Why Personalized Guitar Lessons
are Best for the Student

Compared to a "one-size-fits-all" approach, guitar lessons that are
customized for each student provide the most benefit

When you learn how to play most instruments, there is a well-defined pedagogy that has been refined over a long period of time, and for essentially all aspiring players, that is the best path to take to proficiency on those instruments. There are always exceptions to the rule, of course, but generally speaking, if you want to learn an instrument there is already a defined route for you to take—and the consensus amongst practically all instructors of that instrument would most likely be that all new players follow that defined path.

When it comes to modern, contemporary guitar playing, though, there are a few factors that have created a rather unique circumstance. For traditional classical guitar playing, however, there is still a well-defined pedagogical path to learning that style...but for modern guitar styles—basically, any musical style that doesn't predate classical—there can be lots of options to choose from at myriad points along a student's musical journey.

There are some very physical reasons why guitar has so many potential pedagogical routes. For example, a traditional classical guitar (which would have no cutaway, for easier access to high frets) has a range of about 3 octaves; most orchestral instruments have a pitch range somewhere around 2 1/2 to 3 octaves. On the other hand, a modern guitar with a cutaway to allow higher fret access, will typically have almost 4 octaves of range—and many have 4 full octaves, while some have even more.

And then there is the much longer neck on the guitar as compared to most other stringed instruments (which contributes to the wider pitch range, for sure); the longer neck, coupled with the 2 additional strings (most other stringed instruments have 4 strings, but guitar has 6), gives the player multiple places to play any given note that the music calls for. To give an example, the note you get when you play the open high E string on a gutar (E4), can also be played in 5 other places on a 24-fret neck: 5th fret on the B string, 9th fret on the G string, 14th fret on the D string, 19th fret on the A string, and 24th fret on the low E string.

So when the music calls for that particular pitch, the player has to decide where on the fretboard they are going to play it. Sometimes you can easily rule out one or more options, because they are far away from the notes you are coming from or going to in the music, but often there is more than one way that will work well—and sometimes what works best for one player, doesn't work as well for another player...but one of those options might work better.

So it's partly because of the design and layout of the instrument—the modern guitar, and especially the electric guitar—that guitar instruction is best when it's bespoke, but we also have an endless list of guitar players through the years that have revolutionized the way people play, almost exclusively by playing in a way that traditional guitar pedagogy would say is wrong. Some players that are examples of this would be Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian, Robert Johnson, Wes Montgomery, Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix, Eddie Van Halen, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, and many others—folks that played guitar in ways that were previously unknown (or maybe a way that was known but no one could do it and sound good while doing it) and/or that were able to get sounds out of the instrument that were previously unheard. Traditional pedagogy would have told them that they were simply wrong, or doing it incorrectly; it's quite possible that many of them were told at some point that what they were doing was wrong and in need of correction.

Thank goodness they didn't listen, though...because by playing the way that they did and by being so ridiculously successful at it (or at least, ridiculously influential to others because of it), they broke down barriers to playing guitar that untold numbers of people would otherwise have faced. These are barriers that would have prevented many aspiring guitarists from ever really even trying to play the guitar. So from my perspective, removing those barriers is an excellent thing because it gives more and more people access to the joy of creating music.

So, while there is a traditional pedagogical path for guitar—one that would very much resemble the path that most piano players would follow, as would most carinetists, flautists, violinists, trombonists, et cetera—it is absolutely a path that many (maybe even most) people would not be able to successfully follow. However, that does not mean that those people aren't cut out to play guiatr. It simply means that they need to find a path to their musical destination that make not look much like the typical path.

That's where I come in! I can help you find the best path from wherever you are as a guitar player—whether that is a complete novice with no musical experience whatsoever, or a seasoned guitar veteran who has been playing forever that just wants to see if they can add some tricks to their repertoire, or anywhere at all between those extremes, or elsewhere—to wherever you want to go as a player, whether that is just playing for your own enjoyment or whether you want to play casually with other folks in a band (maybe at parties, or something like that), or whether making music is your career or your intended career.

There are a LOT of things that set me apart from other guitar teachers (you can find out more about those other things here), but one of the most consequential is the way I formulate each lesson for each specific student, crafted for where they are in their musical journey, with the intention of moving further still along their musical progression; I don't know of another guitar teacher, anywhere, that tailors their lessons program for each individual student in that way.

Ready to get started? 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, and see the benefits for yourself!

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