Teaching older students

[Bob from Brooklyn]

Hi, OP here. My new student is looking at playing 80's rock. I'll get him up & running with some power chord AC/DC & Greenday and take it from there.

Thanks for all the thoughts (keep them coming).

[sayheyjeff]

Robin - thanks for the kind words n encouragement. A retired guy, play a few hours a day and really enjoy it (most days). One of the cool things my teacher does for interested students is puts people together based on perceived comparability, musical interests, and skill level. I have now been playing with other students who are now good friends for about 10 years. We play most weeks for a couple of hours. Covid got in the way for a while, but we have worked thru that as just another challenge. Our teacher teaches old time, bluegrass, Celtic, traditional and classical guitar, as well as mandolin, octave mando, cello, and more. Our group is about 8 strong and usually has 3-5 playing together most Thursday evenings. We mostly play what we are all playing for our lessons plus tunes we find and like on our own. A typical evening will have a guitar, an octave mando, a mando or two, and now a flute. We are not strong players, have never played out for an open mic or anything, but we mesh well and have a great time. Will be jamming together this evening from about 7-9:30.

Jeff

[6L6]

I started playing in 1964 at the age of 18.

I just went and bought a Mel Bay book of guitar chords and learned the chords to the songs I wanted to play. The songs and their chords were compliments of going into music shops to look at sheet music and memorizing the chords and progressions. As a poor college student at the time, I couldn't afford to be buying sheet music!

That approach got me playing songs very quickly that I could sing along with and that I really wanted to know. SO... I think it's important to ask your student what songs he/she wants to learn and then teach those chords for at least several songs. That will keep him/her interested and they'll proceed on from there.

FWIW, I never learned a single scale on guitar. Instead, I got down Travis picking and eventually built my own style of playing. Sure worked out fine for me and I think it would for most folks interested in playing the instrument

[Toby Walker]

Originally Posted by Bob from Brooklyn

I'm picking up a new student who is 50 years old. Normally with the younger students I take the Hal Leonard/Mel Bay route of learning the notes on each string one at a time but I also try to get them into playing songs too to keep it fun.

I'm not sure how I'm going to go with this guy however. Should I get him into reading or just jump right into playing songs? I suppose I should just play it by ear and feel him out.

Anybody out there take on older students?

I teach a number of older students and it really all depends on what their goals are. Very few students at that age want to learn how to read music, but if they do then that's great. By the way, I've been teaching professionally for over 40 years now.

Most of my students - and I cater to fingerpickers - want to learn songs and how to be creative with them.

In regards to age, a teacher has to teach in accordance to a students physical and mental capability. I find most students at that age are usually involved with other things that take up their time such as jobs and family. So there's that to take into consideration.

If they are retired and have more time to practice then it all boils down to the capabilities as mentioned above. Everyone is different. In my experience a lesson every other week works best for that demographic.

Hope that helps.

[capefisherman]

I have been teaching for close to 50 years and presently have 18 students for private lessons. The vast majority are over 50 (and a couple in their early/mid 70s) and when they come to me they almost always fall into one of two groups. One is people who played a bit in their younger days, put the guitar down for decades, and now have the time, inclination and finances to be serious about learning (serious in a casual way, if that makes sense). The second group are those who "always wanted to play the guitar" and are finally able to make the commitment.

Yes, knowing their goals and expectations is really important. These are recreational players with no aspirations of glory and just want to be able to succeed at a few songs, in the beginning anyway. I spend a LOT of time in lesson planning (being married to a retired elementary school teacher showed me the importance of that!!) and I design their course of study in ways that allow them to get there as soon as is possible. Typically I spend 4 - 6 hours every Sunday searching out new or new/old songs that will be applicable to many students, moving forward, charting them out in the easiest possible way while still maintaining as much of the original version of any song as much as I can. Presently I have over 300 songs charted out for students of virtually all levels of experience and I'm adding to that database all the time.

And yes, there are challenges with older students that will need to be anticipated and dealt with ASAP. Most of these challenges tend to be physical; fingers that just can't move as well as they used to, being sure to stress the importance of correct posture (no slouching in a soft sofa while watching a hockey game on TV) as it relates to - in the long run - making the playing easier. The saddest cases are students who are so overweight that they cannot hold their guitar close enough to their body to accomplish even very basic strumming and chord-changing but thankfully I've only had a few of those over the years.

But the bright side of teaching older students is their understanding of and commitment to regular practice. Compared to younger ones who think I have a magic wand I can pass over their heads to "teach" them to be great players in a very short amount of time with virtually no practice on their part, older students are a joy. They can take the long view and they also rejoice in what we might think are relatively small and mundane accomplishments. A big part of what any teacher of any musical instrument must do is be a cheerleader. Celebrate every accomplishment! Letting the student know that their lesson is never, ever a test. My job is to be captain of the ship and steer them in the right direction.

There is much, much more to it of course. But given a choice (which in the end, I do have!) I'd much rather have all 60 to ???? year-olds than ego-driven youngsters and their sometimes obnoxious parents!

Gene

[ljguitar]

Hi Bob-from-the-East…
I love older students (I taught fingerstyle for 40 years locally).

They practiced, they knew the value of their time and money. And they loved to play and enjoy the music. Many had a few aches and pains, so we had to learn how to use the strap to reposition the guitar to play comfortably.

If they wanted to learn classical guitar, I referred them to a classical teacher.

I didn't bother with notation based teaching (even if they had prior musical experience). Most just wanted to learn to strum/ pick and sing a few songs for personal enjoyment.

I introduced them to playing duets during lessons and took them on excursions to our local guitar society (meets monthly) where we performed the duets for other players.

If they persisted beyond 6 months, we learned scales (by interval not note names), simple etudes, and inversions, and more complex picking patterns.

We focused on keys of C, A, G, E, and D (and their relative minors). My teaching process eases students into barre chords without pain (mentally or literally).

Most loved coffee, and I roast all ours so our lessons often extended and moved from the living room to the kitchen, and topics shifted to kids/grandkids. And many are still friends after several decades.