Guitar teaching: Not as easy, as imagined

I've never believed in fortune telling because I believe your tomorrow depends on the choices you make today. But then again, everyone knows that fortune tellers tell you what you want to hear by observing your facial expressions.

When I was 15, I met one of them. I'll always remember her because of what she said to me. She told me that the guitar would always be an important part of my life. Well, this wasn’t exactly what my ears wanted to hear at the time, but it still struck me as somewhat strange. How could she know that I played the guitar back then?  Even today, it's a mystery to me, but she must have talked to someone who was close to me. Back then I didn't want to teach the guitar, but today, I couldn't imagine not doing it.

Most people think that guitar teaching is an interesting yet easy job. The former yes, but the latter definitely not! Teaching depends on many things: the kids, the preparation and your ability as a teacher. Sometimes, kids can be really tiresome; they can force you to count down the minutes till the clock strikes, and you can say “It's over for today!” But, it could also be the other way around: kids count down the minutes because their guitar teacher woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Luckily for the kids I teach, this hasn't happened yet. I always try to be cheerful even if something in my private life is a miss.

In my classes there are many talented kids, but unfortunately they are some very shy ones. I always have to keep repeating that, “shyness is not an excuse,” but it never helps. I call them “wallflower guitarists.” They listen to you carefully, practice at home, but when the Mother's Day performance gets really close, they start to panic. In an individual class, they play perfectly; in front of their parents, everything falls apart.

There are also some talented, but unbearable kids. Every week I look at the calendar and say: “You can make it. Ten more weeks, nine more weeks…” They don't listen to you at all. Butthere is one way to calm them down: to punish them by giving a music theory exam. It always works! Yet, at the performance, they are amazing. They hide all their mistakes by improvising. Every mistake, visible to me, becomes invisible for the audience.

Unbelievable Talent - Peace performance by kids from Japan, Korea & China after Tsunami

On the other hand, there are kids who are not talented at all, but eager to learn to play. Unfortunately, they give up as soon as they realize that their playing is not as good as the others. Although I hung a sign on the wall that “talent is not crucial to being a guitar player”, they miss the message somehow. I've learned to understand that not everyone has the power to persist.

Finally, there is one more small group of kids that have a big crush on their guitar teacher. They are exceptional and humorous, but this does not count. It doesn't really make much sense to teach them when they don't hear your words; when they just stare at you goggle-eyed.

As a guitar teacher, I try my best to bring the knowledge of guitar playing across to my students. Preparing for the work they request takes me a long time, but I try to grant them heir wishes and to teach them what they want to play. Of course, only if they deserve it. My handouts annoy them all because there hasn't been a week yet, when they didn’t get a new one.

I used to teach two kids simultaneously. But after a while, one of them would make more progressthan the other. It doesn't only become difficult for them, but also for me because you have to find a way to balance this. That's why I prefer teaching them in an individual class. I can judge the guitar-playing abilities of my pupils, but they don't share how they feel about the guitar-teaching abilities of their teacher. I could only hope for good feedback.