Creating Teaching Resources for Your First Students

When it comes to teaching guitar, a lot of teachers are very worried about exactly what they are going to teach. This week I had the following question from a beginner teacher:

When starting to teach, it takes a long time to prepare learning materials. This might include chord boxes, neck diagrams, tab / notation, backing tracks and written guidance / explanation. What can I do to ensure a student has some documentation relating to the lesson and something to practice, without infringing copyright or having to work several hours to put something together? I feel I might be better with an off-the-shelf course such as the Rock School series, but am worried this approach is “cheating” or looks lazy. From the student’s perspective, would they be put-off if I teach out of a book that they themselves could purchase for the cost of a single lesson? Additionally, if structuring lessons using off-the-shelf resources, do I let the student in on it, or do I cherry pick and pass-off as my own. Part of the challenge is that whilst off-the-shelf is easy, it may not reflect my philosophy and paradigm.

Here is my video response and below is a break down you can read through:

Preparing Lesson Materials

When starting to teach, it takes a long time to prepare learning materials. This might include chord boxes, neck diagrams, tab / notation, backing tracks and written guidance / explanation. What can I do to ensure a student has some documentation relating to the lesson and something to practice, without infringing copyright or having to work several hours to put something together?

Don’t overthink this - while I applaud the desire to provide the best possible experience for the student, the most important thing is to just get started.

Use pen and paper in the lessons. Or one step up, buy a blank notebook and use that for the lessons, writing in the new lesson by hand each week.

After the lesson you can go ahead and create some sheets or a backing track of some sort if you want to. But, YouTube is literally crammed full of all sorts of backing tracks - there is nothing wrong with creating a playlist of backing tracks and sending the link to your student.

You can write out sections of songs, riffs and solos under “fair use” without infringing on copyright. You cannot photocopy a tab book. If there is a particular set of songs your student(s) want to learn, you can have them buy a tab book, or you can buy it and charge them.

It’s also worth saying that you want to be careful about overwhelming your student - they probably need LESS material than you think in a lesson. It’s always better to have them complete a task and move onto the next item, than to overwhellm them with 10 different things to work on in a lesson.

Using Off-The-Shelf Teaching Systems

I feel I might be better with an off-the-shelf course such as the Rock School series, but am worried this approach is “cheating” or looks lazy. From the student’s perspective, would they be put-off if I teach out of a book that they themselves could purchase for the cost of a single lesson?

There is nothing wrong with this. Some teachers exclusively use books. A student will not be put-off by this. There are some excellent books out there - if a book fits what you want to do with a student, then use it.

Now, why should a student take lessons with you when they could “just learn from the book”? The reason they are there in the first place is because they want to be guided through the process. If you were to give them the book, send them home and see them a month later, they will not make any progress.

Cherry Picking Lessons From Books

Additionally, if structuring lessons using off-the-shelf resources, do I let the student in on it, or do I cherry pick and pass-off as my own. Part of the challenge is that whilst off-the-shelf is easy, it may not reflect my philosophy and paradigm.

I’m not quite sure what the reader means by “let the student in on it”… if the book is there infront of the student, then they’re going to know you’re using a book! Just use the book.

When using a book, you don’t have to use every single lesson. You can take a book and use some lessons, and use some lessons of your own: mix and match to create the syllabus you want. You can use several books. You can use several books and materials of your own.

But never pass off someone elses work as your own!