5 RED FLAGS - How To Avoid Bad Guitar Teachers

Hey, guitar enthusiasts. I'm going to be going over a topic near and dear to my heart. These are going to be five red flags to look for to know if your guitar teacher sucks or not.

Now, I hate to be so abrupt, but this is an issue I run into with a lot of students. You know, they want to learn how to play guitar, but they worked with a guitar teacher before who made them feel like they couldn't do it. They or even I've even had students who told me my guitar teacher told me that I should play harmonica or I should just stop playing music. These guitar teachers should not be teaching guitar. If you've worked with the teacher like that, I am so sorry. And that's why I'm making this video. Because there are phenomenal teachers out there. I'm not the only teacher who teaches online, but there are wonderful teachers out there. And I want to go over five red flags for you guys to look out for if you're working with a teacher and you feel like you're not making progress. Tip number one, your teacher doesn't have a game for you when you walk into the lesson. Tell me if this sounds familiar. You walked into a guitar lesson. If you've had in person lessons and the guitar teacher stares at you and goes, so what do you want to do today? Right, yeah, they have no idea. They didn't even think about your lesson before you walked through the door. Whenever I worked with students, I already had the songs we were going to work on already printed out because we talked about their goals the week before. And. And that's what I do with my students. I think structure is so important and just knowing that your teacher has a game plan for you and for your progress. And that's part of why I made the seven level guitar system. Because I wanted people to be able to work with the teacher in a step by step manner that they were like, okay, how do I know what I need to do next? Because most guitar teachers don't have a game plan. So if you want work with a guitar teacher and you come into your lesson and they go, so what do you want to do? Just walk right out the door? Because part of their job is knowing what needs to come next. All right? Because they'll ask you, so what songs do you want to learn? And you're like, well, I don't know what. What songs do you think I can play at my level? Which gets me to point number two. Red flag number two. The teacher does not know how to break things down or doesn't want to play anything very simple. I've had so many guitar students that I've worked with over the years that, that a teacher either threw them right on bar chords, which is very hard for a beginner, or, you know, they give the student like a chord sheet and it's got like 12 chords on it. And they're like, okay, go learn all these chords. Which is horrible because a student cannot. There's so much information to learn in the beginning. We really need to break things down. You know, I have a video about the four easy guitar chords. And I get so much crap on that video because there's so many people who comment on that that's not a C chord. And it's like, yeah, but you know, do you know how many of my students can't play a C chord and have it sound good? They need a chord that comes one step before this. So what do I do? I remove the third finger and I teach people how to play a two fingered C chord. Which does what? It makes you feel good about yourself because it doesn't sound like this. Okay. You can actually move your fingers. It's hard when you're in the beginning stages. It's hard to move those fingers. All right. You gotta work up in stages. So I often teach students you easier versions of songs. In the beginning. We work on getting the fingers moving and building finger dexterity and eventually, yeah, we'll learn the full chords. But why would you start students on like an orange belt technique when they could learn a white belt technique? All right, you can make things simpler. And I think there's a lot of guitar teachers out there. A lot of them. You know, I didn't go to music school. I don't even have a degree in music. My degree is in biology and archaeology. Believe it or not, I am not the greatest guitar player in the world, but I am am a damn good teacher. And I know that because lots of people have told me over the years. So just because someone went to Berkeley does not make them a great teacher. It might make them a great guitar player, but they might not know how to break things down. I've had a number of students who said all I wanted the teacher to do was show me a very simple strumming pattern so I could play this song. And they didn't know how to write it down. And then the teacher got frustrated because it took the student a lot longer to learn something than they were probably hoping. And I love repetition. I could do the same song for months with a student and Be totally happy with that because it's helping the student do what they love and get closer to achieving their goals. Not my goals. Red flag number three, they don't want to help you. Now, you might find this strange, but I've had a lot of students who have, you know, they might have difficulties. I've had a lot of students over the years who have arthritis or I've actually worked with students who are blind and I've worked with students that had missing fingers. Okay. How do you teach someone guitar with missing fingers? Well, most guitar teachers will just tell you they can't help you. I understand that where there's a will, there's a way. So oftentimes I try to find ways to help students learn guitar no matter their disability. Listen, there's people out there who play guitar with their feet. They don't even have hands and they learn how to play guitar with the, with their feet. So a lot of times, you know, students who have disabilities or students that might be missing fingers or have. I have some students that have nerve damage or tendon damage and they're a right handed player. I'll say, hey, let's switch over, let's go to left handed. And it's actually easier for them to learn the guitar, which is another pet peeve of mine. When teachers tell left handed students to learn the guitar right handed. I'm so sorry. If you had a guitar teacher that did that. But if you're a lefty, your dominant hand is left. You should be playing guitar as a lefty. And if you're doing it the opposite way, I'm so sorry. Can you do it? You can. I just think it goes a lot harder than if you were playing with your dominant hand. So if you have a guitar teacher that isn't willing to help you or they get frustrated with a little bit of challenge, that might be a red flag. Red flag number four. They don't speak to you in English. I have so many students who say, I just love that you can talk to me at my level. And you know, because I have so many, I tease because I have some guitar teachers. I own a music school, I have many teachers. And I'm like, yeah, you know, you can. Sharp fly, add 9, multiply by 5, divide by 4 and take the square root, right? And sometimes some teachers, you know, they went to university and they're so used to talking in the music jargon. Oh yeah, you're just going to flat the five here and you're just like, I have no clue what that Means, what do you mean flat? The five. That'd be like me talking to you in Chinese and expecting you to understand exactly what I'm talking about. So when I teach students, particularly beginners, I throw all the music theory stuff, like, out the door. We don't even really learn music theory until you've been playing the guitar for a while. I don't want to throw music theory under the bus. I do think music theory is important, but in the beginning, I think you just need to build a relationship with your guitar, start having fun with it and understand the basics, because then it makes you curious sometimes about the music theory. So I will only teach you the things you need to know, and I will only talk to you in a way that is plain English. We're not going to be talking about flatted thirds or flatted fifths or augmented diminished chords or, you know, sharp flat, add 9 divided by 12s. You know, we're not going to talk about all that crazy stuff in the beginning. We're just going to talk in like, this is a C chord, this is a D chord. This is a simple strumming pattern. I don't even teach you to sight read music. I don't. I don't personally sight read very well myself. I do teach how to sight read rhythm. I think that's very important, especially being a rhythm guitar player. Super important. But honestly, I'm not going to lie to you guys. I really stink at sight reading individual notes. It's not my specialty. I've been playing guitar for 20 years and it really hasn't held me back. So you do need to know all that stuff. Not really. Is it helpful? It can be helpful. The music theory stuff can be helpful. I don't really think the sight reading stuff is helpful. So if you have a teacher who's kind of starting out on sight reading, I don't really do that. I think it bogs people down. But that's a personal opinion. I don't think that's a red flag. That's just my opinion. Red flag number five. I think the worst red flag of them all is the teacher makes the student feel inferior. Like I said in the beginning. I have talked to so many students who had guitar teachers who told them to quit lessons because they were bad. Of course they're bad. They're like, they came to you to learn guitar. They're not going to be good. So when I work with students, I don't know, and I think this might be just my personality. And maybe it's because I'M a female, and I'm different than a guy I don't know. But I always try to make students feel good about where they're at in their journey. I tell everyone, guitar is a journey, and everyone's story is unique. Everyone's different story. Some people learn things fast. Some people learn things slow. Some people are great at finger picking. Some people are great using a pick. All right. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. I'm not a prodigy. I'm the only person in my family that plays music. I had to put hard work into learning this instrument, and I would never, ever tell a student of mine to give up on their dream of playing guitar. If you have a dream of playing guitar, you need to find the right teacher who's going to work with you. You know, I. Like I said, I work with a lot of students in their 60s, 70s, even 80s. I actually have a student who's 92 in my guitar course, which is. I love it. It's awesome. But sometimes you just have to work with a teacher who's willing to take things slow. We're not in a rush. We're not in a rush to get to the end here. Okay? I want to go slow. I want to work with you at your speed. And I want you to know that this is possible and that every time we work on a song or we do something, I don't expect you to do it here. I expect it to do it at the level you're at. There's always ways to make things easier. There's always ways to simplify things, and I'm more than happy to do that for students. There's a lot of guitar teachers out there who want you to do it exactly the way it sounds, exactly on the record, and we can get to that point. All right? I've taught people how to play Stairway to Heaven exactly the way it sounds on the record, But I can't do that in the first week of guitar. And expecting a student to play at a high level when they're just learning is just stupid. So I'm never opposed to making things easier, making things simpler, and letting you know that, hey, you are doing perfectly great for where you are at on the guitar. When everyone starts, their chords suck. When everyone starts, their strumming sucks, you're totally normal, and that's perfectly fine. We're. What I want you to do is just remember that every guitar journey is unique and that you need to focus on having fun first. So if you guys are looking to work with a guitar teacher who's pretty laid back and down to earth and super cool. Me, I have a guitar course. It's a seven level guitar system. It's a step by step system. I work from the very beginning. We build one level at a time. It's like building a house. We start with a solid foundation and, and we go and grow from there. I'm never going to rush you to get through the course. And you know, if you have questions, I'm there to help you. I'm there to answer those questions. And I love interacting with my students. Whether you're young, whether you're old, whether you have all your fingers or you're missing fingers, I work with them all. Okay? So feel free. You can always shoot me an email. It's infoaurenbateman.com if you have questions or if you're interested, I'll put a link in the description below and you can go check out the seven level guitar system. YouTube's going to pop up a couple more videos over here. Make sure to go and check those out. And if you're working with a bad guitar teacher, I would recommend that that you ditch them and find someone else whose teaching style matches your learning style. Starting today.