I had an interesting experience last night I thought I'd share.
A few weeks ago I got a call from a music store a few miles away. One of their teachers was going to retire, and they wanted to recruit me as a replacement. We ended up working out a deal for roughly half of his students, and yesterday I step into the role there.
The first few students were beginners, but the last one had been studying with him for more than a year. I had her read a little bit, then asked her to play some chords. She did... diminished chords, barred minor sevenths, inside dominants. Ok, cool... so I chart out a tune we can start working from - and I discover she can't play an E minor chord. Or a half dozen other basic chords.
Now I know there are a lot of different ways to approach teaching the guitar. And I know a lot of teachers (David, for instance) do it primarily by focusing on teaching songs, like the teacher I've replaced. There's nothing wrong with that, and learning songs keeps students interested. But something's wrong if the only chords you can do apply to just one song you've learned.
Guitar teachers are there to teach you how to fish - to pass on what they know in an orderly way, and eventually work themselves out of a job. If you end up with a teacher who doesn't get into why things go together, you may have a teacher who's only comfortable passing out fish.
And if you stuff your pockets with fish, sooner or later you're going to notice a funny smell....
Guitar teacher offering lessons in Plainfield IL
