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#1
10-09-2006, 01:37 PM
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Are Guitar Teacher’s Days Numbered?
Big article in today's times about the popularity of online guitar instruction. As someone that makes a significant portion of my income from guitar teaching, it’s something I’ve been watching cynically for years, but it seems to have gotten a lot better in the last few years. I do get a lot of students now that have gone that route but now ready to have an actual human interaction, but you have to wonder, with more and more of life and relationships being online these days.... http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/ar...ic&oref=slogin
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#2
10-09-2006, 02:44 PM
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Now that single lessons cost about what a DVD does that contains 4-5 songs, I do think it will change the way we teach. It will not replace the better teachers, but the day of 1/2 hour lessons and circling the pages in a book and sending it home with a student is probably doomed. I teach and do find that I have to really stay on my toes, but not to compete with the online services but to keep up with the needs of students. In fact, I recommend online and DVD resources to my students to augment what we do in lessons. I find the biggest barrier involved with keeping students motivated is the time they have to put into learning, and - not new - helping them work through the syndrome of learning a little and then stopping to camp out on small improvements without improving further. How I'm changing... I have added an additional layer to my teaching structure which is ala carte lessons - one stand alone ''superlesson''. I charge more money, and give a bit more time to these (2 hours), and load students up. Usually they show up for these and video tape them & go work for months on what they collect. I also teach packages of 4 lessons which I give students 3 months to complete. That is sure different than when I paid for 1/2 hour weekly lessons as a kid. Adults don't have the time to invest weekly to accomplish the things we cover in lessons (90 minutes of intermediate to advanced fingerstyle technique), so giving them 2-3 weeks to work it into the hands is critical.
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Baby #1.1 Baby #1.2 Baby #02 Baby #03 Baby #04 Baby #05 Larry's songs... …Just because you've argued someone into silence doesn't mean you have convinced them…
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#3
10-09-2006, 02:52 PM
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I subscribe to WorkshopLive and love it. Reason? The variety of available lessons is huge so I can vary my style, and I don't feel guilty watching the lesson a few times over to make sure I've got it down. Most importantly, it fits into my schedule perfectly. I can be sitting in a hotel room on a business trip or at home late at night and pull down a lesson or two. If I'm motivated or have a lot of free time, I can watch and work out several lessons one week.
I think it may help the live teachers, as I think the computer lessons tend to weed out those who don't have the heart to play, leaving you with students that really share a passion for the instrument. I would think great attitude would help to make the teachers' job easier. Right?
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"Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything." - Plato | '02 814c Custom (Coco/Sitka) | '03 912ce Custom (Coco/Engelmann)| '06 K65ce | '17 J45 Std. | '10 Breedlove Revival OM DLX (EIR/Adi) | Lots of electrics...
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#4
10-09-2006, 03:30 PM
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 But it’s been very interesting how things have changes over the years. Ten years ago the vast majority of players were coming in with CDs (or tapes  ) of tunes to tab out. Nowadays a beginner will come in with downloaded tab in their guitar case. But way more people are coming not wanting tabs at all, but rather to really understand music and the instrument. I get a lot more people that can physically play well, or know a lot scales type things, know some tunes, but really want to be able to improvise, compose, arrange, and jam. I also feel like there a lot of saturation with all the info available now. People come in with four or five dramatically different methods on say, jazz, and feel like they need to know it all, but are truly overwhelmed. They usually do great with a teacher because A: I’m going to just take one tune and were going to play the heck out of it for a week or two, and they know in a light hearted way they are going to accountable for working on that one tune. And B: we’re going to play it together. Which is another thing about all the new media stuff, the isolation. I think there’s unprecedented amount of players making music, that would otherwise be ensemble music, but have never played with another another human being before, and they are seemingly terribly uncomfortable with it... Indecently, I just got the new Bryan Sutton instructional DVD this weekend... best $25 bucks I’ve spent in a while 
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#5
10-09-2006, 03:39 PM
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I don't think there is a "quick" fix. Neither is there a "new pill".
Its very much like "learn a new language in a day". Unfortunately, there are a lot of unsuspecting people out there who will believe it, and the internet is a great medium to spread the word. R.
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Martin: HD-28VS | SPD12-16R | 000 VS Maple Custom | 00-28VS Custom | 00-18H | Sting Mini | 5-15 | B-1E And various other guitar, mandolin, uke, violins, etc.
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#6
10-09-2006, 04:09 PM
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There have always been students who arrive for lessons with a mixed bag of skills. Self-taught is still taught, and if we can assess student's strengths, shore up some weak areas, build their understanding and chord/scale vocabulary, they will emerge much better players for having met us. One tip to you teachers among us: I no longer tell students that a fingering or voicing for a particular chord is ''wrong''. I just show them three more ways to play it in similar or different places on the neck. Most people find it easier to keep building layers of new options rather than trying to overcome ''mistakes'' - and poor fingerings, patterns, or voicings fall away from disuse as they are replaced by better ones.
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Baby #1.1 Baby #1.2 Baby #02 Baby #03 Baby #04 Baby #05 Larry's songs... …Just because you've argued someone into silence doesn't mean you have convinced them…
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#7
10-09-2006, 07:14 PM
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Are Guitar Teacher’s Days Numbered?
Definitely. Just like everybody else's.
 As long as people enjoy making music with guitars, there will be a need for a real, live, human touch teacher. Are there alternatives that can be fairly good? Of course. But there is no DVD that can tell you that you're applying too much pressure with your fretting hand, or that your right hand position can be adjusted, or that you're using too much arm and not enough wrist with that strum. Machines and prerecorded lessons can't do all that a human can do. Of course, now we get into teleconferencing and long distance, personalized, real-time teaching, and that brings on other possibilities as well. But even then, a expert teacher who doesn't know YOU will not be as beneficial as one who does. Great teachers are hard to come by, but are irreplaceable, in my estimation. cotten
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#8
10-09-2006, 08:05 PM
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A Strummer "Let's lute the city", said the minstrels. Oftentimes the only result I get from a thought experiment is a messed up lab. Last edited by astrummer; 10-09-2006 at 08:35 PM.
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#9
10-09-2006, 08:24 PM
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I think more options for information is basically a 'good' thing- BUT, I don't think there will EVER be a substitute for instantaneous, one-on-one human feedback, or for those rare teachers that care enough to connect with an individual and help ignite/sustain the intrinsic love of music. Somehow, I can't see getting that from a podcast.
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Bill -"The sun is the hot.. hottiest planet. And it would burn your mouth if you tried to eat it." - Chris Elliot, Get a Life
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#10
10-09-2006, 08:34 PM
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Nope.
At least, I don't think so. There are too many students will certain individual needs that has to be taken care of personally.
And IMHO, this topic is quite silly. I mean, it's like saying because of the "web", the days of the school teacher are numbered. I'm no sociologist, but I do believe that human beings just need some kind of interaction with each other...socialization, if you will. Even "home schooled" students get to interact with each other at certain "home school" activities... Maybe I'm just going off base, or making a mountain out of a molehill...
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franchelB: TGF member #57!
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#11
10-09-2006, 08:53 PM
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Getting started out, you really do need that personal interaction. But even still, video's, dvd's, on-line classes are very helpful to me. How else can you get a guitar lesson from Buddy Guy, Joe Walsh, Roger McGuinn ?? I've even found watching You Tube, can be very instructive.
As with actual lessons, alot depends on the instructor, as all instructors are not created equal, so if your with somebody you don't work well with, that can be destructive, or if you feel that you're not learning anything, you need to move on to another instructor, or program. I have been thinking about doing the "WorkshopLive", but don't have the details about it yet, it's good to hear a positive review though. But as with any learning thing, you do need to practice, practice and practice some more. "Good musicians practice till they get it right, great musicians practice till they CAN'T play it wrong."
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#13
10-09-2006, 10:11 PM
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I don't consider the question silly. We are in a cultural revolution where living among us is the first generation of young adults who do not have to have permission from adults to access information. In addition to that, it is a generation of people who are wired in modular instead of linear fashion. It is common for the young to immerse themselves intensively in single genre pursuits and just jump into the middle of the learning process instead of starting with square one and moving logically forward. Instead, they start in the middle. Evidence? Tons of young amazing guitar players who not only do not play scales, but often they cannot tell you what chords they are playing...and it doesn't bother them. They even retune their instruments to make them easier to play. And when they come for help they don't want lectures or mandates, but advice and some new ''licks.'' This changes the face of ''teaching'' and ''learning,'' and we teachers have to be adaptive if we are going to be of service when these players need help. We often become more coach than instructor. The students of today vote with their dollars and their feet, and they stay in lessons only if we give them permission to explore music which is to their liking, and at their own level. And they may take four lessons and go with that info till they run down again, and then return. It's a new era. The day and age of teachers saying to players ''this is the only way to play'' and expecting them to buy it hook line and sinker is rapidly becoming passé.
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Baby #1.1 Baby #1.2 Baby #02 Baby #03 Baby #04 Baby #05 Larry's songs... …Just because you've argued someone into silence doesn't mean you have convinced them…
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#15
10-09-2006, 11:53 PM
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I think that a good teacher will provide something a dvd/cd won't and that's live feedback. For me, what's valuable is if someone can observe and critique my performance, eg. fingers extending past my thumb, general inefficiencies in playing, playing all the notes but long enough.
I feel like I'm at the point where I want to learn how to improve my technique. Even a basic song sounds great if you have great tone. The dvds/cds/tab are good in conjunction with the teaching but the teacher has to be the right one as well. The idea of the 'superlesson' really appeals to me. A lesson every month with stuff to go away and work on. I believe Pat Donohue does this. I find the weekly halfhour thing to be too frequent and almost too short. I'd much prefer an hour fortnightly. I believe Larry has it 'spot on' and would love to take a 'superlesson' from him if I could.
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Gerry
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