Originally Posted By: sslechta
Same age as you Joe...... Here's a list to get started from my listening.....

3 Doors Down, 30 Seconds to Mars, Alice In Chains, Alt J, Arcade Fire, Arctic Monkeys, Atlas Genius, Atreyu, Avenged Sevenfold, Awolnation , Bastille, Bear Hands, Big Data, Bleachers, Bob Moses, Breaking Benjamin, Bruno Mars, Bullet for My Valentine, Cage The Elephant , Cake , Catfish & The Bottlemen, Cavo, Chevelle, Cold War Kids, Evanescence, Everlast , Fall Out Boy, Fitz & the Tantrums, Five Finger Death Punch , Florence and the Machine, Flyleaf, Foals, Foo Fighters, Foster the People, Garbage, Highly Suspect, Imagine Dragons, Incubus, Jack White, Jamie T, K Flay, Kaleo, Kings of Leon, KONGOS, Korn , Linkin Park, Lorde, Muse, My Chemical Romance, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, Neon Trees, Nickelback, Nothing but Thieves, Panic At the Disco, Puddle of Mudd, Queens Of The Stone Age, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rise Against, Royal Blood, Saint Motel, Seether, Shinedown, Silversun Pickups, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, Struts, The Killers, The Neighbourhood, The Offspring, The White Stripes, Theory of a Dead Man, Three Days Grace, Thrice, Twenty One Pilots, Vance Joy, Wolf Alice, X Ambassadors, Young The Giant


I saw this list and thought "Man, there are some really good bands in there" my next thought was what my kids think of many of those bands..."they're old."

Not all of them by any means, and I didn't feel that way HOWEVER...my son is 16, a good number of bands listed had their biggest days before or just after he was born! Yikes!

This may or may not apply, keep in mind the age of who you are teaching. Even if they like things from a while ago, they may have a different frame of reference to it.

I also wanted to say that a few of those bands in the list are very current...like 21 Pilots. That same son I mentioned likes the guitars in their songs.

I still say your best bet on what they may want to learn is to ask them as Floyd suggested.

As far as theory, reading, and the technical side...don't start there. Work it in WITH their interest. "Oh you want to learn that Justin Beiber song. Great! Here is what he/they are doing. Pretty cool. Some other songs that have this same thing going on are..." and that's your opportunity to expand them a bit. You will have more students who enjoy a lifetime of music if you relate it to what they are doing. I've seen teachers who do this and teachers who don't. The response in the student learning ratio is massively different.

I've also seen teachers who say in various ways "Oh, you want to learn that Justin Beiber song? He's crap. He doesn't even write his own music. Let me show you some real (ly old) music." The kid quits out of frustration, and maybe doesn't want to learn ever again, and the teacher is dumb enough to say "Kid's now days. They're so lazy. Let them have their disco crap!"...showing how out of touch they are wink

To me, you seem like you would have a decent personality for teaching. You can recognize that you may have to update yourself to relate. That's a huge step.

Good luck in your venture! smile

I'm off to download some of those mentioned bands music. I had forgotten about some of them. That may be a bad sign wink

Last edited by HearToLearn; 06/30/17 03:48 AM.
Chad (Hope that makes it easier)

TEMPO TANTRUM: What a lead singer has when they can't stay in time.