My experience with “being taught”
Private lessons are a tricky thing.
As a student, I often feel nervous, excited, and curious whenever I have a lesson. Though, honestly, nervousness is the prevailing emotion.
There’s an inherent power dynamic in the student/teacher relationship - one that can be beautiful or damaging. A trusted teacher can be a mentor, a guide, and the biggest fan of their students. Or a teacher can be toxic, focusing on what their student isn’t doing, trying to teach inflexibly (often the exact same way they were taught) or focused only on what can be better (not taking time to celebrate the small victories).
Unfortunately my experiences with guitar teachers were not positive at a young age.
Excited for my first lesson after being gifted a guitar and learning a few tabs, I was eager to have the ‘secrets’ to guitar unlocked for me over time. Instead, I was crushed with scales and modes, poorly communicated theory, and talk - so much talking about what my guitar teacher was doing professionally. I felt not only overwhelmed, but bored at the same time. A purgatory of mental numbness.
At that point I decided to only be self-taught and stayed away from private lessons for 12 years, until I turned 24. In those 12 years I learned a lot, and lived a lot. I graduated high-school, worked jobs, did midwest tours with rock bands, wrote and recorded music with my dearest friends, and loved (almost) every minute of it.
Still, I felt I was missing something with my instrument. I was dedicating time and effort in playing and writing, but I didn’t understand what I was doing which in a way made my music seem hollow or unintentional. It wasn’t until my mid-twenties that I decided to take the humble path of looking for a teacher.
In my mid-twenties I had been working several dead-end jobs, and was feeling unfulfilled in generally every aspect of my existence except romantically. My partner, Stevi, was instrumental (pun intended) in encouraging me to pursue the things that bring me fulfillment in life. So at 24 I decided to go to school to study Jazz Guitar Performance.
It was quite a humbling experience, though at times quite validating. There was a steep learning curve I had to overcome, having not come from academia and having had no classical training. I, in fact, failed the placement exam for music theory the first time I took it. But I doubled down.
From time to time, I would learn some new music theory that I could directly apply to things I wrote years before I decided to undertake the study of music, theory that would explain why things sounded so good and how to apply that sound. This is when studying music became a joy. I could be listening to a pop song or jazz standard and I would hear what was going on, understand the language of music. I found I could enjoy simply listening to music on a whole new level.
This experience really informed my approach to teaching in that it is vital that the student knows what they’re learning. This seems obvious, but often concepts can seem too vague and abstract before they’re internalized. Learning your scales can be such a daunting task for any young musician - but (to me) that task is made infinitely easier if I understand that ALL the familiar melodies I know and love are contained within. It isn’t a chore to learn your modes when it’s shown that modes just emphasize certain parts of the familiar major scale.
All guitar players are inherently rebels, that’s why we’re drawn to this instrument. We want to create, push against convention, and carve our own path. That’s why it’s imperative to know the function of what you’re learning! So you can carve your own path, destroy the status quo, and create your own music!
I needed to find my own path, like everyone. And I always keep this in mind when teaching. My first intention is to align with your goals, so we can work together in getting where you want to go.