Really Big Show

No, not a concert - sorry if you were salivating.  

Last week I got a call from a guy looking for guitar lessons.  We spoke for a while and he related two recent experiences with so-called guitar teachers, and he called because he took a look around my web site, and thought I might offer him the guitar instruction that has, thus far, alluded him.  

He told me about being shown a pentatonic scale by one teacher and the following week, being asked to "phrase" that pentatonic scale while the teacher played a chord progression.  I think he said that the other teacher showed him some chords and found the tab online to a song he wanted to learn. (This is where I need to mention that this caller was in a band when he was considerably younger, and was a bass player.  It's not like he never had a stringed instrument in his hands.) When I asked him why he was looking for a third guitar instructor, he said that after the lessons he has taken with the 2 aforementioned teachers, he hasn't learned anything.  He was taught a song, incorrectly (those are his words) and a pentatonic scale.  

I discussed my method with him and explained the general order and process I use, and why.  I explained to him that what he'd experienced, which is what countless people who engage guitar instructors to teach them to play experience, is being shown how to play something but not being taught anything. It's perplexingly common.  I have had students join my schedule who "took lessons" for a couple years, yet knew nothing - not the most simplistic musical concepts, nor any basic guitar knowledge (fret board and actual.)

You may be among those who  find it hard to believe how far reaching the problem of these show-ers is. It's everywhere. If you're a guitar teacher, I hope showing is not what you do, but rather that meaty, logical, knowledgeable   instructing is.   If you are a show-er, you may play, and you may even play superlatively.  That doesn't mean you can teach. You have to be able to play, to teach. But teaching is a skill set that most players don't have.  Be honest with students, and with yourself.  I can only guess at the amount of money the guy who called, and who I will begin working with this week, threw away on some get togethers, that were anything but guitar lessons.

Guitar students: If your teacher has shown you  a pentatonic scale, why are you playing it it?  Are you playing a fingering pattern or are you listening and can you hear the scale?  Do you have a clue what distinguishes a pentatonic scale from a diatonic major or minor scale?  Why is is called pentatonic?  Why can you begin playing it anywhere in its sequence, play any arrangement of its notes and stop anywhere and have the result sound like a complete musical thought even though those results don't occur if you do the same randomizing of a major or minor scale? Are you being taught the universal language of music, namely, notation?  If you aren't, there is no logic to what you're teaching.  Learning how to read and write music it utterly liberating and if taught correctly, lends clear understanding to whatever you play, compose, write, learn, hear or dream.

If you are looking for an instructor that will teach you correctly the first time,  contact me, if you are in my area.  If not, please read my find a teacher on the web site, so you will be well informed as you vet a potential teacher.  You don't want to hire a show-er.