumbling in the dark. On the first lesson, for example, he started teaching me to read music. After a very, very succinct explanation about rhythm, he proceeded to teach me R.E.M's "Everybody Hurts" ( D, G, Em, A, I still remember), and the matter of standard notation was forgotten. I went home happily, sat down, and played that chord progression endlessly, completely unaware that I was making every single mistake that can possibly be made with the song's 4 chords and constant rhythm. On the next lesson, he heard me playing it, made an offhand remark about keeping time, and then taught me something harder. After ten lessons or so we got to DiMeola and De Lucia's "Mediterranean Sundance" (!). And I, who successfully memorized where to place my fingers for the entire first section, was elated. We went on like this for about 6 months, until I told him I'd like to focus on different musical styles, and we decided that I should get another teacher - one that could teach me what I was currently interested in.
The next teacher I found the good old fashioned way: through a flyer pinned to a tree. I came to the first lesson full of confidence - after all, I did know how to play "Mediterranean Sundance", and I was, as far as I was concerned, a very good guitar player. I sat in front of him, and he asked me to play something, so he could evaluate what my playing level was. I proclaimed that I am going to play the De Lucia, and started banging on the guitar, making plenty of racket, and occasionally stopping because of a "mistake" I made. The teacher, who forgot for some reason to mention in the flyer he has a masters degree in composition and conducting in addition to teaching guitar, yelled at me to stop immediately, pried the guitar from my hands, and told me that I'm going to have to forget everything I'd learned so far if I want to continue learning with him as teacher. Now, after half a year and plenty of sweat and blood, I can manage to play the guitar.
The difference between the two teachers is, as I believe, in the approach. The first teacher was quite unmoved by any mistakes I had made, and taught me at the pace of his choice, completely ignoring what I was actually gaining. The lesson's standard pattern of him teaching me a song, me going home and practicing, the beginning of the next lesson me playing that number, him making some remark about a mistake here or there, him teaching me something new, and so on, not only hindered my progress, but actually instilled any mistakes I'd made into my fingers, making the situation even worse. The second teacher, on the other hand, would stop me whenever I'd err, no matter how slight the error was. He would never let me go home until everything was perfect.
Another problem with the first teacher was the lack of a defined teaching program or method. He would often start teaching something, abandon it five minutes later, and sometimes even use that thing in a different lesson, assuming I know it perfectly, which of course, was wrong. He jumped from subject to subject, and I would never learn anything entirely from start to finish. The second teacher did have some sort of a syllabus, and he would stick to it until he made sure I know everything I needed to know.
The second teacher knew how to identify my problems and how to solve them, and what I needed to learn to progress. In addition to all this, his vast knowledge of music in general was a big advantage. I struggled, for instance, with Mason Williams' "Classical Gas" for hours, and he simply heard it, took the guitar, and played the whole thing from start to finish. It was eerie.
So, what is the moral of our story? Teaching how to play the guitar isn't so trivial after all. It involves both the teacher and the student, and requires their persistence and thoroughness. A player who wants to teach other people to play this remarkable instrument is obligated to know how to teach, and not only how to play.
