What is the different between a good and teacher?

What makes a good guitar teacher?

• My son who's 11 has been taking guitar lessons for about a year now. His teacher let him start with book 1, went through the chords and stuff, but did not follow through on the contents of the book like the individual exercises. Never finished that book. As of the moment I let my son take a break on guitar lessons because I felt there was no progress. Instead of him being the guide, so that my son could maybe proceed to book 2, and so on, he lets my son "do what he wants" during the 30-minute lesson. So sometimes my son brings song pieces that he thinks he wants to learn on, but it still never gets to the point of him learning the entire song, because halfway through learning the chords, he finds another song that interests him more. My son LOVES to play the guitar, he can imitate some chords of some songs but he is not quite there yet. The teacher said he has a "good ear" and that he is a fast learner. Shouldn't it be the teacher's job to set some kind of a path, like following through the guitar lesson books so there can be progress that can be seen? I've never had guitar lesson before, don't know how to play one, so I don't know whats "normal" (are guitar teachers this way, that they let the student lead? what if the student doesn't know what's next?) when taking lessons. I promised him he can return to guitar lessons if we can find a more focused instructor.

• Answer:

  Book 1 in what series? There are tons of ways to teach there guitar. There isn't just ONE method where you learn a certain series of songs in a certain order. Any series of instructionals is just one person's attempt to create a course somebody can study on their own. Instructors RARELY go through a book from start to finish. Different players have different strengths and weaknesses, and what you teach them depends entirely on what they want to accomplish. Being a teacher is tough... especially when you're teaching kids. If they aren't learning music they are interested in, they won't practice what you tell them to. Finding specific songs that will help out in specific areas is hard enough, but finding ones the kids want to play is totally different. I always encourage my students to bring in stuff they'd like me to teach them. It helps me figure out what sort of things I need to teach them. If a particular song is too hard for them at that time, we set that song aside and work on something else to prepare for that song they really want to play. I assume you're not a musician yourself, so just take my word for it: the idea that your son should just stick to the book and go page by page is incredibly misguided. Nothing you've said indicates to me that your son's teacher is incompetent. Learning bits and pieces of songs is fine. There may be certain little things in those little parts that your son's teacher wants him to focus on.