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Stepping up my teaching game

O

oniman7

Jun 1, 2010
2,490
10
Saint Augustine, Florida
#1
I've been wanting to do this for a while, but I just got a call from a bass teacher at the studio I teach at that he got offered a salaried job as a chef at his other place of work that would require him to work 60-70 hours a week, so he'll likely be retiring from teaching.

He's got 30 students and he called me to let me know that I was his first choice to take over some of his best students that learn fast and pay on time.

I'm a pretty decent player and I can do a lot of progressive rock. I know theory, chords, modes, scales, keys, and how to apply all of them. I know how to play with a band and drummer. I can read (though I can't sight read). Unfortunately, I'm mostly fluent in rock, progressive rock, and a little fusion. He has some students learning things like Tool and Rage Against the Machine which I can do really great at. But he's also got a few doing things with bassists like Stu Hamm, Victor Wooten, and Les Claypool. I don't slap and I do very little tapping. I don't intend to try to cram it in but I do need to find a way to give these students helpful instruction. I hope that by being honest with these students, I will be able to reach them.

For classical guitar, I already use the Christopher Parkening Guitar Method as a method book. I would like to find one for rock guitar and maybe jazz. I'd also like to find one on the electric bass, and if I can find one that will walk through jazz or classical method, I can definitely take it from there.

I also would like to hear your ideas of some things every teacher should teach. I teach technique, theory, tone, playing with a band, and a little improv.
I intend to start brushing up on my Marcus Miller, James Jamerson, Stanley Clarke, Pino, and other famous bassists as well as resuming my sight reading studies with the Bach Cello Suites that I had started before. I'll also start taking a look at some Victor Wooten and Stu Hamm technical exercises to see if that's something I can learn to faithfully teach. Then I'll start with jazz standards.

My goal is to reform my teaching to higher standards within a month or two, expand into other styles such as jazz and blues very well within 6 months, and within a year or two be able to compile an entire curriculum of my own work covering everything from technique to theory and songs for lessons that I can put together in a book, copy at Kinko's, and give to every new student.

So, does anyone have any advice for where to start? I guess the first thing I'm looking for is good curricula to take a look at and borrow from and then classic works that I need to study.

This, of course, in addition to what I already do.
 
#2
I teach for a living too!

The biggest challenge I have dealt with in the last couple years is really understanding and predicting what is too difficult for a student.

This is a complex can of worms because it is highly dependant on the students age and interest.

If you're taking on a bunch of new students from the chef you're going to see some huge variance in aptitude, interest, talent. In can bewilder you if your not ready for it!

Get in the habit of really dumbing your lessons down.... Sometimes it's like you are crawling in quicksand with students.

I currently have a high schooler who can't play whole notes to Let it Be after about 6 weeks.... He confessed to me last lesson that he's failed grade 9 math twice ... So there is some disability here.

You may have to familiarize yourself with the likes of one direction, Taylor swift etc..... Sometimes that's the only thing that kids or young ladies will take to.

Many students will not have the discipline to learn to read. You still wanna bring them along and keep the business!

Be prepared for students to have little or no musical taste , can't name a favorite song or band let alone favorite bass player!

There is a very small percentage of students who will become life long musicians.... Unfortunately.... These are the kids that will give you your sense if accomplishment! Cherish them, be there friend and give them every bit of useful advise you can!

Finally, Hal Leonard fast track book is a good starter for just about any student. You'll find some students will take to a method and some won't! If they are enjoying a book, stick with it, it makes your life easier and gives you a break from teaching by wrote!

The most painful lessons are the kids who won't do a method book but don't know what they like or want to learn.

One more piece of advise, this has helped me immensely! Spend as much time as possible in a lesson having the student playing.... And you playing along coaching!

If you taught them Taylor swift last week, make the student play thru the song this week. This can be very painful but you gotta do it! You'll very quickly see who is practicing and who is not. They'll also learn song form when you coach them thru a tune.... Verse chorus etc.

While you're teaching something new, make the student play it back immediately.... This will really help you dial in your sense of what is too difficult!

I teach with a laptop full of everything from black sabbath, Beatles, srv, Taylor swift, Metallica, to rock standards. I can't imagine not having a media player in my studio!

You may find you're light years away from teaching modes and arpeggios to most students..... That's a tough one to swallow lol!

Sorry for the long post, I hope it helps, I absolutely love teaching music for a living and am always trying to improve my game as well!
 
#5
What works best with my students is to choose songs that the student likes and that he will benefit from. Your job as a teacher is to supply transcriptions of these songs and to supply additional knowledge (this is why this chord is used here, that is a II-V-I progression, try to use the Am-scale...).
 
#6
Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about your skill level at slapping and tapping. The idea is to be forthright with students about what you know and what you don't.

No teacher can know everything. You have things to offer students and as long as you are honest with what you can teach, I don't see a problem.

It can be good to have a handle on most techniques, so I think it's good you are going to stretch out and continue learning. That too, is what a good teacher is about.

Good luck!

John
 
#7
I'm primarily a guitarist, but some years ago I ended up teaching both bass and guitar through a music shop. I left after a few months - I felt the bass students were being short-changed as I was just a rank amateur bassist at the time (now I'm just rank), and since I didn't know much about teaching, I wasn't sure some of the advanced guitar students were really getting value for money either.

These days I teach a few students guitar privately at home (not beginners though - I don't have the patience), but only after I studied numerous teaching methods, and only students whose musical tastes I can actually appreciate (and play). I suppose you just have to be honest with your students. Find out what music they're into, what their expectations are, and just take on the the ones who fall into that category. If they're mostly beginners, then it probably won't be much of a problem, but for more advanced students, if you know you're not what they need, you should pass them on to another teacher. There's nothing worse than a student wasting his time and energy with an unsuitable teacher (and vice versa).

I wish you all the best.

Regards,
mark
 
#8
Check out my >500 TB links below. Virtually all the links were chosen based on what I've seen in posts repeated many times over the years. There's a section on teaching and several on resources.

Good luck.

Btw, you can setup your TB profile to receive automatic updates for threads you've posted in so you never miss another one. :)
 
#10
Strength, flexibility and dexterity drills are always a part of whatever content I'm teaching. I use Jody Fisher's 30 Day Workout. Designed for guitar but great for bass, also.

Basic, intermediate and advanced theory using music students like. Circle of 4ths, major scale theory, triads, 7th chord arps. All that stuff, along with pentatonics gives you ton of material no matter their genre of choice.

For jazz students, Ed Friedland's Building Walking Basslines is the best resource I've come across. That plus the Real Book and I've taken kids who maybe read bass clef from another instrument, helped them make their HS jazz ensembles.

I have two kids playing the melody lines to tunes like Oleo, Take 5 and Straight No Chaser after working 2-3 years. They are ready to take on their college ensembles.

Frankly, after a few months of their getting the fretboard and some basics down, I wind up playing guitar for them to jam or solo over.
 
#11
I think the biggest part of a teacher's job is to evaluate the student and determine what is the NEXT thing they need to learn. It requires an overview of music, and the ability to assess someone's level of skill and understanding.

I find many of my students tell me they want to learn X, or Y, or Z... but they aren't ready for it. There is no foundation. So... I work on the foundation. Knowing the fingerboard, knowing the major scale, knowing arpeggios, developing their ears, keeping time, getting a good sound. When the foundation is in place, then you can talk about special techniques, specific styles...

At some point all teachers have to decide if they are simply going to take money from people to entertain them for a half hour a week or if they are going to TEACH. Learning is not always fun for some students. Many just want to come, feel like they're doing something related to music, learn a new lick, and have fun. It's a hobby, not a serious pursuit. And then you have the occasional serious student that understands they will not always sound good while they're learning something. That it will be uncomfortable at times, but that growing through that stage is what learning is all about.

I personally have become more flexible over the years. I recognize that some of my students just want a pleasant bass-related experience, to pick up a few things. I can't force them to take music seriously, so I keep it light, try to stay focused on something that has music value, but also be willing to sit and chat, or learn a song, or whatever. It's always possible to slant things toward actual learning once they are motivated. It's the ones that won't practice no matter what you try that get to me. If they don't weed themselves out, I will occasionally give someone the boot...

It's a business, you make money from it, and so a certain amount of customer satisfaction has to play into it. I realize that people of all levels of understanding teach, you don't have to pass a test, or get a license... But I think all teachers should strive to develop their understanding of music, and a chronological overview of what students need to learn. Speaking for myself, I think my teaching improved when I stopped caring about the money. Yes, I like money, in fact... very much so! But rather than look at teaching as a way to make a living, I choose to see it as a way to help people. This keeps me focused on the right thing in a lesson. Always ask yourself - "what is the NEXT thing this person needs to know?"

Good luck, and if all that doesn't help, you can always just have your students buy all of my books! ;)
 
#13
Great post, Ed.

Occasionally I get guys, who are in high stress professions like medicine or law, who just want to learn jazz for the mental challenge of it.

They put in some fretboard time, but don't really have the time to devote to such a demanding pursuit. This would fall into the category of adjusting one's teaching style with a nod toward customer service as you mentioned.
 
#14
I figure as long as I feel like I've given them solid information to help them along their musical way... I've fulfilled my end of the contract. You can lead a horse to water, etc.

For students with demanding lives, I often have to lower my expectations - people with kids, job, spouse, and whatever else... it's hard to demand they practice 2 hours a day. If they don't practice, we go over it again.
 
#15
Because students can learn by ear on their own, they seem to believe that lessons means they can cut out some of their workload....not increase it. But again the reality is we are cutting out the if's, buts, and maybes in their playing lives and give them focused tried and test ideas and teaching for them to incorporate into their playing, not replace it.


So ask them this question "what do they expect to from me and lessons", then tell them what you expect from them and lessons.

But the demands on teaching have changed faster in the last 7 years or so, in my experience, than any time in the last 40+ years I have been playing and certainly the last 14years or so i have incorporated teaching into my life. The Internet gives instant appeal to a students aspirations, YouTube shows them ideas, techniques, instruments, players and music they want to play instantly, tabs reinforces the counting skills they already developed as children...so for them SN is redundant in learning songs...tab will cover it.....and so on.

But a lot of this is mis-information because most of it has not be tried and tested, some of it comes with consequences in the form of injuries or not realising that a tab is wrong, because the person that wrote it can be anyone with access to a computer rather than a guitar..so we as teacher have an extra workload of breaking down this information to prove or dis-prove its worth to the student so we can continue on.

I have no problems, for example, in using Tab, but if I am giving the time, over a year say, I filter in SN as well to allow the student to make up their mind which one works best for music rather than showing them a song.

Touching on what Ed mentioned,
teaching depends on the catchment area, there is no point looking to teach Jazz ideas if no one listens to it, let alone wants to learn it. So you have to be aware of your options to teach and base them on how to best make a living from what is available to you or at least supplement your earnings.
If you target their aspiration and help them improve using solid music info that crosses all genres and boundaries, then as they develop new tastes, as they will, what you have taught them will be a relevant foundation to build on and develop....even if the go it alone or move onto another teacher.

I know that I cannot please everyone, so I make sure that the next teacher does not have to breakdown or dis-prove what I taught, but can build on it.

The honesty of not having all the answers for them is because new questions seem to develop weekly, so do not feel you have answers for everything, you are allowed to say "I don't know".

When I learned music, my teachers were the only real references I had, what they taught was law and the way it was to be.
We had no internet, no videos or DVDs, the only visual (practical as it was called) interaction we got was to watch players live.....and as such we could talk to them direct if allowed. Books were words which we had to interpret and make sense of with our teachers help, no interactive CDs or Tabs, just the sheet music or score in SN, so we had to learn to use SN to make sense of it. If we could not, then we would be cut from the class.....part of the requirement was to maintain standards, fall short and you will find yourself out.
So even our thought process were different, because it was never really about us at this stage, but about the music....my teachers certainly believed that someone so young as me did not have a relevant opinion because I did not have the experience or substance to make it a relevant one.

My main teacher used to say to me when I questioned something that I was learning that "I was not qualified to comment on its worth.....yet......so take a leap of faith, learn it, and see how it develops in the future." I have never forgotten that, because I done it, and I know how it ends, so trust has to be in place as well.

I found that making modules up to teach the most popular issues of dexterity, speed, endurance, etc. within ideas such as Blues, Jazz, Rock etc to deal with beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels gives me a bench mark to gauge how well they are learning. It also builds trust as they can see see there own development, work within a frame work at their own pace, and not feel pressured or overwhelmed in what they have to learn.
If you have to make slight adjustments, you can, but still keep them on track, you alway have to tweak it somehow to suit the student.
It gives them a goal to reach, and if they are a beginner, then a new goal after this to work through is tackling intermediate......it helps to keep them inspired and on track if the goals are there.

If they just want to learn a little and have some fun then modules can be created, or adapted, that start easy, but build up in complexity with each new song they learn within it.
This also gives you a train of thought to work on each time you see them, so it is a focused continuation of what went before, rather than random teachings.

As I said, it lets me gauge their abilities so i target just above them all the time so they do not feel over whelmed by it all.
The modern way seems to be short bursts of information rather than long drawn out ones, so taking the time to create lots is small modules you can piece together into larger ones. Each one you create is never wasted because it can be used time and time again, it is a good use of your time as well.

If you can imagine what makes a book work is the layout of the letters as modules that are, words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters and volumes. Good books are laid out to be easy to pick up and put down, because that have a rhythm to them that sets out relevant points, with finished conclusions, in an easy manner to understand.

So within an hour lesson we spend the first ten minutes or so reviewing the last lesson and homework giving out.
Then we talk through and work on the next single idea, I have it already prepared with sheets for them to take away in SN and tab ( there are some great programmes and apps out there you can use for this) or for them to download.
We then work through the framework of how to expand it, and what I expect of them to have in place and learned the next time they come, so their homework.
If they do not have it down when the come again, then the reality for them is they are paying to have the same lesson, because if I have to spend more time on it, them it cuts into this lesson time, if not all of it.

This in a way is a module because the learning framework is the same, the student knows what is expected of them, and what will happen when they turn up....I have had a few shall we say 'sick calls' to cancel, that I am pretty sure were more to do with the student not having their side ready for us to review and move on rather than being 'sick'.....LOL :D

So for me its, keep it in music, keep it relevant, keep it honest, and target the students aspiration, but alway be aware that they are "not qualified to comment on its worth.....yet......so its a leap of faith for them to learn it, and see how it develops in the future.".:)
 

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