1. Inspiring and motivating your students – teaching guitar well is often more about inspiring your students than teaching a new scale, chord or song.

2. Teaching them ‘new things’ to play/practice – Most guitar teachers understand this basic concept, but often struggle to know exactly how much ‘new content’ is too little or too much for each student. Most teachers ‘overwhelm’ their students with simply too much material in a short amount of time.

3. Helping them to solve their playing/musical problems – The best way to improve your guitar teaching is to understand exactly how to help any student overcome any problem.

Each of these areas has its own challenges, but for most teachers it is the last category (helping students solve guitar playing/musical problems) that can be the most difficult to consistently do well.

When teaching guitar to solve problems and bad habits, the first thing to do is be clear about  the process itself:

Identify the true cause of the problem. Remember that ‘symptoms’ of problems and ’causes’ of problems are often totally different things. A misdiagnosed problem (just like a misdiagnosed medical problem) can make things worse than doing nothing at all.

Find proven solutions to overcome this problem. Yes, this seems like an obvious point, but often teachers ‘guess’ or use the trial and error approach to teaching guitar. Surround yourself with other experienced guitar teachers. Ask them for their advice on your specific challenge, doing so may save you and your student a lot of time and frustration.

Communicate the causes and your solution to your student’s problem. Again, this may seem like common sense, but fact is, most teachers do not fully explain the cause and solutions to the problems students have, they sort of skip this part and move directly into implementing the solution. The reason why communicating the cause and solution to your student is so important is that, without the student truly knowing what these things are, they often won’t truly practice your solution diligently at home.

Implement the solution (training). To be the most effective, you need to do more than ‘teach what to do’, you need to ‘train’ them to do it. The ‘teaching part’ can usually be done quickly, but it is the ‘training’ that takes the time. Think more like a sports trainer and less like a school teacher as you implement solutions while teaching guitar (more on this below).

Hold their hand – You do not need to treat all your students like children (unless they are children), but when teaching guitar, it is important that you monitor your students’ motivation level and help them to keep it high. A mediocre guitar teacher who keeps his/her students highly motivated will almost always get much bigger results than a great ‘technical’ teacher who does little or nothing to keep students inspired and motivated – yet this is an area most teachers don’t do consistently well in – because they underestimate its importance.

Because students typically have multiple problems in their playing (inconsistent articulation, weak sense of timing, excess body tension, inefficient hand movement, excess string noise, just to name a few common ones), and because there are typically multiple causes to each of those problems, the hardest part about teaching guitar, as it relates to solving students’ playing problems and breaking bad habits, is knowing the best order to deal with the causes of a student’s problems. Timing is critical and so is the order.

Many (well intentioned) teachers make the mistake of trying to use ‘linear logic’ to help students break bad habits and overcome challenges. There are many problems with this, the main one is we don’t teach machines, we are teaching people. Everything we do, and when we do it, has a positive or negative impact in the mind of our students. In theory it might make perfect sense for a teacher to make the student deal with the most basic problems first. That seems logical right? Well, those that follow this all the time will have a hard time keeping students long enough to help them become the guitar players they wish to be.

Contrary to what many guitar teachers believe, fixing the most fundamental problems your students have in the beginning (or trying to break too many bad habits at once) does more harm than good for most students. Yes, problems and bad habits must be dealt with in order for your students to reach their maximum potential, but too much of this at the same time may kill the will for your students to endure the natural frustration that comes with learning to play guitar.

Each student is different and you need to get a sense of how much tolerance the student sitting in front of you can handle in the present moment. If you overestimate this, the result is likely going to lead to massive amounts of frustration for your student and he/she may give up lessons and playing guitar completely.

How long does it usually take your beginning guitar students, as an example, to sit or stand with ‘perfectly correct’ posture, use perfect left and right hand positions, use the correct picking motions and articulation etc. etc. when playing and practicing? Sure you can teach this in a minute or two, but how long will it take that student to instinctively do this all the time on his/her own without you reminding them? For most students, it takes a long time.

Is it okay to let your students continue to play and practice guitar when you know many basic things are wrong and that they will form bad habits by allowing them to go on in this way?

Most guitar teachers would say, “no, it’s not okay” and then proceed to immediately try to correct all of them as soon as possible. Other guitar teachers simply don’t notice or don’t care enough to address these things. They figure as long as students keep coming back to lessons, everything is good.

The best approach for teaching guitar is neither. To be clear, your top priority should be to keep your student coming back for as many lessons as possible – not simply because you make more money that way, but because, if a student gives up lessons, you can do nothing to help him/her. Obviously, you must deal with problems and bad habits though (to not do this would be the same as only feeding kids candy and never real food).

When teaching guitar to solve a problem, avoid dealing with the entire problem and all its causes at once. Begin with the one thing you can do for your student that will be easiest for him/her to correct. This will help to build confidence that he/she can begin to overcome the problem and that doing so wasn’t extremely hard to start with. Pay attention to how much of this you think they can handle right now. If it looks good, then give them the next thing to fix.

Although some guitar playing problems and bad habits can be really big issues to deal with, try not to make the entire lesson only about solving problems. Most students need to get a sense of forward progress and even though solving problems is forward progress, they can’t always see that themselves even after you explain it to them, so give them something else that is fulfilling for them to play and practice.  A little sugar with the medicine helps it go down easier .

Test your guitar teaching skills.

About the author: Tom Hess is a highly successful guitar teacher, professional touring guitarist and recording artist. He coaches other guitar teachers on how to teach guitar

© Tom Hess Music Corporation All Rights Reserved

There can be more than one reason why a student may struggle when trying to change chords smoothly. So the first thing to do when dealing with this challenge is to diagnose why the problem exists. You need to determine if your student has one of the following problems:

• A. A physical coordination problem
• B. He/she has not been practicing
• C. A lack of understanding of what needs to be done
• D. A mental processing problem

Most guitar teachers assume the reason is either A. (a physical coordination problem) or B. (little or no practice). Fact is, most of the time this is wrong. The majority of students actually do attempt to practice. And true physical coordination problems are rare.

For most guitar students almost all guitar playing problems are caused by their brains, not by their hands! This is why many efforts to help them may not work well.

As I mentioned before, there can many reasons why a student is struggling with this (or any other issue) so it is not possible to give a one-size-fits-all solution in an article. There are however three powerful guitar teaching tips that can help solve this problem with beginning guitar students.

1. Get your students to keep their strumming hand moving in correct rhythm no matter how far behind the fretting hand may be in forming the next chord. In other words, tell your students (when practicing this way) to not allow the strumming hand to wait on the fretting hand! Practicing in this way will solve a lot of other rhythm and timing problems in the future for this student! The student should practice this way about one third of their practice time until the problem is resolved.
2. Get your student to not use the strumming hand at all and simply change chords with the fretting hand quickly (rapid fire, one after another). The student should practice this way about a third of the time until the problem is resolved.
3. Make your student play a chord he/she needs to master. Tell him/her to grip the strings hard when playing the chord, then to relax totally (without taking fingers away from the strings/chord), then tell the student to squeeze again all fingers at the same time! Then relax.

The goal here is to train his/her brain to make all fingers move and relax together and not one finger at a time (which is how beginning guitar students make chords on their own – big mistake)… Repeat this exercise until the student can do it well.

Next, have the student move fingers off the strings but maintain the basic chord shape while hovering over the strings…. Then press down on the strings and make the chord… repeat this many times and then gradually move further and further away from the strings before making the chord again. Eventually from an open hand the student should be able to form the chord easily… but in each case you must be sure all fingers are moving and relaxing at the same time, not one finger at a time! The student should practice this way about a third of the time until the problem is resolved.

Notice that these solutions of the problem are all ‘physical’, but they are designed to overcome the student’s “mental processing problem” because the student has not learned to separate and isolate each motion. The beginning guitar student’s brain is overloaded with too much information to apply at the same time, this is why we work on method #1 and #2 above to free the brain from too much processing at once. The last method (#3) is designed in order to break the student’s mental processing habit of sending separate and linear messages to each finger of the hand. What we want is to train the brain to process and send one message to all fingers involved.

To get more help on teaching guitar and building a successful guitar teaching business, check out these fifteen free guitar teaching tips.

About the author: Tom Hess is a highly successful guitar teacher, professional touring guitarist and recording artist. He coaches other guitar teachers on how to teach guitar.

If you are articulating the notes you want to play accurately, but you are still hearing sloppiness in your playing then this article will greatly help you to improve your guitar technique by eliminating string noise.

To effectively mute guitar strings we do not want to be heard, we need to use two totally different sets of muting techniques: One to stop unwanted noise from LOWER (in pitch) strings; and another to mute the higher (in pitch) strings.

Although there is more than one way to mute guitar strings, some methods offer advantages that others do not and are therefore (in my opinion at least) better.

Muting The Lower Strings

Many guitar players use the palm of their picking hand to mute lower strings. Although this technique is pretty good at keeping most of the lower strings quiet there are two big disadvantages with this technique.

1. Muting with your palm will cause a slight delay in the muting of a string which has just been played a moment before. This delay causes brief moments of string noise. This happens for two main reasons:

• The flesh of your palm is much softer than the side of your thumb and therefore takes more time for your palm to actually stop the string from sounding.
• It is not easy to get your palm in the perfect position to consistently and reliably mute strings that are adjacent to the one you are playing in all playing situations.

2. When you use your palm to mute noise, the natural position of your guitar pick (when not playing) is now away from the strings. This is what I call your “Natural Point Of Rest”.

When your pick is at rest up and away from the strings (in between playing each note), it causes your picking hand to work harder and significantly increases the chance for sloppy playing, string noise and slower picking speed.

A great solution to these problems (and to improve your guitar technique) is to mute with your picking hand thumb for all lower (in pitch) strings like this.

Notice that the “Natural Point Of Rest” when using thumb muting is now ON the strings (as shown in the picture above). This greatly reduces wasted motion and enables you to pick faster with much less effort.

Muting The Higher Strings

Many guitar players are totally unaware of the possibilities for muting string noise from the higher (thinner) strings and this part of their playing is often one of the causes of sloppy playing.

There are actually two main techniques for muting noise from the higher strings that I teach to my students when training them to improve their guitar technique.

The first technique involves using the underside (the fingerprint side) of the fretting hand’s index finger. This part of your finger is used to “lightly touch” the higher strings that you want to mute. The key word in the last sentence is “lightly”. You do not want to press down so hard that these notes begin to sound like regular fretted notes. Simply rest your finger on them thus preventing them from sounding.

In addition, you can also mute these higher strings by using the unused fingers of your picking hand (fingers that are not being used to hold the pick, such as middle, ring and pinkie).

This extra layer of muting ensures that there is no possibility for the strings higher than the one you are playing to ring out and add sloppy string noise into your guitar playing.

When these ideas are combined with the string muting techniques of muting the lower strings, your playing will instantly become much cleaner than before. Now, every time you play, the only guitar strings that will be making sound are the ones you are playing!

If you have been working hard to perfect your guitar technique and two-hand synchronization (as mentioned in How To Improve Your Guitar Technique – Part 1), then you already know that if your articulation/synchronization is developed well but your muting is not, the result will still be sloppy guitar playing. So, when trying to improve your guitar technique keep in mind the five areas discussed in this series of articles:

1. Focused Awareness
2. Articulation – The First Half of Two Hand Synchronization
3. The Release – The Second Half of Two Hand Synchronization
4. Muting The Higher Strings
5. Muting The Lower Strings

To get more guitar playing help check out my 15 Free Guitar Tips.

About the author:Tom Hess is a professional guitarist and teaches electric guitar lessons online.

©2009 Tom Hess Music Corporation.
All Rights reserved.

Practice to become a professional musician - Continuously work on improving your musical skills, but before you think, “That’s obvious. Tell me something I don’t know,” there are important things to consider. It’s not necessarily about learning more techniques, improving your guitar speed or increasing the size of your chord vocabulary. Think about what a professional musician really needs to know and do musically. Playing your instrument well at home is one thing, but playing well consistently in the studio or on stage is completely different, thus the training and practicing required to play well in those professional environments are also very different.

Yes, you should continue to improve your overall musical skills, but if you want to get started on a music career you will need to specifically practice your ability to play well “consistently” in a variety of higher-pressure situations. Amateurs practice something to “get it right.” Professionals practice to “never get it wrong.”

So the next time you practice your guitar, instead of trying to play something “faster” or to learn something “new,” focus on playing whatever you can already play “consistently well.”

Think about a professional guitar player like Eric Clapton. He’s not a great technical guitar player at all, his knowledge of music theory is probably not vast, but one of the reasons why he became successful in his early days (and continues to be successful today) is because he can play on his own level “consistently well” every night in any environment.

In addition to the “consistency factor” just mentioned, there are other things professionals have practice that most guitar players typically don’t implement in their practicing. For example, having a really good ear is something that professional musicians rely on heavily, yet most guitar players don’t dedicate practice time to develop their aural skills.

Your Recordings - If your music skills are good and your songs are good it might be all for nothing if your recordings suck. You do not necessarily have to invest huge amounts of money to record in a great studio, nor do you have to invest huge amounts of money in a great home studio (although it is nice), but you DO need the playing on your recordings to sound TIGHT (making everything rhythmically PERFECT, appropriate dynamic playing, etc.)!

Do NOT make the mistake of thinking, oh this is only a demo, so tight playing is not that critical when making a simple demo. I assure you, IT IS! Virtually anyone in the music industry today who hears your music will immediately notice if the performance recording is not tight. And if it’s not, they won’t be interested. Why? Because your “demo” is supposed to show others both your songs and your musical abilities. The assumption will be that if your demo is not tight, then your live sound will be amateurish and putting you in the studio will cost a fortune when you have to play something five hundred times to get it right.

So if you want to build a music career, you should practice recording yourself frequently in order to make your studio playing as tight as possible.

Your Live Playing - It’s been said that successful music careers are built on the stage. While not all musicians start their music careers this way, it is true that your live playing is a critical component and can make or break your chances of developing a music career.

Record companies want bands that can sell themselves from the stage. That means when a band plays live, people listening should want to actually buy the band’s music, and all other band-related merchandise. It’s a fact that your fans will buy more during and after a great live show than after a mediocre one even if the songs played are exactly the same. The music industry (or successful bands you might like to join) look very closely at your ability to create a great live show experience for audiences.

Most musicians and amateur bands don’t truly work to improve their live performance skills. Great live playing is much more than simply playing songs while standing (and hoping not to make mistakes), yet for the majority of local musicians and bands this is all they really seem to focus on when playing live.

Where your fans live is really important - If you want to get signed to a major record label, which do you think is better?

1. To have 5,000 fans in your country (or around the world).
2. To have 5,000 fans in your local area only.

The answer is “B”. It is much easier to get 5,000 fans around the country (or the entire world) than it is to get 5,000 fans in your local area. Everyone in the music industry knows this (including record companies). If you sold 5,000 copies worldwide of your new album on your own, that is good accomplishment, but if you sold 5,000 in your local area on your own that would be a major accomplishment in the eyes of record labels.

Why does it matter? Record labels know that if you can sell 5,000 copies in one location on your own, then it makes sense that a record company could probably sell even more copies not only in your area but in many cities/countries.

By having so many fans in one area you demonstrate to the music industry that you have a lot of proven value to offer and their willingness to invest into your music career will go way up!

Although the Internet is a great tool for musicians many artists are focusing on reaching out to the whole world at once and don’t invest enough time and energy into building a valuable local foundation of fans.

Before the internet, bands typically tried to build a strong local fan base around their city. Those that succeeded in this area were most likely to build a successful music career. But since the Internet has opened up so many new possibilities, many unsigned musicians/bands have forgotten the basics which are still very relevant to getting signed to a major record company.

What’s next? - Obviously there are a lot of things you need to do to develop a music career, but this article is designed to get you started now so that you will be in a better position to do the next steps after you have implemented the concepts above. Here’s a quick summary of action steps to take now:

• In addition to improving your overall musical skills, practice to play ‘consistently well’ with the skills you already have.
• Practice recording yourself frequently in order to make your studio playing as tight as possible.
• Work on improving your live performance skills (stage presence, playing in totally different environments, etc.).
• Build your fan base locally as well as internationally (using different strategies for each).

Get fifteen additional free music career tips that will help you build your career.

About the author: Tom Hess is a professional guitarist and mentors musicians to start a career in music

© 2009 Tom Hess Music Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

There are five main challenges that electric guitar players must overcome in order to learn and master guitar technique. These five guitar technique challenges are divided into three groups:

1. Awareness
2. Sounds you ‘want’ to hear (the notes you are attempting to play cleanly)
3. Sounds you do ‘not’ want to hear (the sloppy sounds you sometimes hear such as unwanted string noise)

Today we will take a look at the first two groups. In Part 2 of this article series we’ll focus on the last group of guitar technique challenges.

Focused Awareness – Many guitar players are not fully aware of every imperfection in their guitar technique. Some of these players do sense that ‘something’ may be wrong, but are not sure about exactly what their specific guitar technique problems are. Obviously, you cannot effectively correct a technical problem until and unless you know exactly what it is.

There are two main ways you can approach this:

1. Record yourself playing a something you want to improve on. Listen back (carefully) at 25%-33% speed so that you more easily identify any unclear notes, excess string noise, scratchy noises between the notes, inconsistency in your pick attack, etc.). You may or may not be able to hear everything on your own (many people simply can’t yet) and you may or may not be able to ‘correctly’ identify the cause of each imperfection present in your guitar playing. If you can that’s great, but if you’re not sure then…
2. Work with a guitar teacher to evaluate your playing and use that feedback to begin the process of making any necessary changes to your technique. Not only will a good teacher help you to play clean by telling you ‘what to do’, but also because he will hear problems that you may not really be hearing.

IF you have an excellent ear, you should be able to identify the fine details of your problem, if not, work with your guitar teacher.

Articulation – The First Half of Two Hand Synchronization

The second step is to focus on your articulation. Articulation is the first half of two hand synchronization. To play cleaner you need your hands to fret and pick each note at precisely the same time (simultaneously).

There are three critical things you need to do to improve your articulation:

1. Use a clean guitar tone when practicing (no distortion and NO effects!). Distortion and effects will mask any imperfections in your articulation, so do not practice with them when focusing on “Articulation” (the rules will change when we talk about “The Release” in the next section).
2. Play loud enough so that you can truly hear what is happening as you are playing.
3. When you are practicing something slowly MAKE SURE that you do NOT change ANYTHING about how you approach and articulate each note. Fact is, most guitar players actually play very differently when playing slow compared to when playing fast. If you change anything in the way you are articulating the notes (such as playing with a lighter touch, using a weaker or stronger pick attack, changing your hand position, pick angle etc.) you will NOT fully improve your technique because the sound you make when playing will be different and therefore harder to detect and identify any problems with your articulation.

The Release – The Second Half of Two Hand Synchronization

The third step toward cleaner playing is ‘the release’. For most guitar players ‘the release’ is the hardest problem to detect and correct. That’s generally because once players articulate a note cleanly, they ignore what immediately comes after (small sloppy noise in between the notes or two notes slightly ‘bleeding’ together.

And practicing your guitar with a ‘clean’ tone (no distortion) – as described above when focusing on articulation – almost always masks problems in the release phase of playing a note. This is why many people think their guitar playing sounds pretty clean when practicing without distortion but sense something is wrong when later playing with distortion… but they are not sure what the problem is… or worse, they actually do not hear the problem at all (but other people do). This is why focused awareness is so critical.

I use multiple steps to help my guitar students fully solve this problem (not all of which can be fully demonstrated or expressed in an article), but here are the absolutely necessary steps toward correcting problems with ‘the release’.

1. Practice your guitar WITH distortion (but NO EFFECTS!) now. (Notice, this is the exact opposite advice I gave you to identify and correct ‘articulation’ problems above).
2. Again you need to play your guitar loud enough to hear precisely what is coming out of your amplifier (other noises in the room can mask the subtle things you need to be listening for).
3. Practice slow (but as stated above, do NOT change ANYTHING in the way you articulate OR RELEASE a note compared to when you are playing fast!).
4. Listen for any subtle noise in between notes (you will probably notice a ‘scratchy sound’ just before you play the next note). If you have a hard time hearing anything then record yourself and listen back to the recording at 1/4 or 1/3 speed (I guarantee you will hear this short scratchy sound now!)
5. Now that you know what to listen for, you will probably notice it all the time whenever you listen very carefully… and THEN you are ready to being to correct the problem…

Fact is there can be several reasons why your guitar playing may not be clean during the release of a note, but the most common cause is this: When you release a note your brain is probably telling your finger to ‘lift off’ (make an upward motion away from the string you just played). This can cause all sorts of nasty technique problems (fatigue, slower guitar playing speeds, and sloppy guitar playing… among other things).

The solution is to stop your brain from sending your fingers instructions to ‘lift off; of each note and instead to simply ‘relax’. When your finger relaxes it will naturally, immediately and effortlessly ‘release’ the note you just played. There are two main benefits to this:

1. Because the motion is effortless, you can play faster and for a much longer time (and most importantly) with greater ease.
2. Because your brain does not give the finger the instruction to make a ‘lift off’ motion this actually prevents your finger from moving (or preparing to move) prematurely (which is a major cause of the sloppy ‘scratchy sound’ that may be present in your guitar playing.

It is now very important to realize two things. First you CAN solve these problems and improve your guitar technique. Second, it won’t happen over night, this will take time and some consistent practice (possibly over several weeks or longer). But the benefits of being able to play guitar clean are well worth the patience required.

To get more help with your guitar playing check out my 15 Free Guitar Tips.

In Part 2 of this article series we’ll focus on the last group of guitar technique challenges.
About the author:Tom Hess is a professional guitarist and teaches electric guitar lessons online.

©2009 Tom Hess Music Corporation.
All Rights reserved.

All these things are very common problems guitar teachers have when teaching beginners.

I’m going to show you five mistakes that most guitar teachers make when teaching beginning guitar students and how you can avoid them.

But before I go into detail about this, I strongly encourage you to test how effective you are in teaching beginning guitar students. I have prepared an assessment where you can easily find out if you are giving your students the best you can. New teachers erroneously assume that teaching guitar to beginning students is easier than teaching more advanced students… fact is, this is totally false.

Teaching beginners effectively is very critical and assumes a great deal of responsibility. Get it right and these people will learn to love to play guitar and do well in the process, get it wrong and they will often leave disillusioned and discouraged to play guitar.

Before reading further, test your effectiveness on how to teach beginning guitar.

Avoid These Common Mistakes

Mistake #1 Using linear guitar teaching methods with beginners.

The vast majority of guitar teachers teach beginning guitar students in a logical linear way. The problem with this approach is that it doesn’t work well for beginners. Students progress slowly, or give up, leaving both teachers and students very frustrated. Reading this, you may think: ‘But all books for beginning guitar students are written in this way?’ You are right, they are written in a very logical linear way, and this is a huge part of the problem. The linear teaching approach makes perfect sense if you are teaching a topic that is linear such as mathematics or science, but you are teaching music – an art that requires a different method to teaching and learning. Yet the conventional way beginner books are written (and the conventional way beginning students are taught) is typically very linear. When some teachers realize that it doesn’t work, they start to not use any book at all and instead make their own attempt to teaching beginning students with their own version of the linear teaching approach. This often produces mediocre results… some teachers simply ‘accept’ those mediocre results, while others begin searching (again) for a better method of teaching beginners that will work all (or at least most) of the time. One of those better methods is the “geometric guitar teaching method”. With this approach students learn to apply and integrate a wider range of necessary musical skills from the beginning of their training.

Mistake #2 Teaching total beginning guitar students the wrong things in the first several lessons such as: music theory, finger exercises, how to read music notation. Although each of those areas are very useful for most students to know (especially music theory), it is simply not the right time to introduce those topics at this point. Why? Well, there are several reasons, but the main one is that most total beginners will become bored, quickly lose interest, and may hurt their confidence at this point. Of course there will be some students who can respond well to learning these areas from the very beginning, but many will not.

Some teachers feel they are being an irresponsible teacher if they don’t teach this stuff right away. They insist on teaching total beginners these topics, usually causing the teacher to make mistake #3, listed next. For the vast majority of total beginning guitar students, the primary teaching goal should be to build the students’ confidence by getting them to actually do some guitar playing as soon as possible – this will help you to also avoid mistake #3.

Mistake #3 Not building the critical self-confidence that all students need (especially beginners). New students of the guitar (total beginners) are totally clueless about learning to play guitar, guitar lessons, and most importantly, about ‘themselves’. Beginners don’t know if they will actually be able to ever learn to play guitar. They don’t know if they have any potential. They are wondering if they have any natural talent at all. They’re wondering if they actually need to have natural talent to play guitar. They worry that they might be too old, or too young. They worry that maybe their hands are too big, or too small. They don’t know if they will enjoy practicing or not. They worry they may not have an ‘ear for music’ or if they have any rhythm.

You must help your students to remove these self-doubts as soon as possible… but encouraging words are often not enough. You will need to use guitar teaching methods and materials which will naturally and quickly show your beginning students some very real tangible proof that they really can, will and are learning to play guitar well.

Mistake #4 Teaching beginning students using a similar (but more simple) approach to teaching intermediate and advanced students. As mentioned above, building self-confidence in the student should be the foundation with which to build your lessons upon, but after this is established and nurtured in your beginning guitar students, there are still aspects of your approach to teaching which should be different than it is for more advanced guitar players. For example, advanced students are more likely to understand, appreciate and be willing to practice a tedious exercise countless times in order to achieve something on the guitar – most beginners cannot (or will not) fully understand, appreciate these ideas nor actually be willing to practice in this way for long periods of time. Your teaching methods must match the general mindset of the type of student you are teaching. Focus on teaching ‘people’ more than teaching ‘music’… It’s all about your student.

Mistake #5 Using the trial-and-error approach to learn how to teach guitar. Fact is most guitar teachers try to learn how to teach guitar by treating their students like laboratory rats in an experiment. Of course you can learn some good things from hands-on teaching, but it’s unfair to your students to learn ‘only’ in this way. With all of the resources available for guitar teachers today, there is no excuse for teachers to gain all their teaching experience using the trial and error approach. Seek out proven training programs for guitar teachers, acquire guitar teaching resources, or at least read more articles on how to become a better guitar teacher.

When you avoid the guitar teaching mistakes mentioned above both you and your students will benefit in many ways. You will both experience a greater fulfillment during your lessons. Your students will make much faster, easier and better progress in their guitar playing. You will likely keep your students active in taking lessons from you for a longer period of time. And your reputation as a guitar teacher will only be enhanced in the process.

Since you are still reading this article, it is clear that you have a sincere interest in helping your beginning guitar students (that’s good!). If you have not already done so, test your effectiveness on how to teach beginners guitar.

About the author: Tom Hess is a highly successful guitar teacher, professional touring guitarist and recording artist. He coaches other guitar teachers on how to teach guitar.

©2009 Tom Hess Music Corporation.
All Rights reserved.

Fact is, one of the biggest reasons why so few people become great guitarists is not because they lack talent – their shortcoming lies in not knowing all of the things they need to do or practice in order to reach their goal. People usually have more than enough things to practice (licks, techniques, exercises, scales etc.), but they struggle most with creating an overall plan to get them the result they want.

Taking your guitar playing ability from wherever it is right now to exactly where you always dreamed it could be in the shortest amount of time can be done. Having a well-structured, yet flexible, guitar practice regimen is a key first step to do this.

I know… I know… You’ve heard this before, it seems ‘obvious’, so why talk about it again here?

Well, unfortunately, many guitarists have misconceptions about having an efficient and effective practice schedule. Others have tried it for a while but either didn’t stick with it, or had an ineffective practice plan to start with.

Have you ever believed any of the following myths?

Effective guitar practicing routines are boring; they take all the fun out of playing guitar.

I started putting myself on a practice schedule for guitar, but it was hard to stick to it.

Practice schedules are too rigid and they restrict, or put limitations on, my creativity.

A guitar practice regimen is too structured for me, I want the freedom to allow myself to drift into random things when playing guitar.

Practice routines for guitar just don’t work. I can make more progress without one.

I can’t stand to practice the same things in the same way each day.

Now think about this:

The truth is, ‘bad’ practice routines are awful! However, efficient, effective and flexible ones have the power to totally transform your guitar playing, musicianship and your creativity in a shorter period of time. Imagine how much better your guitar playing life will be like after you fully reached all of your musical goals!

Good practice regimens won’t hurt your creativity. The opposite is true because you are gaining the tools to become more creative. And your schedule can include ‘creative time’ to work on writing new songs, improvising, etc.

It’s not boring to practice that which directly relates to the very things you want to achieve as a guitar player and musician. Yes, practicing the same exercise for thirty minutes is boring, which is why you shouldn’t design a guitar practice schedule in such a way. We want to create a structure that works, not one that will drive you crazy.

You do not need to spend all your guitar practice time with a fixed schedule. If you have ninety minutes to practice, invest forty-five to sixty minutes working from your planned guitar practicing regimen. Use the rest of time to freely do whatever you feel like playing that day.

The best routines are not the same each day. A good guitar practice workout schedule should be effective, efficient and flexible.

A practice schedule is a roadmap to the freedom of being able to play whatever you want! But this doesn’t mean that you don’t have any room to have fun, be creative, and enjoy playing guitar in the process. The only difference is that now you will be enjoying the process more while you get better, and avoid mindlessly playing around on the guitar with no direction or sense of purpose. As a result, it will take you much less time to become the exact kind of excellent guitar player you want to be.

The best way to think about an efficient practice schedule is with an analogy of a map. When you prepare to travel somewhere, you first analyze where you are (Point A), and then prepare the most direct and time efficient route of arriving to your destination (Point B).

Eight Steps to Creating Your Own Guitar Practice Routine

Step 1. Get very clear on what your LONG TERM guitar playing / musical goals are. Beware of distractions – there is a big difference between ‘short term goals’ and ‘distractions’. True short-term goals should be consistent with your long-term goals. If they aren’t, then you might be simply distracting yourself from what you really want to achieve as a guitar player and musician. When creating your practice routine, focus mainly on long-term goals.

Step 2. Balance your existing strengths and RELEVANT weaknesses. Seek to turn your strengths into super strengths and ‘only’ work on weaknesses that are truly ‘relevant’ to your goals (see Step 4 below).

Step 3. Be realistic about how much time you can practice each day. As mentioned above, you can and should allow ‘free time’ in your schedule to learn, practice, or do other things with your guitar outside of your written guitar practice regimen.

Step 4. You must be 100% sure you really know all the musical elements which are needed to reach your long term goals, AND you need to be clear about which of these elements are the ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ priorities for you to focus on right now in order to reach your specific goals. To get help, I have created a totally free resource for you to use http://tomhess.net/goalsmanifestation.aspx

Step 5. Contrary to popular belief, creativity CAN be taught, learned and practiced. Always include creativity development into your practice schedule (or work on it at least in your free time).

Step 6. Application is key! Be sure to add time each day to work on applying your skills even if you have not mastered them yet! It’s a big mistake to work only on mastering something before seeking to apply it.

Step 7. Don’t create the same schedule for each day of the week, your schedule should be based on larger period of time (I use an eight-day practice and learning schedule for my students – works much better compared to a routine that repeats itself each day). Maybe two or three of the days are the same, but the other days are a little different (yet still based on the above steps mentioned).

Step 8. Create three to five different eight-day practice regimens. Use each one twice (sixteen days) before working with the next one. Be sure that when you create them that each are based on the first seven steps above.

What’s Next?

1. Get committed!
2. Stay committed! Follow through with your plan and watch your guitar playing get better and easier. If you find it hard to stay committed, focus on the ‘reasons’ behind the goals you have set for yourself, in other words, keep in mind “why” you want to reach those goals. How you will feel after you achieve them and are able to be/do/have what you want as a musician.

Most aspiring musicians receive a lot of advice from friends and family about the best approach to take with building their music career. Among the many things suggested, is the idea of having a backup plan. Many people give advice about “the need to have something to fall back on in case the music career doesn’t work out” or “a Plan B”. Typically, musicians are encouraged to go to school and get a degree in something they can easily find a job in, and do music on the side, in their “free time”.

If/when you reach the point where your music career begins to develop, you are probably advised to work less in your day job and focus more on the music until you can leave the day job and make the music career work for you. This advice sounds good in theory, but in reality fails to work as intended in almost every case. Why? Usually the job that most musicians get to support themselves until their music career kicks off, has nothing to do with music in general, or their music career specifically. As a result, most end up in a very frustrating situation that makes it virtually impossible to achieve any kind of lasting success as a professional musician.

Four Reasons why this kind of “backup plan” is usually doomed to fail

Before I go into detail about some reasons why this kind of “backup plan” is usually not working as intended, I want you to test yourself and the effectiveness of your strategy to become a professional musician. It will really help you to take this test BEFORE reading the rest of the article, so that you are not biased in your answers.

Do you think that your “backup plan” will work and will lead you to a rewarding and stable long- term music career? Take this survey to find out before reading further.

Reason #1: Not having an effective exit strategy

The idea of slowly phasing out your day job while building your music career is good, but in order to work, it needs to be done in the right way. Most musicians have nothing planned or prepared that will allow them to gradually decrease the time spent at their day job and focus more on music. When choosing a “backup plan”, musicians typically find a job that is the most “safe and secure” and the one that pays the most money. However, most people fail to plan the “exit strategy” and think ahead to the time when their music career situation will allow you to focus less of your time on the day job. When they finally reach that point, they realize that they are trapped in their day job and are unable to “gradually” phase it out. They are faced with the choice of either quitting the job entirely, or sticking to it until retirement (more on this shortly).

The best exit plan is to have a job that will allow you to gradually decrease the number of hours you spend on it: from 40 hours per week to 30, from 30 hours to 20, from 20 to 10, until eventually you can quit the job altogether! So you must take care to select an occupation that allows a lot of flexibility in work schedule. That means you need to be careful to select an occupation that allows a lot of flexibility in work schedule. This way, when the time is right, you can make a “gradual” transition into a full time music career. Unfortunately, most traditional occupations (such as being an accountant, computer programmer, office manager etc…) do not allow this flexibility. Remember, your boss at work will not all of a sudden allow you to “work three or four days per week instead of five”, simply because you want to work on your new CD an extra few days per week. It is possible to begin by working in a non-music related job at first, BUT do not select “any” job offer without considering the exit strategy first.

An ideal job for an aspiring professional musician is teaching guitar. Not only can you make very good money doing it, but you are in complete control over how many hours you choose to work. Not everyone may desire to teach full time for the rest of their life (and this is fine). But as long as you are going to be working anyway, why not do something that is already related to what you enjoy, help students reach their goals faster and make money in the process? In addition, teaching is already a “music related” activity that is probably much more fun to do than sitting in an office!

Another possibility is to work as an independent contractor in sales or marketing or doing consulting work for hire. Always check about the flexibility of work schedule before accepting a job offer. Remember that in most industries, the 40-60 hour work week is the norm, with little or no possibility for part time employment. This makes it impossible to make a smooth transition to a full time music career.

Reason #2: There is too much risk involved

Slowly phasing out your day job seems to be a very ‘safe and secure’ approach, but it can actually backfire and “trap” you by its sense of security. If you are making $60,000 per year at your day job, and have managed (through working nights and weekends) to build up your music related income to $25,000 per year, then, all together, you have a total income of $85,000 for the year. Here is where the reality catches up to you. Should you decide to go full time into music, you will invariably need to quit your day job completely at some point. Until you can recover and build your music career to higher and higher levels, you will be making $60,000 less per year than before! This kind of risk is uncomfortable to think about for most people (especially those who get married, have kids and/or have significant expenses), and keeps them trapped at their day jobs their whole lives.

Reason #3: You are often not able to take advantage of opportunities.

What if you put extraordinary effort on nights and weekends into recording a great sounding CD with your band, spend a lot of time promoting it in hopes of getting signed by a record company and go on tour, and then you really get the opportunity to do a 10 week tour in another country in the world. It is VERY probable that you would NOT get paid a lot of money while on a first tour, but as a whole, this kind of tour is exactly the kind of breakthrough you have been searching for. What are you going to do? Are you going to turn down a huge opportunity to advance your music career? Or are you going to agree to take a huge cut in pay by quitting your day job to do the tour? I think you can agree that neither of these options sounds entirely appealing. Wouldn’t it be great to do the tour and not worry about how you are going to feed yourself (and your family) while you are gone?

Reason #4: There is not much quality time and energy to get anything done.

This may seem like a more subtle issue, but it is actually very important. If your most productive hours in the day are spent on the least productive activities, then reaching your goals will take MUCH longer than it needs to. Think about it: if you wake up at 6:00, get to work by 8:00 or 9:00 and spend eight to ten hours there, and another one to two hours commuting back home, by the time you are ready to begin working on your music career, you are already tired! This is also not taking into account the time taken up by other things in life that you have to tend to. It will take a truly extraordinary effort to get anything worthwhile accomplished during the time on nights and weekends, to build multiple streams of music related income that will enable you to quit your non-music related job without putting yourself and your family in financial struggle.

Now that you see why this kind of backup plan isn’t as good as it seems to be, you may ask yourself what you should do instead.

What is the solution?

Well, having no backup plan is definitely NOT the solution. In order to build a successful music career, you need to be prepared and you cannot simply hope that “things will work out”. The underlying problem with the conventional backup plan I described is that it originates from thinking about how not “to lose”. This type of thinking lacks real ambition and it forces you to stick to that which is the most familiar and so called “safe and secure”. As a result, you typically end up with what you wish for: a familiar, average, safe and secure life. However, this attitude rarely leads to significant achievements, breakthroughs and victories in the music industry.

What the most successful musicians do is arrange their backup plan or Plan B around their MUSIC CAREER GOALS (Plan A). This requires real ambition and courage, and it is based on thinking about how “to win”. This also requires you to think how you can integrate Plan B with your present and future life as a professional musician.

There are many possibilities for truly effective “back up” (which are more like “support”) plans. In many cases, they involve designing systems and multiple income streams coming from music business sources that will support them continuously.

It’s important to put a lot of thought into which kinds of “backup plans” and approaches are best suited to your specific goals. To find the right plan for you, there are two important things you need to do:

First, study how the music business works. This is key! Understanding it will greatly help you with designing the most effective strategy for reaching your goals in the fastest period of time. Building a successful, long term career takes a lot of focused effort and dedication. The more you understand about the music business, the easier it will be to design the kind of backup plan that will help you reach your goals instead of restricting and trapping you.

Second, be careful about taking advice from people who may have great intentions, but lack knowledge and experience about how the music industry works. Very often, our friends and family, with the very best intentions at heart, attempt to give us advice on what to do to “make it”. However, if you pay attention, you will notice that this advice has a common theme, which is “here is what you must do in order not to lose”. Very rarely do you get advice about how “to win”! This mentality (as described above) keeps you away from taking steps that will propel your dreams forward.

To make matters worse, although your friends and family may have the best intentions in their heart, most of the time, they simply aren’t qualified to give advice about the music business. It will be similar to you asking your brother who is a plumber (for example) about how to cure a disease, or asking your uncle who is a carpenter (for example) about how to solve a legal problem. It doesn’t matter that these people have your best interest at heart. If they don’t know what they are talking about (in a particular subject), they are not likely to give helpful advice.

If you truly want advice that works and if you want to learn the strategies of how to reach all of your music career goals, you need to find a mentor who you can rely on for effective advice. This means learning from someone who has already done what you want to do, and ideally someone who has trained many others to do the same.

The most effective, predictable and safe strategies to “phasing in” your music career

Now that you know about the problems with the conventional approaches to backup plans, I will show you the characteristics of a good backup plan (Plan B).

1. Flexibility

Your plan must be flexible. This can mean many things. One of them is having the ability to “gradually” decrease the amount of time you spend working on Plan B and increase the time you invest into Plan A! This can also mean the ability to integrate (leverage) the skills acquired (or the results earned) from Plan B into Plan A.

2. Passivity

Your plan should be mostly passive: it will really help if your Plan B mostly consists of passive income streams that you have created by only investing the work once! It should be pretty obvious to see how this will free up a lot of time to dedicate to your Plan A (your music career)!

3. Diversity

The plan should be diversified: do not become so dependent on only one stream of income! Many people argue that a music career is not secure, when nothing could be further from the truth. Which do you think is more likely, that a company lays off an employee in the blink of an eye (cutting off his one and only source of income, the paycheck), or that a music teacher with forty students (who essentially has at least forty “diversified” income streams) will suddenly lose all of his clients overnight?

By making your Plan B options diversified, you also build your own financial security, without depending on anyone else. I don’t know about you, but I feel much safer knowing that I am in control of my own future, rather than putting my faith into someone else’s idea of security.

4. Congruency and Relevance

This means that Plan B needs to make your primary goal (music career) MORE likely to occur! This also means (ideally), that the time you invest into developing skills and experience in Plan B can be easily used to enhance Plan A. For example, if you are known as an excellent guitar teacher, you can easily integrate teaching clinics and workshops with performances of your music, selling your future music CDs, other merchandise etc…etc…

I hope that you can see now how this strategy is vastly different (and superior) to the conventional wisdom of getting a day job, and then doing your best on evenings and weekends to launch a music career from scratch.

As you design your own path to a successful music career, compare the steps you are taking against the criteria above and modify your strategy if necessary. This will help save you from the frustration felt by most of the ‘wannabe’ musicians, who realize (much too late) that their strategy leaves them no way to manifest their dreams.

If you have missed the survey mentioned at the beginning of this article, check it out here.

© 2009 Tom Hess Music Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.

Most guitar teachers struggle with at least some of the areas mentioned above. Many years ago, I was no different. I used to have a difficult time balancing the challenges of trying to help more students, become a more effective guitar teacher, grow my teaching income, and have time left at the end of the day. When I began teaching guitar, I had only a few students and struggled to support myself on teaching income only. My biggest challenges were getting consistent results with different types of students, having reliable systems in place for attracting more students and keeping my existing students from quitting before reaching their musical goals. I also couldn’t see an effective way to increase my income other than increasing the number of hours I taught or raising my lesson rates to very high levels.

Unfortunately, I could not find much help from anyone on how to change my situation. Although there were some very good musicians teaching guitar in my area, very few had anything that I considered to be a thriving guitar teaching business, meaning one that ensures effective, powerful and consistent results for students as well as financial success for the guitar teacher.

It became clear to me that following the conventional approaches to teaching guitar was not going to bring me the results I was after, neither for myself nor for my students. It took a long time of studying successful business people (outside of music), and a lot of trial and error, before I finally began to understand why my earlier attempts to become successful teaching guitar were so ineffective. Eventually I realized what I needed to change in my approach before I would be ready to start a highly successful guitar teaching business.

In this article, I will share with you nine of the biggest mistakes I used to make as a guitar teacher and that I notice many guitar teachers make. By correcting these mistakes, I was able to completely transform my guitar teaching in very powerful ways. This article is focused specifically on how to improve the business side of your guitar teaching, the ‘teaching side’ of your teaching business will be discussed in a future article.

Before reading further, it will be useful for you to assess your current level of readiness to become a highly successful guitar instructor. Take this five minute guitar teaching test before reading further. It will help you discover if you are making one or more of the top nine mistakes guitar teachersusually make.

1. Having limited teaching models.

The vast majority of guitar teachers only engage in one form of teaching: one-on-one lessons. While this approach certainly has its place, it is not the only guitar teaching method that could be or should be used to maximize the benefit to both your students and yourself. Contrary to conventional wisdom, students do not “always” learn most effectively in a one-on-one lesson format. Unfortunately, very few teachers ever venture outside of this traditional method. Many teachers simply aren’t aware of the benefits that other teaching formats have, or they follow what other guitar teachers do. There are many cases where a group class could be a more appropriate model, or at least be a useful addition to private lessons. The wide range of group teaching formats (when designed and taught in the right way)allows your students to interact and learn from one another. This is obviously not possible in private lessons. Also, group classes are usually more focused on one specific topic, allowing students to master it in less time. Finally, including group formats into your teaching can make your teaching business much more lucrative, less time-demanding and add more value to your students (plus it becomes more affordable for them!)

2. Not achieving meaningful results with students.

When it comes down to it, the only thing that really matters is the results that your students get from you. If you are able to consistently turn out good or great guitar players, then your positive reputation will begin to spread and referrals will come to you. So if your business is not growing at the rate you would like it to, one of the questions you should ask is: “How effective am I in getting powerful results with my students?” If your students are not happy with the results they receive, then you need to take a closer look at your teaching methods and ask yourself: How can I teach more effectively? How can I add more value to my students? Do the lesson formats I use produce effective results? Do I inspire my students or do I simply give them “information” about guitar playing? How can I lead my students through a literal life transforming experience as their guitar teacher, trainer, coach and mentor? One great way to improve as a teacher is to find the most successful guitar teacher you can, and take lessons with him or her on how to TEACH. Remember that the more you are able to fulfill and transform people’s musical lives in genuinely empowering ways, the faster your teaching business will grow.

I explain more about the topic of getting powerful and consistent results with students in my free 7 day e-mail mini course about teaching guitar.

3. Working too much “in” your guitar teaching business and not enough “on” it.

It is very common for music teachers (and business owners) to get so caught up in doing the daily work of “teaching” that little action is taken to actively expand and grow the business further. As a result, a business owner doesn’t really own a business; he/she only owns a “job”. Of course your teaching may expand on its own to some extent, but it will grow MUCH faster if you invest some time each week into doing things that will speed up this process. Focusing on promotion, analyzing and improving your teaching effectiveness and business models, creating referral programs, joint ventures and partnerships all create opportunities for you to maximize the value you add to your students and expand your business! Schedule some time each week to plan the direction you want your business to take in the next three, six, and twelve months. By being proactive in this way, you will see many positive results.

4. Not knowing how to distinguish yourself from the competition.

The best way to distinguish yourself from your competitors is to not have any. Read the last sentence several times and think about what it means! How can this apply to your situation as a guitar teacher? There are probably dozens (or hundreds) of guitar teachers in your local area, so it may seem impossible to “not have competitors”….or is it? One effective way to make all competition “irrelevant” is to offer something that no other music teacher in your area does. Having several teaching models in addition to the standard one-on-one lessons is one such possibility, but there are MANY others.

The options range from changing the way you conduct lessons to thinking of innovative ways for overcoming objections of prospective students that will make them want to choose you over the competition every time.

Here is another common competition problem and something you can do about it:

Very often you may only be able to attract students who live close to your teaching studio. When a prospective student lives further away, that distance creates a barrier of inconvenience and the student is more inclined to find a guitar instructor who is closer. Most teachers would simply give up and allow the person to study with someone else. But have you ever thought about what that inconvenience really means? Most of the time, the “distance” isn’t the problem. The problem (the objection) is the “time” that the student feels is wasted each week as they travel to and from your guitar lessons. They may love your lessons but hate wasting an hour to travel to you. Have you ever thought about what that means for you and how understanding this difference can be of great benefit to both you and your prospective students? There are several things you could do to turn this situation into a positive one. The question on your mind should be, “How can every minute they invest into traveling to me be reinvested into something useful for them?” Asking this question will likely inspire you to create some powerful resources to offer to your prospective students that they can study while commuting to and from your lessons! This is one of many examples of how you can differentiate yourself from the competition. The more you set yourself apart, the easier it will be to grow your teaching business.

5. Not understanding how to achieve geometric growth rather than linear growth.

Most music teachers only know how to grow their business linearly. They take one action in one area, and achieve some result. Then they repeat that same action and receive more results. Of course there is nothing wrong about this, but such an approach limits the amount of total growth you can achieve and the number of people you can help. Here is an example.

Most guitar teachers have only one or two ways of acquiring new students. Perhaps the most common method is advertising locally (posting flyers or placing ads in newspapers). So to recruit more new guitar students, most teachers either increase the number of ads they release, or change the ads to make them more effective. Let’s assume that last year you were able to recruit twenty new students. To increase this number, you publish more ads than before. As a result, this year you recruit twenty-five new students. Certainly this is good progress (a growth of five students or 25% per year), but you have only achieved linear growth. What if, in addition to advertisements you also focused on keeping your existing students longer, establishing joint ventures with music stores, and focused on converting a higher percentage of prospects into students? Most music teachers are completely unaware of how these elements can contribute to their guitar teaching business, and miss huge opportunities for MASSIVE growth!

If each of these elements provided you with 25% more students, your growth would now become geometric! The growth in each of these elements would compound on top of the others. Instead of expanding by only 25%, you can now grow by 144%! If your current state of business is at level 1, and you expand it by 25% (multiply by a factor 1.25) from 4 different business elements, your total growth is about 144%! (1 x 1.25 x 1.25 x 1.25 x 1.25 = 2.44 or 144% increase!!!). This means that your student count can go from 20 to 48 instead of 20 to 25 in one year!

6. Not being able to think of unconventional ways of attracting more prospective students.

Even if all you do is post flyers in your area and take out ads in newspapers, what have you done to maximize the results you get from these efforts? If you simply try to copy what everyone around you is doing to attract students, you will get the same results as everyone else. But if you want to grow your business and help more people than the average guitar teacher, then you will need to use approaches that are better than average. Taking some marketing classes will help you to greatly increase the response rate to standard ads. But in addition to the obvious, it is often the most unconventional methods that bring the best results. Have you thought about partnering up with a music store around your area to refer students/customers to each other? This idea can result in much more business for both parties, and it costs nothing to set up! I have a guitar student right now (who is a professional guitar teacher) who does this in his area and almost all of his fifty-seven students came from this single idea!

7. Not having effective systems in place for converting prospects into becoming students.

Students will be so much more likely to take lessons from you when you can prove to them beyond any doubt that their life will be enhanced by having you as a teacher. One of the best ways to do this is to show the results you have achieved by helping other people. No matter what you promise “in words”, there must be clear proof to back up your claims. When it comes to conversion, there is little else as effective as solid proof of your success with other students. Some guitar teachers make the mistake of acting like salespeople, trying to “sell” the lessons to students. What you need to do instead is to make the prospect see on their own that you are the most logical and most viable solution to their musical problems. Nobody likes to be “sold” to, so you should let your massive evidence of success with students speak for itself. You must also find out as much as you can about your prospective student’s specific goals, musical challenges, and current playing level. After you know this, it will be easier to prove to the person that you can give them the help that they need. Most importantly, you MUST back up every claim you make. If a prospective new student asks to study with you, but you are not comfortable teaching in his/her style, skill level, or musical ambitions, then do NOT teach that student. The fastest way to destroy a business is to fail to deliver what you promise!

8. Not knowing how to keep students for a long time (years!)

Your students will continue studying with you as long as you continue to find unique ways to add value and enrich their musical lives. When you do this, it is possible to keep students for five, six, eight, ten or more years! One effective way to ensure that students remain with you longer is to have something to offer that will allow them to continuously advance as musicians. This becomes easy to do if in addition to private lessons you teach several group classes that go in depth on very specific topics. This will allow your students to learn more from you in a new setting while also learning from your other advancing guitar students. Think about the students you have now. You know them well (or at least you should). Ask yourself, in what ways might you be able to provide additional benefits and value to each person you work with? To be clear, I am not implying that you should create an environment of “dependency”. Certainly our goal as guitar teachers is to make our students grow so that they may become totally independent and not “need” us forever, but that does not mean you should not constantly look to add huge amounts of value to them for years to come! They should WANT to remain your student for a long time because of the benefit you provide them (not because you are holding them back). Although this might seem like simple common sense, the truth is the VAST majority of music teachers in general, and guitar teachers in particular, don’t do a very good job in this area, and that is why so many teachers and students struggle unnecessarily.

9. Not knowing how to motivate existing students to refer new students to you.

Growing your student base through referrals is a very powerful method of expanding your guitar teaching business. However, in order to encourage referrals, you need to have incentives strong enough to make your existing students to WANT to refer their friends to you. One of the strongest incentives is to consistently turn your students into great players and help them reach their musical goals. In most cases, the more satisfied your students are, the more referrals you will get.

Another possibility is to offer bonus lessons or bonus instructional items that your students can ONLY obtain when they refer their friends to you. There are many more possibilities, but these are just two to get you started thinking. Don’t simply rely on word of mouth to work for you! An effective, organized and systematic referral system will bring you exponentially more students!

It should now be more obvious why guitar teachers struggle with teaching more effectively and earning more money in the process. I hope that by reading this article you have seen that this situation does not have to be this way! Although the list above is not all inclusive, if you take action on each of the nine points discussed here, you will surely see your level of success and effectiveness as a guitar teacher begin to grow more rapidly. If you haven’t taken the test mentioned earlier in this article, I encourage you to do so now to find out how prepared you are to establish a highly successful guitar teaching business. Test yourself here.

Also, I highly recommend checking out the free 7 day e-mail mini course about how to become a truly exceptional guitar teacher.

©2009 Tom Hess Music Corporation. All Rights Reserved

Can you relate to that? I sure can! I just described myself fifteen years ago.

There are specific reasons why guitar players go through such frustration and disappointment. Here are eleven key mistakes players make and repeat over and over again that you should definitely avoid.

1. Teaching Yourself.

Many people attempt to teach themselves. Yes, it’s true that some well known players were ‘somewhat’ self taught, but I do not suggest following that strategy even if your favorite player was self taught. If you are 100% sure that you can build powerfully effective learning and training systems on your own, that’s great. However, if you are like most of us, doing it alone is the hardest, most time-consuming, stressful, and frustrating way to learn anything. This is a mistake that you should avoid. Some guitar players think it will impress others if they say, “I am a self taught player”. That statement might impress a few inexperienced people, but being self taught is not a ‘badge of honor’. Would you rather impress others with your playing or with an unimportant statement about your playing? I’m not criticizing self taught guitar players, I’m only saying that there is no advantage to being self taught… and no, it is not true that being ‘self taught’ makes us more ‘original’. In fact, the opposite is usually true.

2. Taking Lessons from Ineffective Guitar Teachers.

Unfortunately, most electric guitar teachers receive ZERO training on how to teach guitar. What is worse is that the vast majority of teachers do little or nothing to improve their guitar teaching skills. Want some proof? Use google’s keyword tool . Type in this keyword phrase: ‘improve guitar teaching skills’, ‘guitar teaching skills’, or ‘guitar teaching training’ and you will find that less than 10 searches per month are done for these topics at google! Of course there are some highly effective teachers around, but there are a whole lot more ineffective teachers. Here is a free resource on how to tell the difference between the good teachers and the mediocre ones, Free Guide: How To Choose A Guitar Teacher.

3. Seeking New Guitar Information (tricks, tips, tab) Without A Proven Strategy To Reach Your Specific Musical Goals.

We need information, advice, help and music to play, but without a proven strategic learning and training process that is specific to you, your skill level, your musical style and what you want to be able to do as a guitar player, information won’t get you where you want to go. It is better to first seek help in developing a customized strategy for you to become a better guitar player. After that strategy is in place then it is time to deal with learning the right information.

4. Not Knowing Specifically What You Want To Be Able To Play.

Most guitar players are not specific enough when they think about (or tell others about) what they want to be able to do with their guitar. To say, “I want to play whatever I wish to play” is too vague. How can you (or your guitar teacher) develop a specific and effective guitar training strategy unless the goals you have are specific? It’s like saying you want to be a great athlete, how can you effectively train with such a vague goal? Sure there are things you can do to become faster, stronger, more flexible or whatever, but it’s much easier if you first get specific such as, I want to train to be a gymnast, or a long distance runner, or a body builder. Yes you can still improve without a strategy, but it will take a lot longer and be much more frustrating. You can always change your goal later if you discover you want to do something else instead.

5. Not Enough Focus on Things That Matter Most To Making You a Better Guitar Player.

Have you fallen into the trap of practicing guitar without focusing on the specific things that can quickly begin to improve your guitar playing? Many people really do not understand and apply this concept in enough detail…. for example, I have a student named Mark who used to take lessons from another teacher. Mark was studying sweep picking arpeggios with his previous teacher, and was making some progress. However Mark did not understand what ‘specific’ things he needed to focus on first before attempting to master the sweep picking arpeggios he was practicing. This was holding him back and making him feel very frustrated. Mark’s previous teacher only knew how to ‘teach’ arpeggios and general sweep picking concepts. He did not really know how to “train” Mark with the specific things to focus on and how to overcome the challenges Mark was having. If you would like to see a small sample of this, check out this short sweep picking video guitar lesson.

6. Too Much Focus on Things That Are Not Core to Your Goals.

In addition to not focusing on specific things, many guitar players focus on the ‘wrong things’. Some enthusiastic guitar players become temporarily obsessed with things which are distractions from other things that could be helping their playing much more. Here is an example: I used to get so frustrated and angry when I could not play something perfectly, I’d lock myself in my practice room and say, “I’m not coming out of this room until I master this damn lick if it takes me the next nineteen hours! No breaks! No food! No human contact! I’m gonna nail this!” And I did master it. On the surface, it might seem like I was on the right track and practicing in a good way…. But in reality, I was spending my time only to stop being angry and frustrated. I was not investing my practice time wisely by focusing on the things that mattered most to making a better guitar player. In other words, my perseverance was commendable, but my strategy to master important long-term goals was weak. I allowed myself to be distracted. I don’t make this same mistake anymore, and I urge you to also avoid it! Focus on the things that really matter for your guitar playing right now. If you are not sure how to do this, seek out a proven guitar teacher today.

7. Focusing On the Right Things, But in the Wrong Order.

This is a common mistake that even many advanced guitar players make which causes a lot of wasted time and frustration. Imagine you want to improve your ability to create your own cool guitar solos. Let’s assume that you are advanced enough to truly understand all the primary and secondary elements of composing guitar solos (or you have a guitar teacher to help you). Each of the many elements needs to be learned and/or practiced in order to easily create awesome solos that you like. Where should you begin? What should you focus on first, second, third? Which of these things should you practice simultaneously? There is always a specific order in which musical skills should be learned and mastered in order to EXPLODE your musical skills. Unfortunately, that order is totally different for every person, style of music, musical goal, skill set and knowledge, so giving an example here would be pointless. My advice, find the best teacher you can and study with him/her in order to be able to do what you want to do with your guitar much faster and easier.

8. Not Isolating Problem Areas.

Few guitar players are aware of the small things that hold them back in big ways. Because these little imperfections seem insignificant to us, we often ignore them. The truth is, small hinges open big doors. In the video mentioned above I explained how allowing your pick to lose its momentum when you are ‘not picking’ a note on the guitar makes your playing slow and sloppy…. which will make you feel very frustrated. This is why I was sure to make a special point to help you avoid that mistake. Check out the small sample sweep picking video guitar lesson for more details.

9. Learning and Practicing Guitar In A Step By Step Linear Process.

Does following a linear step by step approach to learning, practicing and mastering guitar seem like common sense good to you? Yes it does… And that is why guitar players who follow such a path are NOT great guitar players. I’m going to let you in an insider’s secret… The truth is, following a linear approach to learning, practicing, and mastering is the NUMBER ONE REASON WHY “GOOD GUITAR PLAYERS” STRUGGLE TO BECOME “GREAT GUITAR PLAYERS”… I originally thought I would write an article on this one point alone, but I think you will learn this concept better from another short video I recorded while I was doing a recent guitar instructional clinic tour a few months ago. Check out this free sample from my “How to Master The Guitar” clinic.

10. Practicing Guitar in the Same Way Your Favorite Guitar Players Practice.

Have you ever read about how your favorite guitar players practice and then tried to repeat the same practice routine? Yes, I’ve made this mistake too! It seems natural to use a similar guitar practice schedule that our favorite players are using. This is a mistake, because your current guitar skill level and knowledge of music is probably very different from your favorite player. His/her challenges and needs are likely not the same as yours.

Professional guitar players practice for different reasons than most amateur players do. For example, before recording a new album I will practice very differently compared to the period before going on tour. Once I’m actually on tour my practice routine changes drastically again. The rest of the year my practicing schedule changes yet again. This happens because in each case my challenges and goals are totally different. When my guitar students ask me, “Tom, how do you practice guitar?” I’m careful not to let my students assume that they should practice the same way that I do. Your practice schedule and strategy needs to be built around YOU and you only! If you need help building your own practice schedule, email me directly.

11. Learning From Too Many Different Sources of Information.

There will always be many learning opportunities and various paths to take, but it is critical that you do not get distracted into following a piece of advice from one person, then another piece of advice from another person and then follow more resources from somewhere else and so on and so on… while different people may have some good ideas to offer, the fact is, distraction is a big reason why many guitar players who are actively learning, don’t really move forward quickly… these people are always busy following totally different resources, teachers, philosophies, instructional videos, free online guitar lessons, but all of this leads them to take one step forward, then two steps to the right, then one step forward, then three steps to the left, then one step backward, then two to the right, then one step forward and then another step to the left…

An illustration of this is shown below. The first path is obviously the most direct way to arrive to your goals. The second path is the inefficient approach filled with many distractions that come from various pieces of advice from many sources:

Once you have an effective strategy to become the guitar player you want to be, ALWAYS stay focused on it (unless your goals radically change)!! The very best way to do this is to have ONE primary guitar teacher who helps you to become the musician you really want to be.

This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t take advice from other people too, but you should have one ‘primary’ source of information, training and coaching, and see the other advice as an additional resource, but do not become distracted by it.

Download this free guide How To Choose A Guitar Teacher to find a guitar teacher with proven teaching strategies, proven training strategies and proven results so that you become the awesome guitar player you want to be and play the guitar the way you’ve always wanted to play.

©2009 Tom Hess Music Corporation. All Rights Reserved

If I gave you my complete list of music industry connections (key people I have established important relationships with), do you think it would help you develop a successful music career? … NO! Why? Because a mere ‘contact’ is not worth anything. Contacts need to become meaningful connections. Meaningful connections are developed by building good relationships… More on this later…

However, even if you have good relationships with the right people, this won’t help you until and unless you work on having the right things in place which enables your contacts to feel confident enough to work with you. You can see more about this specific topic in a free video on how to become a professional musician.

So, who are the people you should be contacting? … And when you get through to someone, what do you say to him/her? How can you make these important people pay attention to you if you don’t yet have a ‘name’ in the music business?

Let’s explore the first question, “Who are the people you should be contacting?” To answer this, you need to ask a series of other questions such as:

• Who are some music industry people who have great influence and power?
• Who are the music industry people who have the greatest number of key relationships with other music industry professionals and companies?
• Among the most important music industry people, who are the easiest to locate in your local area?
• Who are the most accessible music industry people?
• Who are the music industry people who you can help to solve THEIR problems and/or help them to reach their goals?

Is there a single “type” of music industry person or (company) who fits ALL the above criteria? The answer is ‘Yes’. And if you do not have music industry connections, this ‘type of contact’ may be your best place to begin… So, who is this type of person or company? Record company executives? A&R people? Producers? Publishers? Managers? Entertainment Lawyers? Famous bands? No. The answer is “Concert Promoters”.

Serious concert promoters have massive power and influence in the music industry. They are the real entrepreneurs of the music business. They deal with thousands of very important music industry people every year, such as well known bands, record labels, artist management, tour managers, entertainment lawyers, production companies, merchandising departments, the venues, booking agents, radio stations, the press, etc., etc.

If you live near an urban area, you won’t have any trouble finding promoters who live and work locally (use Google). Unlike most other important music industry contacts, promoters are generally accessible and will be willing to talk to anyone who has ‘something real’ to offer them. That’s where you come in.

Generally speaking, concert promoters take on more risk than any other person or entity in the entire music industry. All promoters lose large sums of money every year, because some concerts lose money. The successful promoters make (and keep) more money than they lose throughout the year.

What every promoter wants is a bigger and stronger team of people to help ensure that the concerts/tours they promote make more money! Obviously, it’s expensive to employ a large team of experienced people. However, you can join their team, at least on a part-time basis, if you are willing to volunteer, intern, or earn a small salary. You may not yet know anything about promoting tours, but some promotion companies would be eager to train you if it isn’t expensive for them to do so.

Think about it from their perspective: If you were a big time promoter taking on huge risks, wouldn’t you want another person to work for you, for free or for a very low salary? Of course the answer is ‘yes’, even if that person could only work part-time.

Many musicians who want a music career are told to do an internship for a record label. The conventional wisdom is that when you do this, you will learn a lot about the music business. The reality is, most of these interns never get into a position where they can truly learn much at all as an intern. However working for a promoter, your ability to learn how the industry really works (at least on the touring and promotional side) goes way up! In addition, the number of contacts you can make are 200 times more than what you would likely make working at a record label. And compared to record labels, there is a lot less competition, currently anyway, for internships or jobs with a promoter.

As excited as you may now feel, knowing that you CAN actually do this, there is a catch and it’s a big one. In order to have any real chance of pursuing this opportunity and using these contacts to help launch your music career, you must work on having the right things in place which enables your music industry contacts to feel confident enough to work with you. The truth is, nothing in this article will help you until and unless you do take this step. You can see more about this specific topic in a free video on how to become a professional musician.

©2008 Tom Hess Music Corporation. All Rights Reserved

While it may be rather difficult to increase the total time you have available to practice guitar, it is very possible to maximize the results you get from the practice time you do have available. Here is what you need to do to get maximum results…

The Essentials

To get any significant results in your guitar playing, you need to focus on two essential elements: the efficiency of your practice, and its effectiveness. Being efficient means being skillful in avoiding wasted time and effort. Being effective means having the ability to achieve the desired result.

Imagine that you are trying to dig a swimming pool by using a teaspoon. Sure, you are being effective (the pool is getting dug), but it is going to take you years working at this rate to complete the job, because you are working with very low efficiency. A much better approach, one that will help you avoid wasted time and effort, would be to use a powerful excavator to do the same task in minutes!

In order to become truly great guitar player in a minimum amount of time, you should strive to maximize both efficiency and effectiveness, as they are equally important. However, the focus of this particular article will be entirely on efficiency, and I will discuss effectiveness in a future article.

I want to share with you three powerful ideas and practice strategies that can be used to maximize results from your practicing by increasing efficiency. They can and should be applied regardless of how much time you have to practice, and especially when time is limited.

1. Transferability

Many guitar players become discouraged if they cannot find a large enough block of time (for instance, an hour or more each day) to practice. I often receive questions from students such as: “Tom, I only have twenty minutes to dedicate to practicing guitar each day, and I want to make the most progress possible. What should I be doing?”

In this case, I suggest to practice something which has a high level of “transferability”. A skill is “transferable”, if working on it will simultaneously make you better in other elements of guitar playing. Examples of transferability include, but are not limited to: left hand technique, right hand technique, two-hand synchronization, shifting from string to string, muting string noise, fretboard awareness, improvisation. If what you are working on helps more than one of these elements at the same time, then you are practicing something that has some degree of transferability.

There are two primary factors which determine the transferability rate. The first factor is the number of other areas which are benefited. The second factor is how strong that benefit is.

One example of a technique with high transferability is string skipping. It involves the technique on both hands, challenges your two-hand synchronization, and forces you to focus on muting unwanted string noise. This is a good technique to work on because its benefits directly “transfer” to other elements of guitar playing.

Legato technique, on the other hand, has a much lower degree of transferability. It mainly focuses only on left hand technique (and some elements of muting string noise as well). So when time is limited, working on legato playing is probably not going to bring you as much benefit compared to practicing string skipping.

By investing your practice time among high transferability items, you will get a lot more from your practicing. I want you to become aware of this idea and think about it as you are selecting the most important items to work on when your practice time is very limited.

To help you fully understand and apply the transferability concept into your guitar practicing, I have created a short (and free) guitar practice video.

Teaching my philosophy of transferability has been a key factor in the great success I have had with training many of my students to become great guitarists in a short amount of time.

2. Blueprint to Success

Another way to dramatically improve your efficiency is to use a practice schedule that is targeted and relevant to your goals. Think of a practice schedule as a blueprint to your success. If you have been stuck at the same level for months or years, if you have the desire to move past your current plateau, and if you have limited time to practice, consider creating a schedule. It will keep you focused on what you need to do, and will help you to become more organized and not waste time when practicing.

This schedule must be specific to your musical goals and yet flexible enough to adjust to your progress and any possible changes in your musical ambitions. If you are struggling with creating an efficient practice schedule on your own, you can find help here, and you can also find many good discussions of practice schedules right here at Guitar Noise, such as this article (A Question of Balance).

3. Divide and Conquer

Another piece of advice that I want to give to you is to become more specific about isolating your technical challenges. This will allow you to get to the core of your playing problem(s) and avoid wasting precious time practicing the parts of the music you can already play well.

For example, when you practice an ascending scale sequence like this one,

you may have trouble with fretting hand accuracy every time you have to shift from string 5 to string 4. Here is where the practice efficiency breaks down for most players. They will attempt to practice this entire sequence over and over, trying to iron out the difficulty. Even though you will still be practicing the hard part of the sequence when you do this, your efficiency will be greatly compromised for the following reasons:

1. The number of times per minute that you can play your specific problem area will be a lot less, simply because you are also playing additional notes.
2. Your attention will not be fully engaged on the problem at hand because you will have to think about playing additional parts of the phrase. This means that your hands will need to play your specific challenge even more times before you can overcome it.

This is similar to the example of digging a swimming pool with a teaspoon, and obviously this is highly inefficient.

If instead you took the time to define the problem (such as the shift between the two strings and the transition from using your fourth finger to using the first finger), and focused on practicing that section only without playing the rest of the phrase, you will practice the problem area many more times per minute! This is something you should do regardless of how much practice time you have, and especially in situations when time is limited.

After you have practiced the problem in isolation, you should put it back into the context of the whole sequence, and practice everything together to see how well it holds up. But working on the problem in isolation (dividing and conquering it!) should be the first step.

Think about each of these three practice tools. If you were already familiar with them, have you been applying them every day? Obviously, if you have already been using these concepts and are seeing good results, then continue doing what you were doing! However, if you are not yet applying these ideas, and/or are not progressing at the rate you would like, then you should think hard about how you can implement these tools to improve the efficiency of your practice. If you are still stuck after trying to apply them on your own, ask someone for help!

If you follow the advice given in this article, you will soon find yourself making more progress in thirty minutes than most people can achieve in two hours of practicing!

Learn more about efficient guitar practicing by watching this free guitar practice video.

©2008 Tom Hess Music Corporation. All Rights Reserved

Because you are reading this article, I can imagine that you have probably faced similar challenges. I know how you feel, because I went through the same depressing struggle for years and have seen hundreds of great musicians travel along the same path. But over time, I have discovered that in many cases the lack of success is caused by the musicians (including myself in the past) simply not knowing what it is the music industry companies want from new artists.

You probably already know that record labels, producers, entertainment lawyers, and managers seek artists who have a lot more to offer than talent alone. What they want from you is a “total package” which includes many things, but the two main factors are: adding more value (in terms of money and/or opportunity), and reducing potential downside risks to the music company. I am going to tell you more about these two elements of value and risk in this article.

Prior to signing my first record deal and doing my first real tour, I read dozens of books about the music business. Although some of these books were helpful, I quickly discovered that the reality of the music business was very different from what the books described. In most cases these books weren’t necessarily ‘wrong’, just very incomplete.

Entering the industry as a professional opened my eyes to many things I had never heard of or thought about before. Eventually I came to know and understand many important details about the companies I worked with: their needs, challenges, problems and mindsets. I paid very close attention to things that others around me often overlooked. I did this for two reasons:

1. I wanted to advance my own career to the maximum extent possible while remaining in control of the ways in which that growth occurred.
2. I was already mentoring other musicians, so going deeper into my understanding of the music business was something I needed to do for their benefit as well.

The central theme which kept coming up in my earliest conversations with the record label executives I worked with was “partnership”. Today, it seems perfectly normal for me to think that record companies might see their artists as “business partners”, but at the time, I didn’t think that the term had a genuine meaning. Over the years that followed, the concept of ‘partnerships’ began to show up everywhere, but I probably would not have paid much attention to it if my first meetings with the record label and management hadn’t been so focused on this fundamental idea.

Record labels, managers, and successful bands, are looking for artists who think in terms of mutual benefit. You must think in this way before any company in the music industry will want to work with you and invest their money and resources into your career. Imagine you are in a band, trying to get a record contract. Obviously you know what YOU want from this deal (access to the record company’s resources that will be used to propel your career forward, attract new fans, sell more records, make more money, go on tours, etc.) But have you thought about what THE COMPANY wants (besides the obvious)?

Now imagine for a moment that you are the president of a record label. Would you take $250,000 of your money and invest it into a band which is good and has marketable songs??? I don’t know about you, but I certainly wouldn’t do this, UNTIL AND UNLESS it was clear to me that my investment into the band will not be a waste of money, and will bring back substantial returns. It’s highly unlikely that a $250,000 record label budget will be enough to take a band anywhere significant if that band is ‘only’ a good band with marketable songs. It’s going to take a lot more than good talent and good marketable songs to get the type of serious commitment and investment from a label which is needed to advance your band’s future over the long term. It takes a partnership (not merely a contract and a budget) to make this happen.

What about you?

Do you think you have what it takes to become a successful business partner of any company in the music industry? Take this 5 minute survey and find out: http://www.tomhess.net/WhatDoesTheMusicIndustryLookForInYou.aspx 

Here are a few things you need to think about when approaching any company in the music industry:

Key mindsets you need to acquire:

• Don’t seek to be merely an “employee” of a company, instead, think in terms of a win/win partnership.
• Do not feel like you are entitled to receive money or opportunities simply because you are talented. It is not the company’s job to reward you for your music. It’s their job to reward you for the value you bring to them (beyond the music).
• You must become a partner in what they want to achieve. And you want them to be a partner in what you want to achieve. Note that I am not talking about “selling out”. Selling out would involve giving up your musical integrity for money (or other benefits). What I am describing is simply one of the most basic and universal practices of business. You must give the other side what they want in order to receive what you want from them. If you follow this principle, success in business (and life) becomes so much easier!

Too often artists and companies are at odds with each other because each is out to reach its own objectives even if those objectives are in direct conflict with the other side’s goals. When either side feels “entitled” to something without a win-win strategy, everything breaks down between them. And sooner or later both sides lose (and so do the fans!).

Until you begin to think and work with the win-win partnership concept, the people and companies with the greatest power to help you will typically not be interested in you…. And the bad people (“sharks”) in the industry might seek to take advantage of you, if you are talented but ignorant to how the music business world works.

Here is How These Mindsets Help You:

The good music business people expect you to know how the music industry functions BEFORE they begin to work with you. They get tired of answering basic questions about how things work. While the companies could teach you these fundamentals, they would prefer for you to learn them yourself. The reason they want this is because it saves THEM time (and resources).

Remember, when it comes to getting other people to associate with you, think in terms of what they stand to gain or lose by signing you to a record deal or putting your band on tour (or anything else).

These music companies prefer not to waste their time teaching you about the music industry, general business, mental attitudes, image, stage presence, logistics, etc. At first glance, this may seem like an inconvenience for you, but it isn’t. It is in YOUR interest to see these resources spent on promoting your career, helping you sell records, tour the world, attract more fans, make more money etc. If instead, a big chunk of money and time was spent on teaching you what you should already know, who do you think loses the most? YOU do! This is because the company’s resources SHOULD be spent on helping you achieve what you could not do on your own (and learning the fundamentals of the business is not one of them).

Also, remember that since music companies are directly investing money into your career, they will expect their investment back, with interest. Therefore, it is (again) to your advantage to minimize any waste in that investment. Here is an example.

Let’s say that your band was put on tour by a record company, but the management believes that your band does not know how to conduct yourselves on and off stage. They will require you to be coached in these areas (and believe me, they WILL). If rehearsals take an additional week (at the rate of thousands of dollars per day), then money will be spent on this new expense instead of being invested into other aspects of your tour, record and career. Remember, this extra money will need to be paid back to the company FIRST before your band sees any profits from the tour OR your record (yes, your label will require to be recouped for all expenses).

Many new bands feel a sense of ‘entitlement’ and think it is the tour manager’s job to coach the band how to conduct themselves on and off stage. This, as already discussed, costs the band and the label a lot of money. However, when you see yourself in a win-win partnership with the label, then you know that it is in everyone’s best interest to take the initiative to prepare yourself in all possible ways before money is spent. If you are not prepared beforehand, you are creating a higher investment risk for the company you work with!

Here are the most important things to remember from this article:

• Find out as much as you can about the companies you want to work with before approaching them. This will help you in many ways. First, you will familiarize yourself with their goals, business desires and challenges. This will help you to anticipate and come up with win/win solutions to business negotiations. Also, the people in these organizations will be impressed that you took the time to learn about their needs before approaching them. They will remember you.
• Always try to see all business situations and proposals from the point of view of the other side. This will allow you to better anticipate their needs, challenges and possible objections toward working with you. Then you need to demonstrate this understanding in both words and actions.
• Think in terms of win/win partnerships. If you develop a reputation for coming up with business ideas that meet your needs as well as the needs of the other side, you will find many more attractive opportunities coming your way.
• Seek ways you can add value while reducing risk. In all of business, (music industry or otherwise), your success will be greatly affected by your ability to deliver high value with low risk. Before approaching any company with a business proposal, consider all of the ways you are planning to add value to the project. Can you expand this list? Do the same analysis of all of the potential risks of a particular business partnership (whether it comes from you or other people in the project). What can you do to minimize or eliminate these risks? If you do this, you will definitely have a great advantage over most musicians who are more concerned about how much their paycheck is going to be, rather than trying to enhance the value for all parties involved.
• After you have done all that you can to add value and reduce risk, you again need to demonstrate this in both words and actions. Think of how most bands try to get signed, they play local shows, try to increase their following, send their promo kits to labels, management, entertainment lawyers, etc. In this way, you compete with all the other unknown bands. Here is a huge tip, why not focus directly on showing and proving to these companies/people how your value is higher and your risk is lower than the thousands of other bands who are sending their press kits every year. Although there is much more to the story, this is the basis for how I landed my own first record deal. This approach helped to further separate myself from literally thousands of other excellent guitar players who pursued the same opportunities I received. And I’ve used this strategy to land several other fulfilling and lucrative music business related deals.
• Lose the feeling of entitlement. As I alluded to in the article, no music company in the world will want you, unless you have something to offer them which they find valuable. Nobody is “entitled” to a record deal or more money simply because they may be a great musician. Feeling this way is a mistake that a lot of musicians make and one that I hope you will avoid, now that you are aware of it after reading this article. What you need to do instead is prove to the other party how they would be passing up a great opportunity if they didn’t work with you. When you can do this, you will find that the other things will fall into place much easier.

You should think deeply about the issues that I brought up and consider the ways some or all of them can apply to your current (or future) music career. I have given you some good starting points to begin thinking and planning for success. Use them to take the actions you know you must take to reach your goals!

If you missed the survey mentioned at the beginning of this article, I encourage you to test yourself here: http://www.tomhess.net/WhatDoesTheMusicIndustryLookForInYou.aspx.

© 2008 Tom Hess Music Corporation All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission ]]> http://www.musiccareers.net/career-articles/pursuit-of-the-record-deal/feed/ 0 http://www.musiccareers.net/practice-space/guitar-practice-discipline/ http://www.musiccareers.net/practice-space/guitar-practice-discipline/#comments Tue, 15 Jul 2008 10:58:38 +0000 Tom Hess http://www.guitarnoise.com/musiccareers2/?p=120 Do you find it difficult to fully enjoy the process of highly disciplined practicing? Most guitarists either have lots of fun practicing, but are not highly disciplined, or try to be very disciplined, but find it boring or unfulfilling when they do so. So, most people make a (conscious or unconscious) choice to sacrifice ‘fun’ for discipline, or discipline for fun. Making sacrifices with your guitar practice is not only unnecessary, but can be counterproductive to becoming the guitar player you want to be.

Let me show you why…

There was a time many years ago when I was not enjoying practicing. My learning sessions were not fun and I began to think of them as an unpleasant chore. I tried to make practicing more enjoyable, but my efforts slowed down my progress more than they helped. I responded to this by becoming more self disciplined and practicing very hard every day hoping that bigger progress would come.

Unfortunately that didn’t make me much better at playing, and only made the learning process feel even less fun. I talked about this to the teacher with whom I was studying at that time and he made me realize that practicing shouldn’t be seen only from one perspective, such as all fun or all discipline. The key to success is the right balance of both elements in practicing. Once I understood this, he and I could start working on creating the appropriate practice schedule and improving my mental approach to practicing to finally get me on the right track to becoming the musician that I am today. In other words, I learned that there is a way to do serious practicing that produces real results while enjoying that process at the same time. This success comes partly from the practice routine itself and partly from your mindset and attitude during the process.
You will get more from the rest of this article, if you have a better understanding of how effective you are now at making serious practicing “fun” without reducing the results. To test yourself, take this short survey.

Let’s now take a closer look at each of the two components that you must balance in order to enjoy the process of practicing and see consistent progress. I will also share with you the common mistakes people make that lead to an imbalance of these two elements.

Serious/Purpose driven practicing (Self Discipline)

Many people assume that sheer self discipline and persistence will make them as good as they want to be. Unfortunately, most guitarists do not understand how to discover and sustain “the right kind” of discipline.

In order to sustain your motivation for a long time, your work must be “fulfilling”. If you don’t know the reason why doing something is in your very best interest, you will not be fulfilled and will be unlikely to continue for long. On the other hand, if you do feel the reasons very strongly, you will be able to pull out the needed intensity and discipline from within yourself without trying very hard. Start looking at practicing as something you do in order to achieve a benefit (become a better player). This will automatically create a meaningful reason (beyond simply having fun) to be involved in the activity and not treat it as a chore that you dread doing every day. This may seem obvious and insignificant, but even a small change in thinking will bring about big changes in results!

Some people stereotype this kind of practice as boring or “requiring too much work”. However, it is not the practice approach that is “boring,” it is often your mental state during practice that makes the process seem tedious. Of course, sometimes the opposite problem can occur and your practice approach may cause you to mindlessly go through the motions of practice. It is very difficult to get yourself to enjoy such activity. In this case, your learning strategy would need to become more effective. For more information about this, read this article.

One of the biggest mistakes regarding focused practicing that I see regularly is excluding variety and fun from the learning process. This happens frequently, especially when you are not under the guidance of a teacher who fundamentally understands this issue. You may think you are doing all the things necessary for fast progress, but your practice approach could still be susceptible to improvement. One such change may be including more variety into your practice. This will help avoid mental burn out and frustration.

Incorporating variety into your practice does not mean a lack of focus, or doing things that are inconsistent with your goals. It simply means that you have multiple approaches for learning, applying and integrating musical skills. I call this “intelligent” variety. This is much different from “random” variety that involves mindless jumping from one item to another in your practice, with no sense of direction.

Another issue that makes it difficult to see discipline as “fulfilling” is that results usually do not occur immediately and the small gains made along the way might seem insignificant. This delayed gratification will make it hard for you to practice well on a consistent basis unless you learn to enjoy the process (more about this later).

Improper application of the idea of variety can also lead you to working on weaknesses that don’t really matter. For example, let’s assume that your goal is to become a highly advanced metal player. Since this style doesn’t require you to fuse elements of other musical genres, it wouldn’t be worth your time to work on finger picking or Segovia fingerings for scales, for example. This is because these skills are not necessary for you to reach your goal. So don’t waste time on them! It will take you so much longer to reach your goal if you keep getting distracted by working on unnecessary playing elements.

Enjoying the process (having fun while practicing)

Many guitarists think (on some level) that one cannot have fun learning guitar and get results at the same time. This thinking arises from an idea that “having fun” means random, disorganized practicing with no clear direction and no goals. While it is true that such an approach will not produce significant results, it is still very possible to have fun while working on your playing. Having fun means being able to enjoy the process of practicing. There are many things that go into this, and here is a short list:

• Experiencing consistent, measurable results throughout the learning process
• Having confidence that you will reach all of your goals with time.
• Avoiding boredom by knowing when to make adjustments in your practice schedule.
• Fueling your desire to reach your goals by surrounding yourself by what inspires you!
• Practicing application and integration of new skills (together with the old skills). The ways in which we practice mastery, application and integration are totally different and naturally provide a source of ‘intelligent variety’ into your practice routine.

If I told you that you would get to experience all of the above (and much more) by creating an intelligent, relevant and flexible practicing program, wouldn’t you suddenly feel motivated to practice longer and harder in order to see these results? If you answered yes, then you must understand everything I wrote above about how discipline naturally develops from fulfillment!

Summary: 7 Steps to Effective Balancing of Discipline and Fun

1. Make your practice fulfilling! Without the feeling of accomplishment, your motivation and desire will fade. If are having trouble achieving fulfillment, try the following:
   • Soak yourself in inspiration – Think back to what made you want to play guitar. Relive the excitement you felt when you got your first instrument. Finally, look ahead to the day when you will have the skills you desire! Focus your mind on the satisfaction of reaching your goals instead of obstacles!
   • Become self-reliant – even if you are working with the very best teacher, you are still practicing on your own most of the time. You must make sure that whatever instructions your teacher gives you (or that you assign yourself) get carried out correctly and consistently!
   • Never give up! Remember YOU CAN learn to play guitar as well as you want to, if you have all of your fingers, a strong desire to improve and follow an effective approach to practicing! Never give up!
2. Have specific goals. You have to be absolutely clear about what level of playing you want to achieve and what you plan to do with these skills once you have them! This is not only critical for guitar playing, but also for everything in life. You need to identify where you want to arrive before you can get there. This means keeping the goal in the FOREFRONT of your mind in order to enable yourself to harness the power of your intentions and desire. Set goals for your practicing, find out how to reach them, and take consistent action to get yourself there.
3. Incorporate intelligent variety into your practicing. Doing this will help you prevent boredom and burn out. At the same time, by “structuring” your variety in an intelligent way, you will be able to make consistent and measurable progress. Both things can be achieved if your practice schedule is efficient and effective (and proper mindset is applied).
4. Find an effective way to measure your progress. This is useful for many reasons. First, it is fun to compare your current skill level to your playing from several weeks, months or years ago, and second, it will help to keep you on track toward reaching your goals. Few people do this consistently; most wander aimlessly with no clear sense of direction. This leads to inability to make significant progress.
5. Keep your mind focused on the item you are practicing until you go on to the next thing on your practice schedule. Don’t switch between different things at random. If you understand the reason why practicing a specific item is important for your goals, this becomes easy to do.
6. Design an effective and flexible practice schedule. You need to organize all the things you want to learn in a system that is effective enough to bring results and also one that can be adjusted to introduce variety. If you cannot do this well on your own, there is help for you here.
7. Find ways to apply your musical tools. The easiest way to have fun while practicing is through application of skills to real music. This sounds obvious, but far too many students think that practicing should be all about “learning new things”. Because of this, they don’t schedule time for application, integration and mastery of what they already know. As a result, many end up with lots of isolated things “they can do”, but no ability to actually use their skills. Learning more things is important but it shouldn’t be your top priority all of the time. It is also not much fun to practice things that you can not really integrate with your other musical skills in a real musical context. Great players aren’t great because they ‘know more’, it’s usually because they can integrate and apply more than the common player.

Above all else, remember to keep at it! Use the advice from this article to make your practicing both fun and focused in order to decrease the time needed to reach your goals! If you haven’t yet taken the survey mentioned at the beginning of the article, you can do so here.

If you are like most people who want a career as a professional musician, the first question you ask is probably, “What do I have to do?” You ask this because you are not sure what you need to do first, second, third, etc. And it seems obvious that you must actually do things in order to move forward and launch your own music career.

Whether you are just starting out, or already have some experience in the music business, there are important steps you must take and many things you will need to do. However, the order in which you take each step will make a big difference in the results you get.

It’s not about what you must do… It’s about who you must become.

Some years ago, I had a great mentor who was a very successful entrepreneur. At that time, I was not yet very far along in my own music career. I asked him all the usual questions like, “How can I get on a world tour?”, “Where should I send my CDs to?”, “Who do I need to talk to at the record company?”, “How can I make more money with my music and talents?”, “What do I need to do to sell my music in other countries?”, etc.

He replied, “Tom, you aren’t ready for any of that yet. You might be ready as a musician, but you haven’t really prepared yourself mentally. When you ‘do things’ now, you will make some progress along the way, but that isn’t success – that won’t create a lucrative and stable career over the long term. Successful people are successful not because they are intelligent or talented, nor do they succeed simply because they ‘do the right things.’ When you become ‘success-minded’, you will have the power to achieve success in anything you want to do. Don’t worry now about ‘doing things.’ Let’s begin working on ‘who you must become.’ Your success needs to be built from the inside first, then the external things you must do will fall into place much more easily.

I only proved him to be right when I reacted by saying, “I already know all this positive thinking stuff, I need specific advice on what, when, where and how to do things now.”

His response back to me was, “Okay, Tom, if you really know this then I challenge you to show me at least twenty-five ways in which you have already implemented these mental concepts, on your own, into your music career.”

I didn’t have an answer to that. He continued, “The entrepreneurs and business people in any industry will know you are not really ready. They will smell your inferiority like a lion smells fear in its prey. And when they do, it generally won’t be good for you. It would be like going into the jungle without a weapon, without shelter and without a guide.”

After our discussion, I became convinced it was time to work more on who I needed to become before concerning myself with what I needed to do. Our first major task was to define exactly where my mental skills and preparedness for general success were.

To discover your mental preparedness for launching your own music career, take this three-minute quiz to find out.

7 Things You Should Do Now to Begin Your Music Career

1. Don’t get caught speeding. Listen to the advice already given above. Focusing first on who you need to become is more important to your long term success than focusing on ‘what actions you should take’. Don’t get caught speeding through Step One in order to get to Step Two faster. Who you will become will dramatically influence the results you receive when you are busy doing things in the future.
2. ‘inspect’ what you ‘expect’. What do you expect from yourself? What do you expect from life? What do you expect from others? Your entire life, up to this point, is a reflection of your own expectations. You alone control your own expectations. Only you can choose to expect greater things out of yourself, your life and your surroundings – when you do this you will become ready for the next step…
3. Demand and Command. To expect greater things from yourself and life is an important step. But expectations won’t have real power until and unless you demand from yourself and command yourself to do what is necessary for you to move forward no matter what obstacles, challenges, fears and setbacks you may encounter along the way. More importantly, you must demand and command even more from yourself when things ARE going well. Success often causes some people to lose their momentum. This happens to people who are not truly “success-minded,” but have only been granted some shorter term success. When you become “success-minded,” you will maintain high levels of demand and command in your life in all situations. This is key for long-term success – especially in the music business.
4. Shoot Fire! How do other people perceive you? As a quiet, private, introverted or reserved person? Or as someone who is so filled with passion, intensity and commitment that they can see flames of fire shooting out from the back of your head? You already know that passion is the fuel which drives your actions to move toward what you want. Beyond this obvious point is another important component. When you are on fire, other people notice it and become attracted to you, what you do and what you have to offer. Highly successful people have an intensity about them, which most people do not possess. Many successful people will look for this quality in you as an indicator of what they perceive your success potential may be – this is especially true when you first meet a person who may be in a position of power to either help or hurt your career.Of course, be cautious not to come across as arrogant or obnoxious. Show people your attitude of expectancy, confidence, passion, determination, conviction and…. FIRE!
5. Get Congruent. It should be your goal to align all (or most) of your daily thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, plans and actions with what you want to be, do and have. Although this might seem obvious, very few people truly focus on this in their daily lives. Typically, we may want to manifest a particular outcome, but we divide our mind into opposing directions. Here are two common examples…
   1. A guy constantly thinks about becoming a touring guitar player, but does not really expect it to actually happen. The lack of “expectance” leads to further incongruity, because, by wanting but not “believing” he will really become a touring guitarist, he won’t make the necessary plans, contacts, and other actions which could take him there.
   2. College students, who want to become musicians, often major in a non music related (and non-entrepreneurial related) subject. In this case, most of these students’ time and energy are spent doing things which take them only further from their musical aspirations. As a general rule, the more congruent you are, the faster and easier you will get where you want to go.
6. Weed your garden….You might not always have the freedom to choose the physical location of where you live, but it is not always necessary to relocate your home. You can find success from virtually any physical place. In addition, not all of us have been blessed with supportive family environments. Although we cannot choose our family, we can choose our friends and other people we associate with (both on and offline). If the friends you have don’t support you, find new friends who will. The environment where your mind lives is very important. You must find supportive, positive and empowering peer group environments. People who have similar aspirations, ambitions and experience in the areas you seek are like good soil for which your career can develop and grow. Negative, pessimistic and disempowering people are like weeds. Do people around you build you up or tear you down? Associate with other success minded people, surround yourself with them. It’s hard for flowers to grow among weeds, so weed your garden.
7. Don’t depend on the sun and rain alone…. use fertilizer! Your musical skills (no matter how great they may be) will not be enough to create and sustain a significant level of success in the music industry (sad but true). You may even already have a reasonably decent understanding of how the music business works today (though most people don’t). Becoming a successful professional musician is a lot like being a gardener. To be sure your career grows, you need high quality seed (your mental preparedness), lots of sun (knowledge and skills), rain (physical action), and fertilizer (a mentor). Yes, it is possible to grow a blooming flower without fertilizer, but the chances of long-term life and maximum healthy growth go way up when you use fertilizer. The same is true with your level of success as a professional musician.

The average person’s score on the assessment mentioned above is 4 out of 10. Take the assessment yourself to find out what your score is.

It matters little where you are now, it matters greatly what you are willing to do now….

About the author:Tom Hess is a professional touring guitarist and recording artist. He teaches, trains and mentors musicians from all around the world. Visit http://www.tomhess.net/MusicCareer.aspx to discover highly effective musician learning resources – free advice, lessons and online assessments.

©2008 Tom Hess Music Corporation