Guitar Lessons

Q. If you were a customer, what do you wish you knew about your trade? Any inside secrets to share?

A. 1) Parents: talk to your teachers, Find out what they observe about your child’s progress, and not just once and a while, but every week.
2) Parents: learn the guitar… not from me, but from your child. If you know how to play, pretend not to. Let the child have something that he/she is better at then you, and at the same time let them learn by the experience of trying to teach someone else. Take it seriously. Set up a lesson time. Do it every week. All teachers of all subjects will tell you they never learned more about a subject then when they had to teach someone else.
3) It is good to stick with one teacher for a time period. Set a commitment. I had a student that recently quit, but she wanted to quit a year before. Last year she did not know how to play, this year she did. I feel good about her choice knowing that she achieved something and was not quitting because it was simply too hard.
4) It is good to switch teachers from time to time. A different point of view makes you more well rounded, and aspects of lessons that are the same with different teachers can help clarify what things they should think of as extra important.
5) Learning guitar is really hard. It is as tough as any other instrument. Allot of parents and students seem to assume that it is an easy instrument. It is every bit as tough as all musical instruments, and since it is capable of polyphony (more than one voice, or part) it is every bit as tough as learning the piano well. There is a difference though, when you start piano to play the first note you only need to press down a key. In guitar you have to make a move that requires a more detailed understanding of the instrument, and you have to use both hands just to play one note.
6) Everyone can do this; you do not need to be young to learn the guitar. There are different challenges for older students. I know what to watch for and how to coach them differently.
7) Don’t buy a guitar from Wall Mart, Target or any non music store.
8) Ask a guitar teacher what guitar is the best to buy. We’ll love to tell you.
9) The best brands do have a good reputation, but even the best of guitar manufacturers make their best guitars out of wood. Wood sometimes gets the idea that it should twist here or buckle there. No guitar is alike. Play your guitar before you buy. Check the action on the neck and make sure the neck is not twisting. Look for war on the bridge on acoustic guitars.
10) Guitar players tend to choose guitars where the wood of the guitar is visible. Manufacturers may tend to select better wood for those guitars. It is a fact that the wood that is less pretty gets the opaque finishes.
11) Cheaper guitars have one thick coat of finish that deadens the sound of the instrument. Expensive guitars can have up to 24 coats of finish with each layer buffed and polished to let the guitar resonate and sing. Both finishes look the same to the consumer.

Q. Why does your work stand out from others who do what you do?

A. Never mind about the 15 years experience, or the 25 years playing guitar, or my performance experience as a classical, jazz, and pop/rock/folk Guitarist. What sets me apart is that I try to balance the fundamental skills I feel all my students should have, with the needs and interests of the student. I try to be not just a teacher but a gentle coach trying to coax a student into progressing into a great guitarist. After each lesson I say, "Have a good week, practice every day and become a guitar genius!"

Q. What do you like most about your job?

A. When I realize that my student learned something/ practiced something from the previous week's lesson. All my students benefit from my improved mood, when that happens.

Q. What questions do customers most commonly ask you? What's your answer?

A. Q: What kind of guitar should you have/buy?

A: There are advantages and disadvantages to each type of guitar. Classical guitars have nylon strings which are easier to play with less tension then steel strings. The neck is wider and thicker which can be challenging for some. Electric guitars also are easier to play and do not have the size problem, but do need to be plugged into an amplifier which adds to the cost and makes it less portable. Steel string guitars are most likely to have problems and are hardest to play, however they have the sound that is typical of guitar playing. It may also be that working with a tougher instrument first would make you a better player, kind of like learning a manual transmission car.
So with all that said, my real answer is to get the type of guitar that sounds the most like what you want to sound like when you play guitar, because each of these choices sound different. I also recommend that children and women consider a concert size guitar rather than a dreadnought. This refers to the shape of the guitar, which influences the sound. I recommend those choices because smaller frames will find the smaller shape more comfortable. I myself prefer the sound of a concert guitar and own and play one as my favorite guitar.

Q. Do you have a favorite story from your work?

A. Parents and children never see themselves clearly. This story does not have a happy ending. I try my best to honestly conduct myself and always point out the positive and negative aspects of a student’s playing to the parents and the students. This student was no exception, and I thought of him as my best and most talented student at the time. I rarely ask when a student leaves, why they left. I always take it too personally and hard when a student disappears and so I leave the follow up to others store personnel. But I had to know why this student left. I called them and the Mom, who I knew well enough and I always told how smart and talented he was, and she explained that they both agreed that he was not good at guitar. I can’t remember what I said in response. I am sure I disagreed. But this is like a ghost story, and it haunts me to this day. He was one of my top ten best students ever.