What To Look For In A Teacher

Congratulations! You've found an artist that totally melts your face off with their playing and/ or creative chops. But slow down: you're halfway to having a great teacher, if they are as dedicated and well studied as you say they are. What else to look for besides chops:

-A degree isn’t totally necessary to being a great teacher. All it really says is that this person has officially met certain standards or criteria set forth by a regulated institution, for profit or not. Keep in mind there are players out there that don't have the degree, but they have tons of street cred-- enough or more than enough to have the same skills or better.

-Great players don’t always make the best teachers. Teachers and players are totally different things. They need to be just as well studied in how to create an environment that people learn in, as they are in the music stuff.

- They need to be an excellent communicator with lots of energy, and back it up with enough musical knowledge.

-They need to be excellent interviewers. You don’t know what you don’t know, but they need to find out so that they can teach it to you.

-They need to be organized. There’s nothing romantic about a messy, late, awkward artist, especially when you’re paying them. They should be on time, follow up with people, return phone calls and emails, and take responsibility if they mess up. Those are basics but you would be appalled with how many "teachers" neglect them.

-They should know their schedule like the back of their hand and respond to inquiries as quick as possible. The most experienced teachers know that the decision to take guitar lessons is often impulsive, and if they don't jump on inquiries quick, customers are lost.

-They need to be a bill collector and a friend at the same time. That might seem really twisted but it's true and the best teachers walk this fine line the best.

-They need to be quick on their feet. They have a different personality/age/family situation/income bracket/health situation/life perspective coming in the door every half hour. Kids may cry. Females may flirt. Males may compete. Males may flirt.

-They should know many if not all styles and keep up with current trends.

Guess what? These are the requirements to teach guitar or any instrument at Rockwell Guitar School in Shoreview MN. If you'd like to get started please give us a call at 612-568-7433. Or, share this with someone who needs it!

Anything is Better Than Zero

Now more than ever, kids are bombarded with things seeking their attention-- video games, apps, youtube, homework, school sports, ipods, netflix, etc. As they get older and start having more 'grown up' type responsibilities, it becomes harder to just stumble upon an extra half hour to practice. It also seems trendy for parents to sign their kids up for as many activities as possible. Whatever happened to just having the time to be a bored kid left to their own creative devices?

I see my students struggling with this on a weekly basis, and I have a strategy for reeling it in. It's called, 'Anything is Better Than Zero'. The premise is that the only sure way to get worse is to not practice at all. Even five minutes is better than nothing, because your brain and body get tremendous benefit from doing. Music is a game of execution. 

I'm not a fan of demanding practice from my students, I'd rather peruse the practical considerations with them instead. I usually ask, 'You'd like to get better, wouldn't you?' And they always respond yes. Then I ask them how much they indulged in the aforementioned vices. Usually it's a little bit of everything. Then we talk about which ones we can scale back on so that we can play guitar more in an effort to improve.

Now, I know some teachers and parents are reading this and saying, "Five minutes of practice?!?! No way that's gonna work." But the idea here is not to become a world class guitar player on 5 minute practice sessions, the idea is to start habits of practice that grow into a passion for the instrument. Five minutes is an extremely un-intimidating goal that can get people up and doing every day. Otherwise, people set intimidating goals that scare them into zeros every day.

Rockwell Guitar School serves St. Paul and surrounding suburbs as a provider of music instruction on Guitar, Bass, Banjo, Mandolin, and Ukelele. For more information please visit our FAQs page or call 612-568-7433.