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Hi.

I ask the question because of something Rick Beato said about learning a large number of songs while teaching. His point was not about knowing a zillion songs but what that experience taught him about songwriting.

Teaching, I think, is one of the better ways for a musician to make money and structure your time to play live. Here in Miami, it is pretty easy to make 60K or more a year teaching...if you are a good teacher and people like you. It is a lot of work, but then again, what isn't...lol

If you teach, how has that affected your songwriting ability and the use of BIAB?

Billy


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I teach. I think the best way to learn something thoroughly is to prepare to teach it to others.


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I don't dare teach because I am a horrible teacher. I have no patience for teaching and would likely hurt a lot of feelings when I told students "I don't think music is for you." I am that teacher who gets frustrated and says things like "How can you NOT know that" which is ridiculous because if they knew "that" they wouldn't be taking lessons. Plus, I will never teach people songs. I would teach them music. Once they have a grasp on half steps and whole steps, sharps and flats, time signatures, key signatures, circle of 5ths to a level where they can answer "What is the 6 in a Major scale" without thinking, THEN they can move on to somebody else to learn songs. Knowing songs is not knowing music.

I once worked with a singer who was singing a line wrong. The first 2 words of the bridge were supposed to be anticipated, and he did them wrong. (It was a combinations of things, but it DID tell me he didn't listen to the original song enough and just downloaded lyrics.) I told him "Those first 2 small syllables come before the downbeat." He looked at me like I came from Mars. I asked "Don't you know what 'downbeat' means?" And he didn't. It took everything I had to NOT say "How can you not know what a downbeat is and consider yourself to be a musician?"

And that is a great example of why I suck at teaching.

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I used to give private lessons on saxophone. But after I started my Band-in-a-Box aftermarket business I stopped taking new students and kept the old ones until they moved on.

Between making backing tracks for my duo, making product for BiaB, being the band salesman for my duo, and gigging, there just was not enough time. I haven't even watched TV any since 1990 - zero - nada - zilch.

One of my former students moved to New Orleans, ended up playing with Rocky Charles, and got to play in the NOLA Jazz Fest (I'm proud of her). When you get a student like her, teaching is easy.

A good teacher always learns from his/her students.

I still suck at songwriting, all the lyrics I write sound terrible to me. Probably because I don't really listen to lyrics when I hear music. Until the rest of the song is fully assimilated, the words are just meaningless articulations.

But writing styles for Band-in-a-Box and making backing tracks for The Sophisticats has taught me a lot about arranging for small to medium-sized groups. All that stuff I learned in school makes more sense after you make a few mistakes and make some things you are proud of.

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I have taught 4 students on guitar about 20 years ago. They all still play for pleasure and one became a professional touring guitarist. I did not teach them much technique but I did teach mostly ear training on identifying chord types by ear and picking out key of the songs they brought to me to learn.

The fact that they all still play makes me very happy. I did not charge any of them because the guys that took time to teach me never charged me.

I’ve taught home recording to a few including my own son. Those few still do it as well.

I learned a lot of my home recording stuff from rharv and Mac here in the late 90’s and I will forever be thankful to this forum and particularly those two and their willingness to guide and teach.

I’ve re-taught Pat Pattison’s boxes method for lyricists in a couple of song circles I have hosted at my house. Some total noobs came to those who hadn’t even written poetry before and they picked right up on Pat’s method and one of them writes regularly.

Except for the one guitar student who went in to tour for several years, none of these were raging success stories except I know I was part of their journey that continues. That is probably the most satisfying thing about it. I provided a nudge

Last edited by rockstar_not; 12/23/21 05:00 AM.
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Originally Posted By: Notes Norton
...................................

A good teacher always learns from his/her students.

I still suck at songwriting, all the lyrics I write sound terrible to me. Probably because I don't really listen to lyrics when I hear music. Until the rest of the song is fully assimilated, the words are just meaningless articulations.

....................


I agree about teachers learning from their students and I am also terrible with lyrics.

I haven't taught since Covid struck but I hope to get a couple of students in the near future.

One of my students ended up playing with Barbara Streisand. Another won a national songwriting contest.

When I started teaching at a local music store another guitar teacher had the majority of students. He taught by song while I taught the fundamentals, i.e. reading music. When the store closed I had the majority of students as the owner was also old school.

Because each student is different and the lessons were one on one a good teacher has to respond differently to each student. If a student was doing OK I would throw in some fun stuff. Things like taking a song they liked, arranging it to their level, and breaking away from the regular method books to teach them. That would include things that would come later in the method book; things like 1/6th notes and syncopation. I found it was easier to teach the fundamentals when they were playing something that they liked. I always kept on track with the method books: It would be half the lesson from the book and half from the song. This worked the best for me.

That also is where BiaB comes into play. I made backing tracks for the songs, both in the method book and the fun stuff. The fun stuff would be at a few tempos so the student could start slow. I also made backing tracks for jams when they were advanced enough to learn some scales.


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I have taught some and enjoy it, more as a hobby than a profession.

With the guitar students I have had, I have tried to start early and only teach those who want to learn to read music, and do hours of boring exercises at first.

As I have explained to them, if you work your butt off, there will come a point in time when you will look at the fret board and see a series of beautiful, glimmering math equations, and say to yourself "I got it!"

Then you are not struggling anymore. You are sailing.

There is NOTHING in the world to me that beats that moment when a student turn to you and smiles and says "I got it."

NOTHING.

smile

Well, maybe one thing.

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