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Teaching Guitar Online

It's no surprise that many students and teachers are turning their attention to the internet. The internet connects the whole world in ways that we might never have thought possible. Imagine being able to speak face to face with someone who is the opposite side of the planet in absolute real time (Ok, there is a little latency!).

This means, that we as teachers can utilize this global network for our own business. Perhaps you're teaching local to you and finding that you've probably seen every student you possibly can, where do you turn? The internet!

If you were to set up a business model offering lessons through Skype you are essentially opening your diary to the world. This could be massively beneficial for you as you are now tapping into a global market.

The main considerations when offering Skype lessons are always based around time. Of course you have to consider your timezone and what you are willing to work against where you might get your business from. If you are based in the UK and your potential students are 12 hours ahead in Australia, scheduling could be a little tricky. You have to have a clear mindset of what hours you are willing to take on these lessons.

When you set up to teach online, be sure you have a stable internet connection, good quality webcam and a microphone so you can communicate clearly with the student. When I teach on Skype I like to plan ahead for the lesson so the time on the call is spent wisely. Have a plan for how to spend that time so the student get's the biggest benefit. You could send any materials over at the start of the session so the student has the same notes as you to refer to.

Finding New Students

One of the biggest challenges with teaching is actually filling your diary and keeping it full. Students will come and go, slots will fill and empty quicker than you can say "teach me something new!". How do we as teachers be proactive in making sure that the bookings keep coming in. After all, we've got a business to run.

Advertising is king here. Keep your social media pages up to date, list your business on every local directory you can think of, even pay for some advertising runs on social media if you think there is enough demand in your area. Keeping your social media pages up to date will show potential clients that you are still busy and that you are actively working in the field. A social media page with no activity will look like a business that is not functioning.

Never underestimate word of mouth. Students will talk to other people they know and this will generate interest. Treat each lesson as your best one yet and the word will soon spread.

Sign up for online teaching directories. There are some fantastic services such as mgrmusic.com that specialize in pairing students with teachers in their local areas. If you can create listings on any websites like this, it's worth doing to keep your name out there. Having your name listed on various directories will not only make you more visible to students, but it will boost your SEO and improve your chances of ranking high in search engine results for teachers in your local area.

How to Find Students

Starting a teaching business is the easy part. You come up with the concept, you commit to doing it and now you need to bring people through the door to turn your business idea into a working model. What options exist for promoting yourself and attracting students?


1. Having a Great Website
Having a website that looks good is key to being taken serious. Your website for many people will be the first port of call. They might find out on Google or via an advert so you should be sure to get a website built that is informative and looks professional. It doesn't have to be over the top, but it has to serve its purpose.

2. Social Media
Social media is the most under rated business exposure tool currently. Advertising via these platforms is very cheap and also the tools available for free advertising are incredible. Create a page for your business and share this on your personal page. Ask friends and family to share it and post it in your local groups. The numbers will soon grow and more and more people will see your business.

3. Join a Teacher Database
There are many companies around that offer assistance to teachers in the form of being listed in their database. The benefit of working with a website that does this is that they may already have fantastic SEO linked to their website so you have a higher chance of appearing in local searches. musicteacher.com as an example is a teaching database website that provides each teacher with their own personalized local website as well as being included in their database. This really helps your business get seen.

4. Word of Mouth
Probably the most powerful advertising tool is word of mouth. Once you've gotten a few students through the door, if you do a good job they will tell other people. Get students to leave reviews on your social media pages to help others see the service you provide.

5. Local Listings
Post adds on all your local listing pages. Gumtree, local message boards, local newspapers. Anything that people will read when looking for a service is worth you putting your details into. The more places you can list your business, the higher the chance you'll get seen.

Is Social Media Good For Teachers?

Social media is everywhere these days. You can't go 5 minutes without hearing someone mention one of the big platforms. Can these networks be used for music teachers in a constructive way? Is there a way to harness the power of social media for business?

1. Reach Your Local Area
By starting a business page, you can actually rank on Facebook searches when people search for your specific service. It boosts your overall SEO if you have a website linked to your social media pages as these websites have huge SEO authority. Name your page after the skill you provide, for example "Singing Lessons in London" but if you live in a big city, be more region specific. This will help you a lot in the search results.

2. Advertise to the Right Crowd
Social media advertising is often considered an underused, underpriced service. You can create adverts and designate a specific postcode region, age range and interest selection for the target audience. This means your advert could land in the news feeds of the people who need to see it.

3. It's a Digital Portfolio
Most social media platforms allow you to showcase photos and videos. This is beneficial for teachers as this acts like a digital portfolio for us. We can showcase our abilities via video so that potential students get an insight into what we're about. It also means that we can be seen as credible. If you're good at what you can do, a video will prove that to people.

4. Love What You Do
You're making a living by talking about your instrument of choice. Enjoy it. Never forget that you work in an extremely privileged position. You make your living doing what you love.

It is certainly wise to get onto social media and promote your business. Check out this really useful guide to Social Media Marketing and start your social media journey with your own business. You will be surprised at the incredible reach you can achieve.

4 Teaching Best Practises

There are no set rules when it comes to working as a music teacher, but as teachers there are a few ideas that we could all be better at applying to our day to day practice in order to make the experience better for our students.

1. Be Real
Students that are just starting out want to feel that they can trust their teacher. They don't want your private music lessons to feel contrived or feel like they are stuck in some schooling system. Be the best version of you that you can be when teaching. Never forget the frustrations of a new learner because that was you once. Don't put on a front, just be yourself.

2. Inspire
Give your students reason to feel inspired. This could be you showing them some success stories that you have had in your own career or stories from the careers of others. Inspiration will help your students push themselves and be better. You should never enter into a lesson with the aim of just getting through it. You want to make each lesson matter.

3. Teach The Student, Not The Subject
Every single person in the world has different thoughts, views and likes. There is no blanket method for teaching music. Spend time getting to know your students and teach each person in a way that works for them. Listen to what they like and cater the lessons around what gets them interested.

4. Love What You Do
You're making a living by talking about your instrument of choice. Enjoy it. Never forget that you work in an extremely privileged position. You make your living doing what you love.

If you've just started your first teaching business and you're getting ready to take your first student this can be a nervous time. Enjoy it. You're probably more prepared than you realize. Remember to listen to the student and take on board what they need. If you're an experienced teacher, keep pushing and keep improving. We can always do more to be better teachers.

The internet is a valuable resource for new teachers with some fantastic websites we can learn from such as Youth Music Network where you can find loads of great articles written by other teachers and musicians.

Inspiring Students

How should we as teachers focus on inspiring the next generation of learners. In 2019, the internet is a massive force in how people of all ages consume content and learn skills. The vast expanse of the internet means that anything can be found instantly with the click of a button.

This means the world is now very fast-paced. We can order items online nd have them brought to us the very same day. The same applies to knowledge transfer.

Does the age of instant gratification now mean that people are less willing to work for a skill? Does it mean they are lacking inspiration when something isn't obtainable in an instant?

As a teacher, it is your job to inspire as well as educate. When everything is so instant, how do we inspire? These points are especially true when teaching children as children and younger students are the most likely to not want to pursue a project that will require a lot of hard work. We need to find ways to inspire them to push through and remind them that learning an instrument does take time in an age of instant gratification.

1. Fun and to the point lessons – If your student has a goal in mind, this could be learning a specific song or melody, then focus on that as your priority. Map out the skills they need to hit this target. THis will bring on some inspiration for them to push harder.
2. Reassurance – Remind them they are doing great. It's hard feeling inspired when you are pushing so hard to master a new skill. Keep their spirits high and their motivation levels up.
3. Fast Progress – We as teachers can't guarantee that a student will pick something up in a set time frame. We all learn at different speeds and the amount a student applies themselves to their practice will determine just how fast something can be learnt. Use your students goals to map our a realistic course of lessons that they can get through at a good pace and start to see results.

Every student will draw inspiration from somewhere different. Its our job as teachers to be aware of this and look for new ways to keep their fire burning. Inspiration is the key to progress and will help students push to the next level. We have to think outside the box to find new and exciting ways to inspire.

Breaking Bad Habits

As teachers it's very easy for us to not only fall into bad habits of our own, but also to not spot those in our students. Bad habits can manifest themselves as many things such as a lack of practice, a lack of structure, a technique that has gotten sloppy or a general lack of keeping up with various aspects of playing music.

What can we as music teachers offer to our students to help them break out of these habits?

1. Structured Practice Routines
Habits can be formed by falling into bad routines. Let's say a student is stuck on playing a particularly tricky part in a song, you have to ask the question of how much they are committing themselves to getting better at it. Introduce a structure and goal system for these instances. Encourage them to work on that part for 5-10 minutes everyday and measure improvement over a week.

2. Accepting the Habit Exists
One of the easiest things to do is to ignore the habit altogether. It's important to be mindful that bad habits do exist and learning to spot them for both teacher and student is critical. Encourage students to think about what habits they may feel are bad and plan how to get out of them together.

3. Think Outside the Box
Let's think about the habit as it stands and use the example of the bad habit being a sloppy technique. It could be a particular scale run for instance. Let's imagine why this is sloppy. Is there a way we can re imagine thing to make it more economical to play? Perhaps the finger arrangement choices could be better or the positioning on the instrument could be better. There are often simple answers to complex issues on any instrument. This can be the key to breaking the habit.

Best Ways To Learn The Guitar

These days there are many ways to learn the guitar but which ways are the best for teaching students? This is something I ask myself all of the time. I've got together with Rahul at Guitar Lessons York to discuss the 4 best ways to learn guitar and why we recommend them to other teachers.

First of all, I would recommend is promoting learning the music that they love. Music students and and students for that matter, will always enjoy learning things that are familiar to them and that they enjoy. This is why learning music that they love is essential to making good progress. It can even be simplified versions of the songs they like but nevertheless will sound like the original song. This will always keep students interested and committed to learning.

Make sure the student has a clear goal in mind. I understand that not all players know what they want to learn or where they want to go. But making sure students have clear goals in mind will always make sure they are keen to learn and have structure and direction to their learning.

Remember to promote positive practice. What I mean by this is making sure that students know how important practicing is but without overdoing it. Practicing in small slots but often is far superior to learning for 8 hours in one go. If students practice this way it will also be viewed as less of a chore and more of a fun activity to pass time. You can even suggest practicing whilst watching tv.

Lastly, I think that as a teacher we have a duty to pay close attention to students technique and the way they play. This one if more on the teachers because I'm sure you've all taught that student who has been playing incorrectly for 10 years and now can't break the habit. Good technique is everything when learning to play the guitar and is something I preach to all of my students.

How To Be A Successful Singing Teacher

There are many ways to teach students how to sing and as a teacher we have to realise that all students are different and that everyone prefers to learn in different ways. Learning to sing isn't easy but after talking to Josh at Singing Lessons Leeds we decided to come up with a few of the things we could agree on when it comes to teaching students how to sing.

The most important thing actually which you'd think would be straightforward is attention to detail. So many teachers can be lazy and let the student pick up bad habits without correcting them. This can be really true for self taught students who now need real guidance to get on the right track. Learning to do anything is already difficult and all students need a good teacher to pick at their technique, style and put them on the right path.

This is a really obvious one as well, but teaching positive body technique and good posture from the very beginning is so important. If someone picks up bad technique from the beginning and doesn't know how to change it then this is a huge issue if the student goes on to sing for years and years as the bad habit will also develop over the years.

I think as a teacher it's very important that we teach students about the songs an styles that they enjoy. Students who have a clear vision of what they want to achieve and do so via the music they love always make faster and better progress. When we teach students familiar music this also means that students know what the end product should sound like and won't give up until they reach that end goal.

Teaching should never be super formal. As a teacher, you should aim to be friendly with the student. First you're their teacher and secondly you should be approachable. If the student has issues then you should be there to help them and answer any questions they have. Communication is far easier with students who feel comfortable with their teacher.

Best Music Venues In Southampton, UK

I sat down with a few teachers and musicians in the Southampton area to talk about our favourite music venues for independent artists in the city of Southampton. I talked to musicians of all styles including Jack from Drum Lessons Southampton among other players.

The venue for me that always comes to mind when I think of Southampton is Joiners. It's a small venue but has stood strong in the city over many years, over 50 years to be exact which is amazing for a venue. It even won an award for the best small venue from NME. I would recommend checking this place out if you have the chance.

The 02 Guildhall, is an obvious choice for more established acts. It was opened in 1937 and has been going strong ever since. O2 Guildhall Southampton can seat up to 1,271 people or take up to 1,749 for a standing concert. They also have 4 functional venue and function rooms. If you get the chance to see a big touring act here then I suggest you take that opportunity.

The Engine rooms are another grassroots style venue but one that I would recommend to all upcoming bands. The Mo’Club became Engine Rooms after a complete rebrand and renovation of the venue in December 2014. The Mo’Club has operated in Southampton, first and foremost as a roller disco, but also regularly playing host to a variety of live performers, including Bastille, Mallory Knox, and Devin Townsend Project. The MJR Group have since transformed the venue into a multi-functioning entertainment space, able to accommodate live music, comedy, exhibitions, cinema, theatre, club music and “bespoke festivals”. It can now hold up to 800 guests.

The last venue we will look at is a real small one but absolutely awesome. The loft is a great wee venue in the centre of the city hosting local bands and touring bands from all over the UK. It's dark, dingy and everything you'd want from a venue like this. They have fantastic sound and amazing staff who are always friendly as hell.

Best Tools For Learning The Drums

Learning to play the drums isn't easy. Often overlooked, drummers are the driving force of any band and drive most styles of music. Learning to play the drums isn't easy and many students often underestimate. After talking to Peter at Drum Lessons Manchester I've composed a list of a few of the things that all new drummers shouldn't be without on a weekly basis and a few things that drummers should be using if they are serious about improving their playing.

Drum is a great site that isn't too different from something like guitar tricks for guitarists. It has a wide range of lessons with experienced teachers who you can rely on to give you really sound advice when it comes to drumming and most types of percussion. They currently have around 2000 lessons and lesson plans from beginner to advanced to help take you through everything you need to get playing shows as a drummer. It's affordable and you can learn from the comfort of your own home which is very important at this time I think.

As well as having the right tools, you also need to make sure you have the right approach. Making a structured practice routine is so essential when learning to play the drums and should really be something you can't live without. If you're worried about noise then get yourself an electric kit or some practice pads. as a drummer you should be practicing every day and making sure that your practice is as structured as possible while still keeping things fun and exciting.

I often say that this is important for guitarists to use a metronome but for drummers if you're not using a metronome for practice then you're not going to learn to stay in time. Playing with a metronome is the one most essential thing for all drummers and musicians in my opinion. But remember to start of slowly and then gradually build up your playing. This ensures accuracy and that your playing is as tight as possible.

The last thing I will mention today is that drummers should always protect their hearing. I feel that this is essential for all drummers but again, it's often overlooked. Always use earplugs when playing on your own or when practicing with other players. You'll thank me in future.

Overall, learning to play the drums is not easy, however, anyone with the drive to learn along with a structured practice routine can reach the heights of their musical heroes. Try your best to develop your own style a long the way as well. Nobody wants to be carbon copy of someone else.

Best Ways To Approach Learning To Play The Guitar

Everyone seems to have their own thoughts on the best ways to Learn The Guitar, yet I feel there are a few things that all guitar teachers can agree on when wanting to learn to play the guitar or any other instrument. I've made a list of all of the things you should keep in mind when you first start learning to play the guitar.

Learn To Play at a steady pace. There's nothing worse than guitar players who have rushed when they first start learning and it then effects their playing for years after. I understand that everyone wants to learn to play as quick as possible, But, sometimes the quickest way to learn something is by slowly building up accuracy and then the speed will come later. This is the number one mistake that beginners always make.

Always remember to alternate pick. This is the keystone of all playing. If you can alternate pick from the beginning then you'll be able to play songs by all the artists that you love. It always seems easier to down pick to begin with but please don't be mislead by this, because it can cause issues in your playing down the line unless you want to play green day songs forever.

Remember to learn you theory because it's very important when learning to play any instrument at all. I recommend learning in bitesize amounts that are easy to remember. Start with the notes on your fretboard, chord names, scales and then the rest will fall into place as time goes on. Many players miss this stage and it causes problems along the way. It can also be a bit embarrassing when you come across a player who knows what they are talking about.

Also try to make sure you learn the music that you love. Learning songs can make or break a player, if you learn music that you listen to in your spare time then you'll make much better progress than someone who learns music that a teacher has pushed the student towards. Learn what you love and the playing ability will always follow.

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Editors: musicteacher