Unlike the medical field, there’s no such thing as a “board certified” guitar teacher.
This makes the process of finding a competent instructor very confusing for students at all levels.
Here are some things to consider when choosing a new guitar teacher.
1.Can Your Instructor Play? I Mean, Really Play?
If you haven’t heard or seen footage of your instructor playing guitar, ask them to play you something before committing to anything long-term.
Basically, you want to verify first-hand that the person you are paying is an actual pro, not merely a talented amateur.
How will you know the difference? Easy. A talented amateur will impress you. A pro will blow your friggin’ mind.
While virtuosity alone doesn’t make someone a great teacher, it IS a prerequisite. Here’s why.
Talented amateurs teach by regurgitating RECEIVED KNOWLEDGE. That is, things they’ve read or heard from more competent musicians. This means, when you study with an amateur the knowledge you receive is, at best, second-hand.
Real pros teach by drawing on their own EARNED WISDOM. Yes, like the amateur, they too have ‘received knowledge’ from past teachers. But a pro instructor’s real value is in the wisdom they’ve earned through lived experience. Specifically, their tremendously trying, decades’ long journey from total-beginner to world-class musician.
When you study with a pro, the wisdom you receive is first-hand.
Why does this matter? Who cares if your teacher is drawing from RECEIVED KNOWLEDGE or EARNED WISDOM?
Imagine two different people who both know a lot about a specific topic, say Mount Everest…
The first is an academic with an encyclopedic knowledge of Mount Everest. He knows its geological composition by heart. He’s memorized maps of specific routes. He can even give you a detailed account of every expedition and attempt to summit the famed peak.
Unfortunately, he’s never actually been to the Himalayas. As for his mountaineering skills— he enjoys a good hike with a view now and then, but has never been one to exert himself too hard.
The second is a fifth generation Sherpa. He hasn’t read a single book about Everest, because, well, he doesn’t need to.
Instead, he draws on the collective wisdom of his ancestors and peers – supplementing that second-hand knowledge with lessons learned from summiting the mountain himself over two dozen times. While he isn’t aware of every single expedition in its history, he knows of certain disastrous attempts whose stories have stood the test of time as cautionary tales.
The Sherpa and the academic possess much of the same knowledge. The key difference is in how they acquired it. The academic RECEIVED his knowledge from books and lectures, while the Sherpa EARNED his wisdom by walking the walk.
Now, if you were ever crazy enough to climb Everest yourself, who would you rather have as your guide? I don’t know about you, but I’m going Sherpa every time.
Learning guitar is a lot like climbing a mountain (see, it connects!).
Thankfully, the stakes are much lower, but make no mistake — climbing Guitar Mountain can be a treacherous journey, riddled with danger, pitfalls, dead-ends, and yetis.
I’m joking about the yetis, but here are some of the traps you might encounter on your climb:
❌ a technique incorrectly learned, then ingrained over years of improper practice (nearly impossible to undo on your own; very doable with the help of a gifted instructor)
❌ a music theory concept introduced in a confusing way. This could lead to a fundamental misunderstanding which would only compound as concepts increased in complexity.
❌a teacher who is more concerned with entertaining you than teaching you (more on that later).
An expert guitarist is absolutely essential to serious students who wish to avoid traps like these and accelerate their progress.
Unfortunately, true experts are difficult to identify if you yourself are not an expert (and students, by their very nature, are not experts). This is why it’s so important to hear what your teacher can really do with a guitar before committing to lessons.
So keep this in mind: If your teacher’s playing gives you goosebumps, you can rest assured they will teach you from their EARNED WISDOM. Their virtuosity is proof they’ve braved the crevasses and blizzards of Guitar Mountain with their own two feet, instead of just reading about it in a book.
Waldron Guitar Academy Instructors in Action
Brian Waldron
Ryan Faraday
Jared Sachs
Jack Cimo
Sid Jacobs
2. Can Your Instructor Actually Teach?
Not all great players are great teachers.
Playing guitar well is about communicating effectively with music. Teaching well is about communicating effectively with words. These are two completely separate muscles that must be developed on their own.
When I started teaching, I could already play very well. But, it took me another ten years to learn how to teach well. (This is why Waldron Guitar Academy requires all instructors to have at least ten years of teaching experience.)
Unfortunately for students, a teacher’s effectiveness can be hard to determine. Most students have not had more than one instructor (if any), so they have no reference for comparison.
Still, there are a few signs you can look for to see if you’re dealing with a qualified instructor:
Do they provide additional resources? Does your instructor send a detailed lesson followup and recording? Do they truly care about your success?
How many students have they taught? Ask your instructor point-blank how many students they have taught. If they DON’T unflinchingly say "several hundred" or even "thousands," that's a red flag.
How do they talk about pricing? Beware of "bargains." Very low prices are almost always a sign of inexperience or incompetence… REALLY great teachers are rare, so word gets around a community pretty fast if a teacher “has the goods.” This creates demand and drives up the teacher’s rate. In a phrase, you’ll get what you pay for.
What do their students have to say? Here’s what Waldron Guitar Academy’s students have to say…
3. Will Your Instructor Hold You Accountable for Your Practice?
Inexperienced instructors are hesitant to call out students who aren’t putting in the work.
They are afraid that if they do, their students will get discouraged and quit. Instead, the inexperienced instructor will brush off the student’s lackluster performance and just move on to something different.
This is a tremendous disservice to the student.
If an instructor is afraid of their student becoming frustrated, they will never allow the student to sit with a frustrating concept long enough to actually master it.
Over time, this will erode the student’s self confidence (or rather, deprive them of the confidence building exercise of facing a challenge head on and conquering it). It will also lead to the student’s much more profound frustration as they watch the months pass, their money slip away and their guitar ability stagnate.
Experienced instructors realize (and explain to students) that, while learning guitar is fun, it is ALSO hard. And in order to grow, students need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. That is, they need to get comfortable wrestling with new concepts until they click— not just moving onto something novel when the going gets tough.
Here it is in a nutshell—
❌POOR INSTRUCTORS focus on 100% fun 100% of the time. That makes for happy students in the short term— we humans are wired to seek pleasure and avoid pain. But give it 6 months, and that happy-go-lucky instructor will start to seem a lot less competent when the student realizes they haven’t gotten any better. Unfortunately at that point, the student is hundreds or thousands of dollars in hole 💵 🔥
📈GOOD instructors challenge their students because they know, both literally and figuratively, that without resistance we don’t get stronger.
🫡GREAT instructors know how to tailor a challenge to a student’s specific level, pushing them further, but never outside of what’s reasonably attainable. Great instructors are also excellent at motivating their students through the inevitable rough patches that come with learning a new skill because they know that just over what might seem like an impossibly steep hill, there is a breathtaking view.
Okay you’ve reached the end! As a reward, here is a video that you will almost certainly benefit from. Left Hand Alignment: the most common error I’ve ever seen and how to fix it.