Organic...Guitar Lessons?
A Word Not Often Used to Describe Guitar Lessons
Could Be the Sign that the Lessons
Are Just Right For YouIf you’ve taken guitar lessons before, you probably haven’t seen too many ads with the word “organic” used to describe them. Most often we see “organic” in the grocery stores on food products, or maybe on textiles like towels, linens, or clothing…but guitar lessons?
One of the definitions of the word—besides the ones related to physiology, farming, or medicine—is “characterized by continuous or natural development,” and that can certainly be applicable to guitar lessons. You see, for many instruments, there really aren’t many pedagogical paths to success as a player; for bassoon or flute, for instance, the way for pretty much any player to master the instrument is to follow the method that pretty much all other players of that instrument have followed before them. With few exceptions, that’s the natural path for most instrumentalists.
Not so with guitar. Thanks to more than a hundred years of fearless innovators—like Django Reinhardt, Robert Johnson, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and others, on up through Chuck Berry and Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Van Halen and so many others, and then on into today—thanks to all of those who came before us and showed everyone that there is more than one way to accomplish something on guitar, students of this instrument can learn in many different ways and still thrive and excel as players. Learning with a non-traditional method IS the norm now for guitar.
So how helpful do you think it would be to take guitar lessons from someone that expects all of their students to conform to one particular instructional approach? Whatever that method is (whether it’s strictly traditional, or completely novel, or somewhere in between), even if it is exactly what worked best for the instructor when they were learning, that’s no guarantee that it will work for others. It’s just not natural to think that one guitar player should follow the exact same route that some other individual followed to develop their guitar skills. It’s not natural, and it’s not helpful to the student—it’s not beneficial.
I do things differently here at Stephen’s Guitar Lessons. I take the time to figure out what the student wants to learn, what they like to listen to, and what their musical goals and intentions are; I don’t insist that every player learn their skills by playing songs that they may not like and may never even have heard, simply because that’s how I did it. I customize every student’s music selections based on what they like and where they want to go (musically speaking) because even though it may take a little bit of extra time, there is always a lesson that can be pulled from the music that a student is moved by; what’s important is what motivates the student, not what music motivates and inspires me. And a motivated student will be more likely to grow, and more likely to achieve their goals, so to me it’s a win-win.
So I strive to make my guitar lessons “characterized by continuous or natural development” because that’s the most effective and efficient way to serve the individual student. I’m not here to constrain you through instruction, but rather to empower you to be the best player you can be; to give you the tools that YOU, specifically, need to succeed—not just the tools that the average player needs to succeed. You could call that a superior way to conduct guitar lessons.
Or you could call it “organic.”
I call it Stephen’s Guitar Lessons, and the “VIP” lessons experience.
Give me a call (or send me a text) at VIP-PLAY-GTR (847-752-9487), or contact me through the website to set up your FREE intro lesson today!
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