Volunteer Guitar Teachers Needed

[Songbook19]

Have you ever thought about teaching guitar?

About a year ago I was looking for volunteer opportunities to keep me busy and give back to the community and saw a notice not unlike this one about an organization called Guitars4Vets (G4V) and decided to give it a try. I’ve found the experience worthwhile and rewarding.

G4V is a non-profit organization helping U.S. military veterans through the power of music. G4V has chapters throughout the country giving in-person group guitar lessons. But many veterans are not located near one of these chapters and for those veterans G4V has cyber chapters to teach veterans on-line using a virtual platform. I’m one of those cyber instructors.

The number of veterans wishing to learn to play far exceeds the number of cyber instructors we have on hand to teach them. We could help many more veterans if we had more volunteer cyber instructors. Over the past year we’ve lost a few instructors so the need is greater than ever.

While I am a crusty old veteran myself most of our volunteer instructors are not. Most are just guys and gals of all ages and ability, from all walks of life who want to express their appreciation to our veterans by teaching them to play beginning guitar.

You don’t have to be a particularly gifted guitar player nor have any formal teaching background. G4V provides abundant resources for your use including teaching tools and lesson plans. And we’re not talking about turning students into Jimmy Page or Tommy Emmanuel as most of our veteran students have little to no experience. The foundation of our instruction is teaching the basics, predominantly through chords, enough to play simple songs and enjoy the guitar.

Below are a few words from Paul Lilley, G4V’s Director of Online Learning. If this sounds like something you might be interested in pursuing please reach out to Paul and get more information. If you’d like a first hand account of what it’s like to be a G4V cyber instructor feel free to PM me directly.

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Volunteer as a virtual guitar instructor for the Guitars4Vets Cyber Chapter!

Want to improve your guitar playing skills and give back to veterans? Share the power of music with them!

G4V is looking for volunteers who are over 18 and have a flexible, patient approach to teaching the guitar. Volunteers would commit to teach at least one veteran individually for one hour each week for 10 weeks. Volunteers must be comfortable using the technology (Zoom, Google Meet, etc.) and for those who are new to teaching, we provide many resources, including a comprehensive lesson plan and video/pdf resources for instructors. Finally, volunteers must pass a background check and participate in an interview with the Director of OnLine Learning.

For more information about Guitars for vets: https://guitars4vets.org

If you have questions or want to learn more about volunteering with the cyber chapter, and teach guitar online, please email Paul Lilley, the Director of OnLine Learning at [email protected]

[DebbieE]

How good do you have to be to teach? And what type of music are you teaching, is it country, blues, pop? Do they use tab or music notation?

thanks,

Debbie

[catt]

Thank you for posting, Alvin. Prior to covid in 2019, i was providing lessons and facilitating jams at our local homeless shelter - which also runs a veteran's housing program. I think most of my participants were vets. I kept a cart with a bunch of my extra instruments so i could provide lessons on guitar, fiddle, mandolin, banjo.. I may get back into it online - thanks again for the prompt.

To answer Debbie's question above: yes, most everything folks were interested in was in that country, folk, rock/pop vein.

[Songbook19]

Originally Posted by DebbieE

How good do you have to be to teach? And what type of music are you teaching, is it country, blues, pop? Do they use tab or music notation?

thanks,

Debbie

Debbie, the short answer is you don't need to be very "good" at all. In fact some of our instructors are recent graduates of the course that turn around and want to teach their fellow vets. The desire to want to help is more important than skill level. We focus on the fundamentals and 10 hours of instruction is not a lot of time to get too in depth, so things like proper form and posture, notes on the fretboard, and basic chord shapes (CAGED, Am, Em, some of the 7ths chords) and changing between them. We want to get our students a good foundation and then let them decide what else and how much to branch out and continue after graduation. If you have this knowledge you can teach others.

Part of being an instructor is that while G4V has a wealth of tools and canned lesson plans at your disposal, you can ad lib as you see fit. There's also a G4V Facebook group and a Learning Center in which you can ask, share, or just bounce around ideas.

As to your other question, we don't teach any particular music genre. The student usually already knows what type of music they'd like to learn and we do our best to get them there. During the sign-up process students are asked to provide two songs they'd like to learn and when we reach the point where we've covered the chords in that song it's a joint effort to get to a point where we can strum and sing the song. I've taught everything from Rihanna to Simon and Garfunkel to Luke Bryan.

Some instructors teach, or at least expose students, to tablature. Similarly, some instructors will include some basic music theory while others won't. I prefer to concentrate on rhythm guitar, learning the chord shapes, and then applying them to playing songs using sites like Chordie, Chordify, and Ultimate Guitar. But again, as an instructor that would be your choice.

Hope this provides a little more insight. Thanks for the interest.

Al

[Sarhog]

I am currently 6 lessons in on my journey with Guitars 4 Vets. I am fortunate enough to be in a place that has a chapter and instructors, so my lessons are in person.
I’d suppose that the lesson quality will be predicated by your instructor’s enthusiasm, and your own (student) enthusiasm.
I’m getting a lot out of it so far. I knew all the open chords prior to starting. We are currently working on barre chards and alternate bass picking, with a pretty good dose of music theory (circle of 5ths, etc).
We have our lessons at the local veteran center, and there is also a jam session there every Saturday morning that we attend immediately following the lesson.
If anyone has questions from a student perspective, I’ll try my best to answer them. It’s a free program, including a guitar upon graduation.

[gbesson]

I am in Charleston, SC. I don't see a local chapter. I am considering starting a chapter and instruction but want to know the expected frequency of lessons. Once a week, twice a month, as requested? How long does it take from starting a chapter to giving lessons? Thanks for posting this. I am recently retired and have been playing for decades. I just recently started lessons for the first time and am getting a lot out of it. I might like to share what I know with people getting started.

[Songbook19]

Originally Posted by gbesson

I am in Charleston, SC. I don't see a local chapter. I am considering starting a chapter and instruction but want to know the expected frequency of lessons. Once a week, twice a month, as requested? How long does it take from starting a chapter to giving lessons? Thanks for posting this. I am recently retired and have been playing for decades. I just recently started lessons for the first time and am getting a lot out of it. I might like to share what I know with people getting started.

I'm not up on the "live" chapters but it looks like there may already be a chapter is Charleston. The Chapter Coordinator is listed as Mr. Carter Burns.

Looks like it operates out of the Charleston Vet Center at:

3625 West Montague Avenue
North Charleston, South Carolina 29418
EM: [email protected]
Phone: (843) 789-7000

Give them a call, email, or stop by and see what's what. IF this listing is no longer current or Mr. Burns is no longer participating it looks like the chapter infrastructure is already in place and you could apply to step in and take over responsibilities. And if it is still active, I'm sure they would welcome another instructor.

[gbesson]

Thanks for the info.