Guitar Lessons in Tulsa | Life as an Instructor
This content was created for Curtis Music Academy
If you’re taking guitar lessons in Tulsa and you’re wondering what it is that an instructor does throughout his life as a guitar instructor, then this message is for you. Today we’re just going to be talking about the life of an instructor and what they do when they’re not instructing. One of the things that just comes with exactly what you would anticipate is instructors are going to spend a lot of time practicing their own instrument and so throughout the day as they’re having breaks, they’re going to be practicing a song that they’re working on or perhaps just a few songs that they’ve done in the past just for fun. And so as for myself, very frequently, whether it’s in between guitar lessons in Tulsa or if it’s on my lunch break, I like to just sit down and play a few songs just for fun. There are some songs that I’ve spent quite a bit of time on.
I’ve either played at a wedding and had to learn a song that they requested me to learn or it’s just a song that I really enjoy and I might play through it a couple times and that’s just something that probably every instructor will do throughout the day is just pick up their instrument and have fun playing it. As for myself, when I was learning the guitar back many years ago, it would not be uncommon for me to practice five or six hours a day. Now, it wasn’t daily that I would practice that much. I would probably spend about two hours on the average day, but there was many day. I mean there would probably be at least two days a week that I would spend a good five or six hours playing the guitar when I was first starting out. Now that I’m an instructor and now that I’ve honed my craft, I probably on average only spend about an hour of practice each day.
That’s not ideal. It would be much better for me to practice a lot more, but I just don’t have as much time. But I do still practice every day and probably on the best day I would probably practice it still again five to six hours, especially if I’m working on an upcoming wedding or if there’s a song that I have to learn for a recital for my students. If I’m going to learn a song for them, I’ll, I’ll practice quite a bit. Other than that, if I’m not practicing the guitar, if I’m not teaching guitar lessons in Tulsa, then one of the things that I really enjoy doing is actually listening to podcasts. And you would be so surprised how much content is out there that relates to not only learning an instrument, but also relate to life in general or even instructing guitar. Um, and it’s interesting how the central topic of the podcast or the audio book may not have anything to do with music at all.
It might not have anything to do with practicing or anything like that, but it’s so interesting how random topics can actually impact teaching guitar or even learning the guitar if you put it through that Lens. So I’m uh, I’m constantly absorbing content, whether it’s related to music or not and it actually through the lens that I’m receiving it and it can be very, very beneficial. So one of the things that I’ve been listening to recently is actually humorously how to sell. And basically if, if you’re a salesman, if you’re a car dealer, if you are a mattress salesperson, these are the type of books that they would listen to, assuming they’re even interested in making their life better. But it’s so interesting to me cause I’m not a salesman. I mean instructor, I’m a performer. But it’s so interesting how the concepts that they use in these audio books can actually be beneficial to me as a musician and as a instructor. And so I would highly recommend really in any period of your life, whether you’re 40 years old, whether you’re 19 years old, whether you’re a kid, granted a kid probably won’t have the discipline to do this. But listening to audio books and podcasts, even if it’s outside of your topic or subject, just constantly learning is just a good rule of thumb for your life in general. But how much more even as an instructor teaching guitar lessons in Tulsa and is as somebody who’s trying to be better at the guitar.
And then another thing that I like to do, I’ve got two kids right now. We will probably have by the time you actually are listening to this or reading it, but we’ve got two kids. My wife is amazing and I really enjoy spending time with them. And as a full time instructor, it actually is quite difficult to find a whole lot of time to spend with them. I work an extra ordinary amount of, of time at my job, not just as an instructor, but I also own my business. So there’s a lot of time that I’m spending away from home. But if I have a break, sometimes I’ll have an hour and a half or two hours for lunch in between my morning guitar lessons in Tulsa and my afternoon lesson. Yeah. So you know, I’ll go home and hang out with them. My son really loves to listen to me play the piano. So I’ll ask him what songs he wants me to play and then he will give me something to play and then I’ll, I’ll play through it and then he’ll enjoy that. And that’s always fun for me to teach him a few songs even though he’s almost three. So he doesn’t really play music yet, but he’s interested in, he’s doing a great job just
hearing the music. And when I tell him to point at the two black notes, he points it at two black notes are and I tell him to 0.3 black notes and points those. So we’re just kind of exploring the piano right now. But it’s really fun for me to hear him. And then my daughter is just about to turn one, she’s 11 months and she just basically hops up and down. She’s not walking. So she, she just sits there on the floor and she hops with her little bum bum and listens to the music and she enjoys it a lot. So that’s kind of what I do. If I have a break and then I’ll go back and then I’ll teach lessons. And then obviously one of the things that I haven’t talked about yet as an instructor is you got to prepare. And so if you are a new guitar instructor in Tulsa, you’re probably going to have to spend quite a bit more time
preparing for your lessons then you would, if you were really confident and you know what you’re doing and you’ll get better at it for sure. But it does become easier and easier as you continue to teach guitar lessons in Tulsa. So I don’t spend quite as much time preparing for my lessons as I used to. I probably only spend a fraction of my day preparing for lessons, but there are specific students that require a lot more preparation. Van Somebody that I’ve been teaching since, you know, they, they first started taking lessons. So, and in a more advanced student requires a lot more preparation than a beginning student. You kind of have a feel for what a beginning student is going through and what they’re trying to learn. But an advanced student typically has very specific concepts that they’re trying to learn and that can require a little bit more preparation than some of the more be beginning students, but reaching their goals is something that’s really important to do, so you want to make sure that you’re reaching those goals and making sure that your students are learning exactly what they want to learn.
So that’s why preparation is certainly important. Even if it isn’t a beginning student, you want to make sure that you’re preparing for everyone and so that’s kind of what my day looks like as a guitar instructor. But it fluctuates. It depends on if you’re just a part time guitar instructor in Tulsa or a fulltime guitar instructor because we at Curtis Music Academy, we have a few part time guitar instructors and I can guarantee their lives look very different than my life just because they’re not doing this every day and they are part time and so it’s not consuming all of their thoughts. Whereas for myself it is every day, all day. Then I’m thinking about this and trying to think of ways to be better as a guitar instructor. Although my guitar instructors are very coachable, they’re amazing people, so they too are looking for ways to get better, but it’s just kind of a little bit different when you’re full time and when you’re part time. So that’s kind of what a day looks like as someone taking guitar lessons in Tulsa.