Guitar Lessons In Tulsa | Preparation Is Key
This content was created for Curtis Music Academy
In this topic, I’m going to discuss preparation and how preparation is key. It is very key that we are prepared. Because preparation helps us to save time, save money, save disappointments, save our behinds from getting fired. And it just makes all of life better when we are prepared. Okay. In without further ado, our first point is going to be about how preparation is a principal. And then I’ll give some examples of what that has looked like in my life. Secondly, how preparation saves us time, how it saves our behinds from getting fired and how it produces longevity in our career path.
Thirdly, what the student’s needs are. It’s important to know that so that you can gauge what actions you need to do, what piece papers you need to print, documents that you need to make, things like that. So the first point is about prep. How preparation is a principal. There are many scenarios where preparation is exemplified in as being a principal. A principal, as I see it, is anything that you can apply to a certain situation or process and it, and it work. So a principal when you apply, let’s say a universal thing that everyone can understand is the principle of money. Money or principle. There are principles to money as an example of a principle with money would be don’t spend more than you make.
So if you have, you will always have money. If one, you don’t spend more money than you make, there are a few more principles too. You will always have money if you’re investing. And three, I guess another principle would be you have to be making money. You have to have income that you can do the things with. So you have to grow the money, right? One way we can grow the money is by working a job or receiving wages by some thing that we provide, right? Secondly, we don’t want to spend more than we make and if we do that, we’ll always have money or we’ll always have a positive margin of money.
And then thirdly, to grow our money even further, we want to invest, invest into things like, you know, tons of things you can invest, invest in. Those are examples of principles, things that you can apply to your process or, or a situation and it should work, right? So when it comes to instructing or you know, teaching music or teaching a skill, really, one way you can kind of, one principle of teaching guitar lessons in Tulsa is just that you’re prepared, that you know what to teach. Another principle is if you know your audience, then you kind of know what to kind of begin teaching them.
You know, you can gauge whether your material is going to work or not. And so at least you know, knowing your audience, knowing who is going to help you know to what to do. So preparation is a principle in teaching guitar lessons in Tulsa. Preparation will save you time. This is been, I have one at this and I’ve lost it this many times since working in predicts music Academy. unfortunately I have to say, and one ways, one way it has kicked me in the butt is where I have not prepared for my guitar lessons in Tulsa by leaving early enough to get to my lesson five or 10 minutes early.
It takes me about 25 minutes to get from where I am or my apartment to the Academy. And depending on the time, usually traffic is worst at five o’clock and where we live and if I leave around four 30, I’m going to catch traffic and it’s going to be horrible and I’m going to be late. So I have to go a little bit early. I have to prepare, I have to leave and keep that in mind. You know, 30 minutes would not be enough time for me if my guitar lessons in Tulsa at four 30 I have [inaudible] to go a little bit earlier. So I just kind of have to know kind of what times would be best and just prepare on many levels around that. You know, when is my first guitar lessons in Tulsa? Is it at five o’clock?
Okay. If I leave at four 30 and it takes me 25 minutes, you know, ideally I would be getting there five minutes early, but due to traffic it would be way after that. So I might need to leave 45 minutes early, which would ensure that I get there at least five to 10 minutes early. Correct. So preparing, has saved my butt from being late many times and then many times I have a few times I’ve been late and it was because of a lack of preparation, a lack of leaving actually leaving the place I am, I was to where I needed to be and calculating that time.
Well, I didn’t prepare well enough and when I, when I didn’t apply the principle, the result was I was late. Right? Preparation will save you so much. So many things. Preparation will save you money in terms of guitar lessons in Tulsa. Say preparation will save you definitely time, resources and it’ll save your relationships as well. If I, if I wasn’t prepared and if I didn’t leave on time and I was late or even extra late to my, to my lesson, I might lose that student because they, that might communicate to them that, Hey, this guy doesn’t really care to start on time.
Hey this, this instructor doesn’t really care that my guitar lessons in Tulsa started 10 minutes ago and I have somewhere to be in 20 minutes. You know, it’s important that we honor our own time and honor the others, our students’ time. And also not only does this reflect badly on us when we, when we are not on time or are late or don’t lack of prepare preparation had PR, lack of preparation, but it also speaks, it speaks a lack of care and you know, value to the school. You know, Curtis music Academy could take a hit because one of our instructors is late and we don’t want to do that as an instructor.
We want to always be on time for our guitar lessons in Tulsa. We want to always give our very best and always be early. And so we wanted to definitely achieve that in and apply the principle of preparation. So my last point is about what the students need. You got to know the kind of the students’ needs so that to know kind of what to teach and what to, what to prepare for guitar lessons in Tulsa, right? If you know what the student’s needs are, then you kind of know what to teach. And if you know what to teach, then you know what you kind of need to prepare.
If you know what to prepare, then you know that this lesson can go well. It’s all about breaking things down and into simple bits and simple steps to kind of achieve success when it comes to this. So, got to figure out what the student’s needs are and knowing what their needs are is first asking on their first lesson, Hey, what are your goals when it comes to guitar? They’d say something like, Oh, I want to be a really great guitar player or I want to learn how to play songs or I kind of want to learn everything there is to know about the guitar for guitar lessons in Tulsa. We get one of those three answers.
Basically whenever we ask what are your goals with guitar? And so based on that, I kind of tried to get a little bit more specific about their goals. You know, our, you know, where do you see yourself in a year from now? You know, asking the student,Hey, you know what how skilled you want to be, say a year from now, where do you see those skills, your guitar skills? I say a year from now. And usually they’ll say, I want to be really good. I want to be as good as Sean Mendez or I want to be as good as John Mayer or I want to be as good as Lauren Hill, whoever it is. I want to be that good.
I’m like, okay, well I kinda know what level we want to reach. We want to be pretty advanced by then. Right. So then I just kind of ask even more questions and the more questions, okay. The more questions you ask, the better until you just really hit home what the goal is. And so, you know, and if they’ve probably played guitar before, you could ask them another question. You know, what is your greatest challenge in learning guitar currently? You know, and then you can ask things that are kind of more fun and kind of just hit on what styles of music they’d be.
They may want to learn such as, you know, what are your two or your top three musical influences and why are they your top three musical influences? You know, and then you can kind of just keep things fun by asking, Hey, what is your all time favorite snack? You know, those are, these are just some of the questions I actually asked, for example, that kind of hit home what their goal is. It’s kind of reveals what their true goals are and kind of lightens the mood by asking, you know, what, what kind of things do you enjoy?
What’s your favorite snack? I think people really like that and I think people really kind of gravitate to that and see that, you know, you’re not all about just teaching and teaching and teaching, but you’re also about having fun and also interested in what they like and what they don’t like. And so this is going to be very helpful when you are prepping and preparing to kind of just know as much as you can about your student.