Benefits Of My Auckland Guitar Lessons

Unless you were lucky enough to be born a musical genius, becoming a really good guitarist takes a lot of practice. (Anyone who says otherwise is a liar). Because practice is of such importance, doesn’t it make sense that learning how to practice effectively would be a very helpful thing? After all, if you don’t know how to practice in a way that gets results you’ll largely be wasting your time! During our Auckland guitar lessons, I’ll give you intensive training on how to practice. We’ll cover a wide range of topics including…

• How to structure your weekly practice.
• How to structure your daily practice sessions.
• Strategies for speed and motor skill development.
• Understanding how to get rid of unnecessary muscle tension.
• How to optimize your playing movements to help make the physical act of playing guitar effortless.
• How to keep track of your progress.
• Learning how to truly master the things you learn.
• How to overcome playing plateaus.
• How to isolate and correct any playing problems that you might have.
• Developing your concentration and attention to detail in a way that makes your practicing much more effective.
• Understanding the difference between playing guitar and practicing guitar. (A lot of guitarists don’t understand this, and it often causes them progress at a snail’s pace).
• Effective strategies for learning and memorisation.
• And many other things!

To progress quickly on the guitar it’s very helpful to get regular feedback from someone who’s at a more advanced level. This feedback is essential to the learning process because it helps you to…

• Find out what bad habits you currently have. By identifying them now rather than later, this means that they can be fixed before they become too ingrained. This is critical because bad habits that are deeply entrenched are extremely difficult to correct. It’s not impossible, but it often takes a very long time and a tremendous amount of effort. Why go through that unnecessary hassle if getting Auckland guitar lessons with me will help you to prevent it?
• Find out what weaknesses you have that are preventing you from playing guitar at a high level. Although you might have some idea of these, I’ll be able to give you insights into your playing that you wouldn’t get from teaching yourself. For Example: You probably have technical and musical weaknesses that you’re not even aware of—most self-taught guitarists do. If you’re not aware of these weaknesses then how will you improve them?
• Find out where you need to focus your time and energy. There are an almost endless number of things that you could be practicing. But not all of them will move you closer to becoming an excellent guitarist. I’ll be able to look at your current playing, and tell you exactly what you need to focus on in order to move towards your musical goals in the most direct way.
• Find out what you need to do to solve your guitar playing problems. It’s very frustrating having problems with your playing that you don’t know how to fix. To help avoid this frustration, I’ll be able to give you solutions to those problems. These solutions might require that you have to work really hard. But at least you’ll know what to do in order to overcome the problems that you have with your playing.

I think we’ve all felt frustrated and discouraged at times in our journey to becoming a good guitarist. For some guitarists, this causes them to lose self-confidence and even doubt their own potential for becoming an excellent guitarist. When you get Auckland guitar lessons from me, I’ll be able to help you in the following ways…

• Give you encouragement and help you overcome self-doubt if it ever starts to creep in.
• Give you a pat on the back when you’re working hard, and a little bit of tough love when you’re “less than diligent”. 
• Help you set short-term, medium-term and long-term goals that are motivating.
• Help you overcome any frustrations that you might have.
• Help you learn how to develop confidence so that you’re less likely to doubt your abilities.
• Encourage and inspire you to work harder.
• Make you accountable. If you know you’re going to see me on a regular basis, you’ll be much more likely to work hard and do your best.
• Help you keep track of your progress in a way that motivates you.

It’s impossible for me to give you specific details of the exact skills we’ll be covering in the Auckland guitar lessons. Why? This is because…

• I don’t know you’re current level of playing.
• I don’t know your strengths and weaknesses as a player.
• I don’t know your exact goals, aspirations, and musical tastes.
• I haven’t seen or heard you play.

With that said, it’s probably very helpful to give you some broad areas of learning that I’ve helped students with in the past…

Technique Training

Having the necessary physical skills mastered to play any musical idea or song you want is a critical part of becoming a good guitarist. As part of your Auckland guitar lessons I’ll help you to do the following things…

• Identify and correct any bad habits that are preventing you from playing guitar at a level that you’re happy with.
• Learn and master a wide range of techniques that will make you a much more versatile guitarist.
• Overcome any specific technical frustrations that you might currently have.
• Develop your technique to a level that allows you to effortlessly execute the musical ideas and songs that you want to play.
• Learn how to combine different guitar techniques in a way that helps you to develop your own style of playing.

Fretboard Knowledge Training

Knowing the guitar fretboard inside out can really help in the process of becoming an excellent guitarist. Although the exact things you need to work on will depend on your goals, here are some possible areas that I can help you with…

• Learning how to play chords, scales, arpeggios and other musical materials over the entire fretboard.
• Learning how to analyze guitar licks in a way that makes it easier for you to use them in real-life musical situations.
• Improving your note, scale degree and interval knowledge in a way that makes you become a better musician and guitarist.
• Learning to visualize chord tones so that you can solo in a more melodic way.
• Learning to integrate chords and scales together. (This will make it much easier for you to understand which scales work over which chords).

Musicianship Training

Becoming a better musician is an essential part of accelerating your growth as a guitarist. It’s important that we include at least some musicianship training as part of your Auckland guitar lessons. Here are some of the things that I can help you with…

• Understanding what scales work over various chord progressions.
• Developing your pitch perception. This will help you to develop you’re ability to solo melodically, and also play what you hear in your head. It will also help you with things like playing by ear, composing your own music, transcribing music by ear, and feeling more at home with music.
• Developing your rhythmic perception. This is an important area to work on as it helps you to play in time, and it also helps you become more versatile rhythmically. It also will really help you with learning how to phrase your guitar solos in a musical way. (Rhythm is an incredibly important part of phrasing).
• Gaining a deep understanding of practical music theory that helps you to improve your improvisation and overall guitar playing.
• Specific strategies that you can use to develop your improvisational skills in a methodical and predictable way. Many guitarists belief that improvisation is something that requires natural talent. But, as you’ll discover if you decide to become a coaching student, that belief is just not true.

Soloing Vocabulary Development

If developing your ability to improvise is an important goal for you, then we will spend a lot of time developing your vocabulary. This is because, in order to improvise fluently you need to develop a very large soloing vocabulary. It’s a bit like learning a new language. If you only know 20 words of a language, how fluently are you going to be able to speak it? I’m certainly no language expert, but I’m guessing you wouldn’t be very fluent at all. 🙂 In this part of the Auckland guitar lessons we’ll focus on expanding your guitar soloing vocabulary. To do that we’ll cover things like…

• Ideas and strategies that you can use to compose your own licks. This will help you to develop a style of playing that is uniquely you.
• Learning and mastering various rhythmic ideas that will help make your guitar phrasing more interesting and varied.
• Melodic patterns and ideas that will help make you much more melodic when you solo.
• Ways of practicing guitar licks in a way that is helpful to guitar improvisation. (Many guitarists struggle with using the licks they learn in an improvisational context).

While I certainly don’t claim to know it all, I have many years of teaching and playing experience. (Please see my About Me page for more details). Because of this, my Auckland guitar lessons will help you to…

• Avoid the common mistakes that guitarists make when trying to improve their guitar playing abilities.
• Avoid wasting time practicing things that won’t move you closer to your goals.
• Avoid having to try and solve all your playing problems by yourself. Chances are, if you have a specific problem I have already helped another student overcome the very same problem. This means that in most cases I’ll be able to give you solutions to your problems that are already proven to work.

Choosing a new guitar teacher  is actually a very risky proposition. This is because getting lessons from a mediocre teacher will make progressing extremely difficult. Learning from them could also give you bad habits that take many years to undo. (Mediocre teachers often just teach songs but give no in-depth guidance on technique, posture and how to practice). For this reason, it’s important to choose a teacher who has some track record of helping people improve their playing. If you read through my student testimonial page you’ll see the evidence that I can help people improve their guitar playing.

Over the course of our Auckland guitar lessons I’ll help you to overcome any playing problems that you might currently have. As we work together to overcome them, you’ll move closer and closer to becoming the guitarist that you’ve always wanted to become. This continual progress in your guitar playing abilities will help make you feel much more confident as a guitarist. You’ll also feel a great deal of satisfaction with each new goal you reach.

The primary focus of my Auckland guitar lessons is to empower you to be able to play the music that inspires you. Whether that’s learning some of your favourite cover songs, composing your own music, or learning to improvise like a mofo. This means that…

• I will take the time to find out what bands and guitarists you like.
• I won’t force feed my own musical tastes onto you.