A lot of people join music classes without any knowledge about the music teachers that teach in those classes, or they don't know how to determine whether that teacher is a good teacher, whether he or she knows how to teach what, and in what order, and whether investing time and money with this teacher will be a good choice. Most of these guitar players just ask for price and the location of the music class. These factors are ALSO important but these shouldn’t be the only deciding factors when joining a music class. If you make the wrong decision choosing a music class, you will unquestionably waste a lot of time, a lot of money, and a lot of effort. In fact, I spend a lot of my time correcting problems and wrong beliefs that my students have gotten from other music teachers in the past.
Here are the 7 things to check when you join a music class:
1. Does the teacher know your short-term and long-term goals?
Most music teachers just ask a few questions about you and then just start teaching without any other information. And the problem here is that they're just teaching with a copy paste method and won't really put all their effort into helping you get the biggest results possible. This type of teachers will not be much interested in solving music problems specific to you. The teacher MUST know your goals and should have effective strategies to help you reach those goals as quickly as possible.
2. Does the teacher is burned out from too much teaching?
Most teachers don't have any effective system to teach a large number of students. So these teachers stop caring about maximizing the potential of every guitar student. Ask your teacher how many hours they teach during the week, and they will tell you whether they are burned out or not.
3. How teacher track your progress?
You’ll see a gradual progress in the beginning. As you start becoming more advanced, tracking progress in ALL areas of your guitar playing becomes important, because sometimes you will make more progress in some areas than others. For example, you might build speed very quickly, but your improvising or songwriting skills may not be getting better at all. Having an effective system to track your progress is going to help find weaknesses in your playing, and/or weaknesses in your practicing habits, and/or weaknesses in the teaching methods.
4. Does the teacher teach straight from a book?
Books are fine, but the only thing they offer is information. The problem with this method is that a printed book has a fixed order and every student is different, so teaching them the same things in the same order may help one, but not the other! The order in which things are taught plays a big part in reaching your goals in the least amount of time.
5. Does the teacher teach you new thing every time you go to class?
A lot of music teachers think that they need to teach every time a student comes to class. This is totally, absolutely wrong, and in fact, hurt your progress. Because new information opens up a whole new set of questions and if you are not ready for the new information, it diverts you from your path to reaching your goals in the fastest way. You need to take the time to actually be able to use the skills you learn in your instrument playing, your songwriting, your improvising or you may learn things and even master things without even ever being able to use them! Then you haven't really learned them at all.
6. Does the fee for guitar class is surprisingly low?
Most of the time, inexperienced teachers charge very low and just like with everything else, you get what you pay for. If your teacher is cheap, then just like fast-food, your lessons will be lacking in substance, flavor, and nutrients. You want to make sure that you get the value for your money, and you can tell this by checking the points mentioned above. You may spend less money per lesson, but actually, in the long-run, you would spend MORE money to learn what another teacher who is better can help you learn in less time.
7. Does the teacher have testimonials from his or her students?
I’ve written this point in the last because some teachers don't actually know that this is important. That's okay because you can simply ask the teacher for reference about their previous or current students to ask whether they are a good teacher. Getting another person's perspective on a teacher's teaching is extremely important!
Now that you know the top 7 things to check before joining a music class, these things will serve as a guideline in choosing a good teacher that is right for you. Make a list of questions and ask your new teacher (or your current teacher), and conclude from those answers whether you've got an effective music class, or not.
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