People come to me all the time after taking lessons somewhere else. Most of them carry the same quiet suspicion: maybe they just weren’t cut out for guitar.
Almost every time, that isn’t what happened.
What happened is that their teacher was winging it.
The Difference Between Playing and Teaching
Most guitar teachers are players who decided to start teaching as a way to make some extra cash between gigs. Many of them are very good players. A few are impressive enough to make you want to put your guitar back in the case after you watch them play a show.
But playing well and teaching well are two different skills.
Think about it this way. You wouldn’t hire someone to fix your golf swing just because they shoot a better round than you. You’d want someone who is trained to see what’s wrong, explain why it’s happening, and know what to fix first.
Teaching guitar works the same way. A good teacher has to figure out what’s actually holding you back, decide what to work on and in what order, and keep you moving when things get frustrating. None of that comes from being able to play. It has to be learned.
Most teachers never learn it. So they fall back on what they know.
They teach the way they learned, which for most guitarists was random, slow, and full of dead ends. Figuring something out over years of trial and error doesn’t mean you know how to break it down and teach it.
They let you run the lesson. “What do you want to work on today?” sounds friendly. But you’re paying for lessons because you don’t know what you need yet. Handing that decision back to you skips the hardest part of the job.
Even worse, some show you whatever they happen to be working on themselves. It’s what’s on their mind this week, not what’s right for you.
They lean on a method book. Not because it’s right for you, but because it’s easy. Turn the page, assign the next exercise.
And when something isn’t working, they say “keep practicing, you’ll eventually get it.” A trained teacher looks at the same situation and asks different questions.
How do I layer this topic so it makes sense for this student right now?
How can I present it so it isn’t too hard, but still challenges them to get better?
Is it the wrong music for what this person wants to play?
Is it a technique issue, like how they’re holding the guitar, or a gap in understanding?
Which one will help the most to fix right now?
What Winging It Looks Like From the Other Side
Jean loves hard rock. When she came to me, she was frustrated and ready to quit. Her previous teacher insisted she learn basic folk strumming and simple melodies before anything else. She had no interest in folk music. Some of the hard rock she wanted to play was actually easier than what she was being forced through. My guess is that teacher just didn’t know any hard rock, so Jean got what the teacher knew instead of what she needed to play the music she loves.
In my 30+ years of teaching, I’ve had many people come to an intro session after taking lessons elsewhere for a year or more. They knew “bits and pieces of random songs, but nothing comes together.” Within five minutes of talking to them, I can usually see why. Every week was something new, and none of it built on the week before. They were the ones deciding what to work on each week, and nobody kept a record of what had been taught or a list of the skills they needed to play the music they wanted to play.
These teachers aren’t bad people. Most of them genuinely care about the people they teach. They just don’t have a system, and nobody ever trained them to build one.
The modern version of this is having YouTube and online courses as your only teacher. Patrick from Chagrin Falls had spent a lot of time with online courses and still couldn’t strum in time. Matt from Chardon had taken online lessons from one of the biggest names in guitar instruction and still had major gaps in his fretboard knowledge that were holding him back. Neither of them was short on effort or material. What they were missing was someone who could see what they were doing and tell them what to fix.
Once Patrick learned the right mechanics and how to practice them, his timing improved right away. Within a few months the new habits were locked in. Once Matt knew what to practice and how, he filled those gaps fast, and his playing improved across the
What Training Actually Looks Like
For over 12 years, I’ve been part of a network of about 100 guitar teachers from around the world. I meet with them regularly, online and in person, to compare what’s working and sharpen how I teach.
What makes this group different is that it doesn’t just trade opinions. It tests things.
One of the teachers I train with, Dr. Zillio, has a PhD in physics. He took the methods he used as a scientist (test one approach against another, measure the results, keep what works) and applied them to teaching guitar. Many of the other teachers in the group run large schools, so ideas get tried with hundreds of players, not one or two.
I see what this produces firsthand. Every year I teach at a week-long guitar event in Chicago. At one of those events, a room of over 100 guitar players used the same practice methods I use in my own lessons. In seven days, they improved their speed and accuracy by over 50%.
To be fair, that’s seven days of practicing about nine hours a day, which is far more than most people want to put into guitar. But the methods work the same way with a weekly lesson and short daily practice at home. The progress just happens over months instead of days.
How This Shows Up in My Lessons
When Bryan from Chardon came to me wanting to play on his church’s worship team, I didn’t hand him a method book. I mapped out exactly what that job requires: chord knowledge, reading lead sheets, solid rhythm, using a capo, and creating his own guitar parts. Then I built the shortest path to get him there.
That’s what I do with everyone. Figure out where you want to go, find what’s in the way, and skip everything that doesn’t get you there.
When someone comes in after months on YouTube with little to show for it, the problem is usually that they’ve been working above their actual level. So I use what I call layering. I strip a song down to a version they can play well, let them hear it sound good with a backing track, then add the complexity back one layer at a time.
None of that is guesswork. It’s what I was trained to do.
How to Tell If a Teacher Is Trained
Most teachers will tell you about their playing: the bands they’ve been in, the gigs, their favorite guitarists. That tells you they can play. It doesn’t tell you they can teach.
Here’s what to ask instead.
“How do you decide what I work on?” If the answer is “whatever you want,” they’re winging it.
“What do you do when someone gets stuck?” If the answer is “more practice” or “some people just take longer,” they don’t know how to find the problem.
“How do you adjust for different people?” If they look confused by the question, they’re teaching everyone the same way.
“What training are you doing now?” If the answer is nothing, they’re teaching the way they did years ago.
A trained teacher will have a clear answer to all four.
If You’ve Tried Lessons Before
If you took lessons once and walked away thinking the problem was you, it probably wasn’t. You may have just had a teacher who was winging it.
If you’re in Geauga County or anywhere in Northeast Ohio, I offer a free 45-minute intro session. Part lesson, part conversation. You’ll leave knowing what’s been holding you back and what to do about it.
About The Author
Brian Fish is a professional guitarist who has been dedicated to helping other guitar players in Northeast Ohio pursue their musical dreams since 1994. He’s passionate about guiding others on their musical journey! He is the Guitar Playing Transformation Specialist, instructor, mentor, trainer, and coach at
Guitar Lessons Geauga.
Brian has also assisted people from around the globe in developing a solid sense of timing and enhancing their creativity through the fantastic rhythm course, “Ultimate Rhythm Mastery,” available at MusicTheoryForGuitar.com.
If you live in Geauga County / North East Ohio, Guitar Lessons Geauga can help you become the player you’ve always wanted to be.