Lesson Preparation

[rsadasiv]

(crossposted from GJ)

When I took music lessons as a kid, I (frequently) did not do any preparation/practice before showing up at the lesson, which seemed to annoy my instructors to some extent. Recently, I started taking guitar lessons again, and have made it a point to show up on time, already tuned, having practiced the material, with any backing tracks or sheet music set up and ready to go. It has been somewhat surprising how much this disconcerts my instructor - many times it seems like he hasn't done much/any preparation on the specifics of the lesson, and that he would really prefer to just jam and shoot the shit instead of digging deeply into the specifics of the lesson.

Now I've been playing with some level of dedication for almost 25 years, so we don't follow a specific syllabus - at the end of every lesson we pick a song (usually some kind of Real Book jazz standard) to work on for the next week, and that's fine with me. I'm not unhappy with the level of instruction - he usually has one or two useful insights that I can apply to my technique or understanding of the piece, but I'm curious about the standard baseline for instructors.

What is your standard level of preparation for a lesson?

[Mark Wein]

To be honest, since I've been a teacher for so long I don't usually have to prepare much in advance. I have a ton of prepared lesson material depending on what the students are working on. Sometimes I do need to get some stuff together but for 95% of my students I have enough organization going on that we are usually on track, I know what they've been working on and where they will be going. If they want to change directions I usually have something ready for the most common direction changes.....

[Help!I'maRock!]

i get pissed off when my students don't practice. but then i'm not very good at practice either, so i can't complain too much. i do try to set a good example though. its really difficult to go over the same thing week after week with no progress on the part of the student. especially the 4th time you've gone over the same concept.

tell your instructor that you'd like him to be more prepared for your lessons. you like him, its just that you want a bit more structure. if he's any kind of teacher, he'll adjust to the demand of the student. especially one who wants to progress.

finally, the Spaceballs answer, "you're always preparing. what are you always preparing for? just go!"

[AdamLopez]

Sounds like your teacher isn't really a teacher. I think it's important to recognize that the art of teaching is not the same as the art of being a guitar player and just because someone can do one well doesn't mean he or she can do the other.

If you have to ask your teacher to be more prepared I think you'd find better use of your time and money elsewhere.

Usually "let's just jam" is code for "well....i got nuthin' else, so let's just mess around.."

If nothing else, your teacher should at least have an open book of knowledge off the top of his/her head that would suffice in a pinch instead of "just jamming".