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The other day I was reading a review on the always excellent Stratoblogster about a guitar teaching ebook called “Rob’s Totally Awesome Guitar Teaching Handbook”, aside from the great title I thought the book cover was pretty cool too and after reading the review decided to head over to Rob’s website Heartwood Guitar Instruction for a few more details and decided to buy the ebook for myself. Originally I hadn’t even intended to review the book I just thought it would be a good read as I’m thinking of taking on some students once I move house and actually have the space. Now I have taught guitar before including teaching at a high school but it has been a while so I figured any advice Rob could offer would be helpful.

The book is broken up into 3 Chapters, “To Teach Or Not To Teach?”, “Money Makin’” and “Teaching 101”. Chapter 1 is fairly short and basically poses a few questions about whether you should teach, if you are capable and patient enough, if you are knowledgable and whether you can cope with running your own business. As Rob points out, setting up a guitar teaching business costs next to nothing so even if you find out down the track it is not for you after all, you are likely to only lose out on the cost of a few flyers. Rob includes suggestions for lesson pricing, how to set up a waiting list and advice on how to stop teaching overtaking your life. Rob was an English teacher at an Elementary School before embarking on a guitar teaching business where he now has a 5 year waiting list for students so he has a good amount of experience with both teaching, motivating kids and running a business.

Chapter 2 is all about the main goal, making money and this includes how to set up your teaching space to begin with. Rob also talks about something probably often overlooked, gaining the trust of parents of younger students which is more important these days and the last thing you want are any accusations from disgruntled parents so don’t skip this section. Other subjects in this chapter include branding your business, advertising, alternative income ideas and accounting.

Finally the 3rd and largest chapter covers everything you ever needed to know about teaching your students. How to set up a teaching plan, how to steer distracted students back to the task in hand, how to break down tasks for students. Actually this subject is very useful, it covers how to teach a simple skill. It might be something second nature to you and therefore frustrating to see someone struggle, so Rob explains how to use his formula which you can then apply to anything you need to teach. Rob also goes into muscle memory and making sure students don’t let their muscle memory remember a mistake by slowing things down.

Along with the eBook you also get access to some of Rob’s teaching aids from his website which include song tabs for loads of tracks that you can use for your own students, he also includes downloads of blank Tab, a practice list, practice sticker chart for kids and a milestone chart. There are also student payment tables which you can use for your own business.

The eBook costs $30 and is available direct from Rob’s website Heartwoodguitar.com, if you are thinking of becoming a guitar teacher and think that $30 sounds a bit steep, just remember you will get that money back in 1 lesson and like Rob points out music books, music, gigs, tabs etc. are all tax deductible to guitar teachers so that makes this book even more of a bargain. I found it really helpful not as a bunch of lesson plans but as a teaching aid and motivational book and it is something I will definitely be re-reading once I am ready to take on some students.

Thanks to Stratoblogster for the heads up.

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