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Why Your Guitar Teaching Won't Work Until Your Students Know How To Practice

Author: Tom Hess

Why Your Guitar Teaching Won't Work Until Your Students Know How To Practice

by Tom Hess

One of the most frustrating challenges you can face as a guitar teacher is when one or more of your students consistently makes slow progress. This can leave you scratching your head and wondering what you are doing wrong… Is the student struggling due to poor teaching on your part? … Does the student simply ‘not listen' during your lessons together? What is going on here? Why does this happen? Here is the main factor behind why your students fail to make fast progress:

Although there are tons of reasons why most guitarists who take lessons never become great musicians, in the end a lot of your success as a guitar teacher will depend on your ability to effectively teach your students ‘how to practice'.

Even if you show your guitar students a million different licks, solos or techniques, it will all go to waste if you do not correctly teach your students to practice the things you show them. It is absolutely CRITICAL that you learn how to do this if you want to succeed as a guitar teacher and give your guitar students the results that they are paying you for.

By doing this you will not only get better results for your guitar students, but you will simultaneously be setting yourself apart from the majority of mediocre guitar teachers in your local area.

Now, before I reveal the most effective ways for teaching your students to practice guitar, it is important for you to gauge your own guitar teaching aptitude. Fill out the answers in this assessment about teaching guitar students to practice before you continue reading the rest of this article.

Why Guitar Students Have No Clue About How To Practice

Reason 1: The great majority of guitar teachers out there use up nearly every moment of each guitar lesson teaching their students new information such as new scales, licks, techniques and so forth. The reason why this happens so much is because most guitar teachers feel obligated to teach new material so that their students don't feel like they are being "ripped off". Because guitar teachers are so afraid of this, they overwhelm students with tons of new ideas but only spend a fraction of the time actually showing them how to practice what they learn on guitar.

Reason 2: Whenever a guitar teacher actually does make the attempt to teach guitar practice concepts to a student, the teacher quickly tells them all of the steps that they need to do and assumes that they will both remember what was said and actually ‘do it'. For instance, while teaching two-handed tapping licks, guitar students frequently make the mistake of not muting the strings that are not being played (resulting in excess noise). Most guitar teachers will simply tell their students, "Remember to mute those strings when you practice on your own", and will show them maybe once or twice how to mute the strings. That said, next week when the student returns… the strings still are not being muted properly! Why does such a thing happen?:

a) Some students will ‘think' that they understood what you were explaining, but really did not understand. This results in them spending the whole week practicing incorrectly.

b) Occasionally, your guitar student will remember what causes the mistake but will forget how to correct it.

c) The student has already forgotten the main cause of the problem and continued to unknowingly play while making the same mistake over and over.

All of this translates into you having to re-teach the student how to practice what they learned on guitar the next week (when they should've already been making progress from last week!). Here is why this approach to teaching guitar practice is a total failure:

1. The student doesn't have enough time to truly absorb the process for practicing guitar effectively.

2. During the lesson, your students might think they know what needs to get done to practice effectively, but when they get home and pick up their guitar; they practice incorrectly or forget.

3. You never check to assure that your guitar students are practicing properly because you have never actually observed the way that they practice. Watching your students ‘practice' is different than just listening to them play. When you hear them play, you hear the ‘end result', but you don't actually see the process they used in order to produce it.

Reason 3: In most cases, guitar teachers give their students very generalized practice advice as it applies to ‘anything' on guitar. On the other hand, expert guitar teachers show their students many specific strategies for guitar practice based upon the students' musical goals AND the specific challenges they are facing in their playing. This helps the student to make improvements and advance his/her guitar playing more easily than the student who only received ‘general' advice on how to practice guitar.

Here Are The Solutions That You Must Use

Now that you have better comprehension of why it is essential to show your guitar students HOW to practice and you have seen how traditional guitar teaching approaches fail, here are some solutions you can use to avoid the mistakes discussed above:

Here Is What You Should Do

Now you should be totally on board with the idea that teaching guitar students how to practice is a crucial part of teaching guitar. I've shown you the way that guitar teachers fail to teach this, now here are the solutions that will help you get your guitar students to practice effectively and make better progress:

Solution Number 1. Don't ever assume that your guitar students are more advanced than they really are. Of course ‘you' understand all of the specific details of what to listen for, where to place your finger and so forth in order to get the intended result in your guitar playing, however, your students often do NOT know about these things. Explain to them clearly what needs to be practiced in full detail and write this down for them so that they can revisit the steps when they are on their own.

Solution Number 2. Your guitar students will not remember how to practice something when they get home if all you did was merely tell them for a brief moment how to practice it. You've got to both show them how to do it yourself AND then also have them show you. This is a subject that makes many guitar teachers feel nervous. Most teachers think that if they do not constantly flood the student with new material then the student will get bored and stop taking lessons. This is not true! The truth is, understanding how to effectively practice guitar is the key that will unlock your student's potential and get them to advance toward the results that they desire. In essence, knowing how to practice guitar is the main thing they need to learn from you to get the RESULTS they want in their guitar playing. If they do not know how to practice guitar effectively, they will not make progress… THIS is the true reason why a student might stop taking lessons with you. With this in mind, getting your students to practice guitar properly (when they are at home away from you) should be your number one priority!

Solution Number 3. When you teach your guitar students something new, spend a significant amount of time (about a quarter of the lesson) showing them how to practice it. Do not show them a ton of new stuff without helping them learn how to actually practice it.

Solution Number 4. Don't give in whenever one of your guitar students tries to blow off the guitar practice section of their lesson. In many cases, students will tell you that they "Got it" when in fact, they really might not "Get it". Remember, it is absolutely crucial for them to learn how to practice guitar correctly in order to get results. In situations when you can sense that your student is trying to rush through practice in order to learn something "new", remind them that they will get better at a much faster pace once they can practice guitar effectively.

Solution Number 5. If your guitar students are having a difficult time playing their lesson materials for you during their next lesson, don't merely ask them to ‘play it again'. This is the mistake that average guitar instructors make. Truly effective guitar instructors get their students to show them how they PRACTICED the material they learned in order to see the fundamental cause of any playing errors. Next, they will help the student understand what it is that they need to listen for during their guitar practice time so that they can correct any mistakes without additional guidance. This approach is highly effective at getting guitar students to progress faster on their own.

Here are the steps that you should take right now in order to maximize the benefit you get from reading the information in this article:

1. Measure how effective you are at teaching guitar students to practice.

2. Take the time to help your guitar students understand why learning how to practice guitar effectively is a major factor for their progress as a guitar player.

3. Don't ‘wait' to use what you learned in this article - begin implementing the ideas from above into every guitar lesson that you teach from now on.

Once you utilize the knowledge you have gained from this article you will start to see massive progress in your student's guitar playing. Additionally, you will begin to develop a positive reputation for yourself as the very best guitar teacher in town!

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/music-articles/why-your-guitar-teaching-wont-work-until-your-students-know-how-to-practice-6550747.html

About The Author:
Tom Hess is a professional electric guitar teacher, recording artist and member of the symphonic metal band Rhapsody Of Fire. He also mentors guitar teachers from around the world in his guitar teacher success training program. Visit tomhess.net to get free guitar teacher advice and learn more about teaching guitar in the most effective manner possible.

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