By: David Millar
The internet has had a significant impact on guitar tuition in recent years. This article will address some issues affecting traditional ‘in person’ guitar lessons due to the impact of online guitar lessons.
Competition
A student’s next guitar tutor may just be a click or tap away. Traditionally, competition for students may have come from other guitar tutors operating within the same locality.
It is important to be aware that the option of online tuition is now available to any of your students via the internet. The attractiveness of the online option may vary according to the type of student.
For example, many parents of younger students still may prefer their son or daughter to attend regular lessons with a local tutor who they may get to know in person. Some older students may prefer the social interaction of taking lessons with a tutor in person.
On the other hand, teenagers and other adult students are likely to spend a greater percentage of their time online and may be more attracted to online tuition.
Resources
Online content can be a valuable teaching resource when used correctly. The internet does provide a wealth of resource material both for the student and teacher. It is now very easy to access a vast array of music in many different styles and a range of supplementary teaching materials.
However, students will often view this content quite differently compared to the experienced eyes and ears of the tutor.
Therefore, it is important to teach students how to effectively use the internet as a resource tool within the structured framework of a course of lessons. As much of the content is unregulated it is always worth reminding students that while it is fairly easy to find accurate music transcriptions on the internet, it is even easier to find inaccurate music transcriptions!
Beginning Students
Many new students now view online tuition material before starting lessons. It is more and more common for beginning students from about age 12 and upwards to have viewed some type of online guitar tuition.
This can sometimes be an advantage or sometimes a disadvantage. It is an advantage when a student has already made a head start on the basics, however, it may be a disadvantage if they have developed some bad habits such as incorrect posture, etc.
It is always worthwhile taking time to check carefully with a new student what they already know, even if they have never received formal lessons before.
Structured Lessons
Make sure you present lessons in a structured format to give value and set goals for the student to achieve.
It is not uncommon nowadays to come across someone enquiring about lessons who has spent some time trying to teach themselves from free lesson material online.
The fact that they have sought out a tutor to provide lessons may mean they wish to develop their playing further, or that they have become frustrated with the limited progress they have made themselves.
Whilst there is some excellent free material available online, to the untrained eye it can easily appear unstructured and overwhelming.
What is likely to help you retain this type of student is to provide a structured course of lessons, which will help them to achieve their short and long term goals playing the instrument.
Adding Value
Supplement lessons with other services. As online tuition grows in popularity both with tutors and students it is important to seek out ways to bring added value to ‘in person’ lessons in order to keep them attractive to your existing and potential customers.
Organising opportunities for students to perform in public, such as at school concerts, student recitals, music festivals, etc. are great ways to motivate students and gain the support of parents.
Preparing students for exams, providing or facilitating instrument set-up, repair and maintenance services, supplying music books, spare strings, picks, etc. directly to your students, are all ways to add value to in ‘person lessons’ and help you remain competitive.
Group Tuition
Consider offering an option of providing some lessons in groups. Although group tuition can be harder to set up and manage, it does bring an added dimension in terms of personal interaction, which may be appealing to some students or their parents.
As costs usually are lower for students attending group lessons this can also help to keep them attractive.
It is quite common now, particularly in schools, for students to supplement their individual learning interests with online resources while enjoying the interaction and shared experience of learning in a group.
The Future
Adapt your teaching approach to be successful in the future. Much of the material on the internet for learning the guitar has already been around for many years in the form of books, magazines, CDs, DVDs, videos, cassette tapes, (even flexi discs – if you are old enough to remember!).
Although all these formats have existed before, the internet does make a vast amount of guitar tuition material readily accessible, but in many cases without the quality control applied to licensed and published products.
One major advance with internet technology in recent years has been the facility to provide online lessons via video services such as Skype or Google Video Chat.
Most students will still wish to interact with another person – whether over a video call or by visiting them in person – to gain a direct learning experience, so the way forward is to adapt how you run your guitar teaching business to embrace the future.