The electric guitar has advanced far beyond the time when someone could teach himself (or herself) to become a world, class player. If your ambition is to become a competent player and a competent musician, you need a competent teacher. Even if your goals are more modest, you can reach those goals far more quickly, easily and efficiently with the right teacher's guidance.

Much of the information needed to learn about guitar playing (and music in general) is available from many different sources. There are hundreds of books, instructional videos, CD-ROMs and, of course, the Internet. Even though a lot of information is readily available, there exists a lot of incorrect, incomplete and otherwise bad information. (this is especially true for what is found on the Internet!)

You will need the aid of an excellent teacher to teach you how to fully understand and apply the correct information. Remember that textbooks, CD-ROMs, instructional videos and the Internet cannot answer your specific questions. They cannot offer you advice on your personal playing style, song writing, ear training, etc. They cannot listen to your playing and point out any mistakes or flaws that may be present. Some textbooks are great and I have seen some pretty good CD-ROMs too, but you still need the aid of an excellent teacher to help you develop your abilities and musicianship correctly and efficiently.

Great teachers manage and schedule new materials and effectively explain their importance and meaning. A teacher should encourage you when you are doing well and correct you when you make mistakes. Good teachers will show you how to better organize your practice materials and show you how to effectively manage your practice time (this is crucial to your progress!). They help you build up your confidence level. A great teacher will help you become secure with your technical skills so that you can execute difficult techniques on your guitar comfortably. These teachers emphasize creativity (songwriting and improvising) and performing.

Great teachers want to make sure that you fully understand what you are learning and, most importantly, teach you how to apply it by giving you detailed explanations and by encouraging you to ask questions when something is unclear. A good teacher sincerely cares about your musical growth and development. An experienced and competent teacher will take you far beyond what you could learn on your own. Unfortunately, guitar teachers are not licensed and there is no organization that oversees or regulates them. Anyone can claim to be a good teacher and there are lots of people who make this claim. The number of competent teachers, however, is limited.

This brings us to this crucial question:
How can a student find, and accurately evaluate a guitar teacher? Here are some questions that you should ask any prospective teacher. I have also included my own comments for each question:

1) Can you tell me about your teaching experience? May I see your resume or credentials? How long have you been teaching and approximately how many students have you taught during that time?

At least three to five years of teaching experience is preferred - certainly no less than one year of experience. Prefer a teacher who has taught a moderate to large number of students. It takes time for a teacher to truly learn how to teach well, and the main way that someone learns to teach is by teaching.

The students of a new teacher are experiments. These teachers are learning how to teach on the job by trial and error. They need time to learn how to teach, and will make some mistakes in the beginning of their careers. You don't want to be one of those first thirty to fifty students. Let a new teacher gain his or her experience by making mistakes with someone else.

2) Do you teach private lessons or group lessons?

You definitely want private lessons, unless you are a total beginner or enrolled in a college music course. You will learn a lot more about playing guitar in a one-on-one private lesson.

3) What styles of music do you teach best?

Make sure you ask this question before telling the prospective teacher what style of music you want to learn. A lot of teachers claim to teach all styles well. Beware of this. Do not be impressed by someone who tells you that he or she can teach every style of music well.

If you really want to be a great rock guitarist, take lessons from a rock teacher, not a blues or country player who claims to teach all styles well. If you want to learn multiple styles of music that are not similar (like country, classical and heavy metal) take lessons from more than one teacher for each of those styles. Unless you are a total beginner, you are better off with an expert teacher in your style of music.

4) What is the cost of lessons?

Excellent teachers are in demand and usually already have a lot of students. These teachers often are more expensive. I can tell you that the going rate for a good teacher in the Midwestern United States (where I live) is between $16-$24 per 1/2 hour private lesson (rates may be different in your state or country). There are a handful of teachers offering correspondence lessons for students who do not live in the same state or country as the teacher. Usually these lessons are less expensive in the long run (read more about correspondence lessons later). In general, don't look for the teacher with the lowest rates; you usually get what you pay for. If you can't afford to pay the higher rates for a really good teacher, ask the teacher if you can take lessons on a bi-monthly basis instead of weekly.

5) Can you tell me how you teach the lessons?

This is probably the most important question you can ask a teacher. The answer to this question can help you determine if a teacher is competent, because this is actually a trick question. Anyone can tell you they have been teaching for 30 years, that they have had thousands of students and the cost is $100.00 per lesson because they are the greatest teacher of all time. But an inexperienced teacher cannot trick you with his or her answer to this question (unless he or she is reading this article.)

If a prospective teacher who does not know you, your musical knowledge, your guitar technique, your musical tastes, and your musical goals tries to explain how he or she will teach you, this is not a competent teacher. Not even the best teacher on Earth could answer this question if that teacher knows nothing about you, your goals, your playing level, your knowledge of music theory, etc.

So what would an experienced and competent teacher say to you when you ask the question? I explain to him or her that I can't formulate a lesson plan for anyone until I learn a lot more about that student's playing, goals, musical tastes, knowledge of theory, etc.

To my correspondence students (whom I don't see face to face), I send a long list of questions about everything I need to know about their music background. This helps me determine the best way for us to begin. I also encourage the student to send me a tape or CD of his or her playing with a variety of his or her playing on it so I have a clearer picture of what areas need improvement.

Obviously, for my private students (whom I do see face to face), I can simply ask the questions for which I need answers. I can hear the student play in front of me. Only after all of this can I (or any other teacher) know how to teach that individual student best. It seems obvious that you shouldn't teach a 13-year-old-boy who has never played guitar before and wants to learn to play alternative rock the same way that you would teach a 27-year-old-man who has been playing for 16 years and wants to become a virtuoso in the style of Steve Vai or Yngwie Malmsteen.

In addition to asking the questions above, here are some other things to watch out for:

When students ask how to approach a certain technique or how to hold the pick correctly or how to most effectively mute strings that are not supposed to be sounding, the advice of some teachers is to do whatever feels natural to you. Sometimes what you may think is the natural way to hold your left hand may not be the correct way at all. It is the teacher's job to know those types of things. The teacher should be teaching, not letting you do feel your way through it. For most things, there is a right and wrong way and you will be better off learning it the right way from the start.

A teacher may have some talented students, but this does not mean the teacher is good. This might seem like good criteria for evaluating a teacher, but the fact is that some of the advanced students were already good players before taking lessons from the new teacher. The only time you can judge a teacher's teaching skills, based on his or her students' playing skills are when those advanced students have been taking lessons from the same teacher since they were beginners.

Some teachers tell their students to learn from as many sources as possible and then leave it up to you to sort through it all and decide what works best for you. How are you supposed to decide that? How is a student to know what the best fingering is for a particular scale? Students typically won't know how to determine what the right way is. This is one of the reasons you have a teacher. It is his or her job to teach you these things. This is why you are giving the teacher your money!

Do not assume that someone is a good teacher just because he or she may be an excellent player or has good credentials. I know plenty of competent players with advanced music degrees whom I don't believe are good teachers. I was fortunate to have some truly great teachers, but I had some incompetent ones too. Whenever I realized that a teacher wasn't good, I looked for a new teacher.

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© 2005-08, Tom Hess. All rights reserved.
Used by permission. Musicstaff.com © 2006-08