I HATE When Guitar Teachers Do THIS to Beginner Guitar Players

There's one thing I can't stand more than when guitar teachers talk down to their students or make them feel less of. I was here on YouTube and as usual, I was doing some research on hey, what's some videos I should make. And I want to share something that I pulled verbatim from another teacher's video here on YouTube. Fair warning, before we get started, nothing in this video is going to be dumbed down. I. I'm not going to show you any partial chords. There's not going to be any cute hacks. I'm not going to make any compromises to make this easier at the expense of proper technique. All in all, this guy seemed like a really nice teacher, but it's obvious from his attitude that he's not willing to get down to the students level. I was on a forum the other day with guitar teachers and I had this one teacher and he said, you know, know, I'm trying to teach this woman Happy birthday. Okay? Happy birthday. Very, very generally simple song here on the guitar. And he goes, at what point do I tell her that this isn't working? And I responded and I said, at no point should you tell her that this is impossible. I said, what are you trying to teach her? Have you just tried teaching her the melody? Well, he was just trying to teach her the full chords and like her first lesson, how to play full chords, and she was having a really hard time with it. She was an older student, I think she was in her late 60s. And I work with a lot of older students. And it's obvious that this teacher, he seems like he's really young. He hasn't worked with a lot of older students because, you know, there is nothing wrong with playing partial chords. Chords if you didn't know, are called triads. You only need three notes to play a chord. For example, most people play a G chord like this. But if I just play the bottom three strings, that's also a G chord, I don't to play the other six strings. It sounds much fuller that way, but if you play that, that is a G chord. Now everyone yells at me because I teach the C chord. This is a full C chord. I teach the easy C chord with just two fingers from the fourth string down. And people are like, you can't do that. And it's like, yes, you can. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's not lack of proper technique, but the technique is still correct. You have to play the guitar correctly to make this sound good. It's not proper technique. And all it's saying is, and this is one thing that really does piss me off with teachers, you're not willing to break things down and make it easier for the students so that they can have fun. So many teachers are up on their high horse that a student has to do it this way, they have to do it my way or it's not going to work. And they're not a good student. And I've had so many students who have come to me from, you know, teachers who went to Berkeley because I'm here in Boston, and they'll come in with their notebooks. They've been taking lessons for three months. And this woman, she came in with a notebook and it was full of music theory and it was full of like, bar chords. And I said, well, what have you learned? You know, what can you play? Play me something on the guitar. And she's like, I can't. I actually can't play anything on the guitar. And I said, well, how long have you been taking lessons? And she was like two or three months. And she goes, I don't know. I just don't think I'm cut out for this guitar thing. And I said, here, let's try this. By the end of her first lesson, I had her playing her first song and she was happy, okay? She was happy because she was having fun. And there's nothing wrong with breaking something down and making it easier for a student to play. I can make things as hard as I want. I could have you play a song as all bar chords, okay? I could have you play them as chord inversions. We could do lots of music theory. But when you're just getting started on the guitar, it's all about mechanics and it's all about having fun. So if you have a teacher that insists that you have to play an F bar chord in your first lesson, my advice to you would be to walk directly out of the door. Any teacher that's going to overwhelm you with music theory in the beginning or bar chords in the beginning is not a good teacher. I'm sorry. I'm just going to be honest because they want you to play to their level. And what needs to happen when you're a teacher is you have to come down to the students level. And like I said, most of my students are in their 60s, 70s, and 80s, okay? It's obvious that this kid has not taught someone with arthritis. I've had students who from their arthritis can never play bar chords. They never were able. It was too hard. It was Too difficult. And we did partial bar chords so that they could play the guitar and have fun. There's nothing wrong with that. So when you have a teacher, you know, that makes you feel less than. They're just not a good teacher. Our job as a teacher is to be supportive. And I don't want to, you know, say music theory is not important. I think music theory is very, very important, especially if you want to get into songwriting down the road. It's the why behind the music. But if you can barely play a chord, and you can barely play. You know, if you can barely play a note, because even in the beginning, a note to sound is sometimes very, very difficult. So bogging students down with a bunch of music theory, which sounds like you're speaking French, okay? I've had students who've come to me like, my teacher sounded like they were speaking another language. I couldn't understand anything they were saying. They didn't make sense. And I just thought maybe I was stupid or maybe I wasn't good enough to do this. And I say, you know what? Let's just. We can come back to that. Let's throw all this music theory aside. How about we just have fun? We learn a strumming pattern, and we learn a song. And that's my goal for students in the beginning, is because the big part of learning guitar is belief. The belief that you can actually do this. Because a number of my students, a lot of them have the same story. You know, they tried to play guitar years ago. They put it back in the closet, or, you know, they got busy. Life got in the way. They had family, they had kids. They're retired now, and they really, really want to play the guitar. And they took some lessons with the teacher. And like they said, the teacher just made them feel stupid or they just felt like they weren't cut out to do this. So my job as a teacher is to help you in that first lesson or in those first few lessons, understand that, one, you can do this, and two, to believe in yourself. All right? I teach guitar as a guitar teacher, but I'm more. It's funny, as I get older, one of my students, he goes, lauren, you don't teach guitar. You teach humanity. And I've come to realize that a big part of my job as a guitar teacher is not only to teach you this instrument, but to teach you to believe in yourself, to teach you to have confidence that this is possible and you can do this, and this is hard. Okay? And that's what that teacher said in the Video. Listen, learning chords is hard. Learning chords is hard. Okay? But if I can make it easier for you in those first 90 days, the chances of you sticking with this is much greater. Okay? He would rather you quit playing the guitar and tell yourself that you can't do this, then make it easier for you and build your confidence. Because that's the most important part of the first 90 days of playing guitar. And is one is figure mechanics, finger dexterity. And I have some great, you know, lessons in my course that teach you about finger dexterity and how to make your chords go faster. But the most important thing is you believing in yourself. Because if you believe that you can do this, you will do it. And we all have that little voice in the back of our head that says, you're too old, you should have done this 20 years ago. Or who do you think you are? You know, you think you can be good? You think you can play guitar. You think you can play and sing a song for people? Listen, you absolutely can. And the favorite email I get from students, because I've gotten many of these emails, was I was in the room practicing and my spouse came in from the other room and recognized the song I was playing. And it could be something simple as Happy Birthday. It could be something simple as Horse with no Name, which is a two chord song that I teach people because it's very, very simple to play. And it's just that recognition, someone else recognized what I was playing. And if I can have that happen to you in the first two or three months, that is a game changer for you. You are going to want to pick this guitar up and practice. You're motivated. Yes, it is hard, but we need to make it fun along the way. Because if as teachers we don't make it fun and we don't help you build confidence, then you are going to put this back in the closet or in the basement. And that's a travesty because I firmly believe everyone who wants to play guitar can play guitar. And I will help you. Listen, there are people out there that don't have hands that play the guitar with their feet. Now, I don't have a program for that, but just goes to show you, if you have a desire to learn and play this instrument, you can. And I know this is a little bit of a different video than you are used to seeing me do, but nothing pisses me off more than guitar teachers who aren't willing to work with their students. No, I'm not going to make it easier for you. I'M going to make it really hard so that you quit. That's not the point. That's not the point. That's not why I started teaching on YouTube. The reason I started teaching on YouTube was I went and saw a bunch of the first lessons by some of the big guitar teachers here on YouTube and I was like, why would you teach that as the first chord in a lesson that's such a hard chord for students to learn? A lot of people, if you go and you do search first chord on guitar, most people are teaching a D major chord. It's a beautiful sounding chord. But I'm like, why would you teach that in the first lesson when you could teach something easier? Like an E minor chord? It just requires two fingers and then you can show them a really quick pivot point. Okay. You could just move one finger down here to make a C chord. Now you get two chords and you can actually play a song with that. And all you have to do is move one finger. Okay. Yeah. Could I show you how to do the full three fingered C chord? But you know what happens with that three fingered C chord? You don't have enough stretch in your fingers. And this is what happens to that third finger. Okay. You're not ready for it yet. Okay. It's just like karate. There's a reason why it's a why the white belt learns the white belt techniques and why the black belts learn the black belt techniques. And I do the same thing with my guitar teaching. I created a system where I was like, how can I create this almost like martial arts? Because I did martial arts for a long time. And I like that system of having levels of being like, listen, this is the white belt and this is what you learn when you're a white belt. And yes, I do want to make things harder. I do want you to play bar chords. I do want you to learn music theory. But we got to do that when you are a green belt or a purple belt. You're a white belt right now, and that's going to be over your head. You don't have the capacity to understand that. And I can explain things simply. And I'm not trying to say that you're not smart enough to learn the music theory. I'm just saying it's much easier to learn music theory when you have an appreciation for the instrument and you start having an inquiring mind to why. Why is that called a C chord? That's a great question. That's going to require us to learn some music theory. So usually when people start asking me the why? Question is when we go down the music theory road. But trust me, I played guitar for years knowing nothing about music theory. I actually wrote an entire album. I wrote and recorded an entire album of music without knowing anything about music theory. So much so that when I would play with my band, I would have to ask my band what key my song was in. I didn't know what key my songs were in. I did everything by ear, okay? I just had an ear for what sounded good and what sounded bad, and I put it together. All right? So you don't need music theory to do amazing things on the guitar. Later, I learned some theory. It made me a better songwriter. It is important, but it's not the end all, be all. So if you're learning guitar, the key is to have fun. And if you have a guitar teacher that you feel like they're just not getting it, or they don't know how to break it down, or they're making you feel stupid, you might not have the right teacher. They might be an amazing guitar player, but they might not be a guitar teacher. And, you know, even if it's not me, find the teacher whose teaching style works best for your learning style? Like I said, I really specialize in working with older adults. Ages 60, 70, 80. Do I have younger students? Absolutely, I do. But my favorite students to teach in my private studio were people over the age of 50. And that's who I really wanted to specialize teaching. Because sometimes you do have to take extra steps. Okay, Sometimes the arthritis is acting up that day. What can we do? Lauren, I have arthritis in my thumb. I can't hold the pick. What can I do? Well, Bob, I recommend you get one of these Black Mountain picks with the spring. Because you know what? You put it on your finger and it doesn't matter if you have the arthritis. Guess what? You don't have to hold the pick anymore. I can strum with an open hand.

All right? It's simple. Things like that. He can't hold the pick. So I don't care if he has proper pick technique, all right? He can't hold the pick because the arthritis hurts so much on the thumb. So what do we do? We have a tool here that requires them not to need to hold onto the pick and they can play the guitar. And that's my job. My job is to find out what works for you. Not works for me. It's not for me to show off my skills and my abilities. It's for. For me to help you have fun playing the instrument. So I'm very, very sorry, but it really makes me angry when guitar teachers refuse to simplify for their students. And if you want to see what I do with my online students, go check out my free crash course laurenbaby.com crashcourse it's absolutely free. I teach you how to play songs in 14 days. I'm going to show you how simplifying and dumbing things down. You're not dumb. We're just simplifying and making it fun. How simplifying things and having fun can build your confidence and make you love this instrument.