Tulsa Guitar Lessons | Effective Students at Curtis Music Academy
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So today we will be talking about some key players and students at Curtis Music Academy. As students take lessons here in Tulsa, Oklahoma with us, we have found that there are some students that do things quite a bit differently than other students and that’s kind of what makes them successful. So what we’re going to be talking about is what it takes to be successful as a student, as you’re attempting to learn the guitar or piano or any instrument for that matter. One of the things that we found that helps students to get better at learning an instrument is actually setting a specific planned time to practice that instrument on a daily basis. Now, some students don’t practice every single day, but they’re still successful in taking Tulsa guitar lessons because they schedule practice consistently. And so it might not be every single day, but they know that Monday at five o’clock they are going to sit down, pull out the guitar and practice for that amount of time. So by scheduling that into your calendar and just having a consistent practice time, you are consistently and continually growing in your craft as a musician and as a student. So that’s one of the biggest accomplishments that students can have is scheduling a specific time to practice their instrument.
So specifically one of our students here at Curtis Music Academy, his name is Harley and Harley consistently practices three hours every week with no exception, Harley practices, three hours every single week. And I have personally seen him grow as a musician tremendously throughout this past year. He started taking lessons in April of 2018 it is now April of 2019 and Harley has grown a tremendous amount in his ability to play the piano. Now, some students are going to be playing guitar whether that’s acoustic guitar or Electric Guitar. But the same is true if you can sit down and map out a time for you to practice for three hours a week. Or maybe it would only be one hour a week, even if it’s one hour a week. It needs to be consistent so that you can just continue to grow.
One of the things that I’ve told a lot of guitar students in Tulsa as they’re picking up and trying to learn the guitar for the first time, it’s going to hurt your fingers quite a bit. And so it’s certainly a challenge to sit down and practice for a long period of time. And so one of the things that you want to do is you want to build those callouses pretty quickly. And so by consistently having constant practice with your instrument, with your guitar, as you’re pushing down those strings, that’s what’s going to build those callouses. So if you’re practicing 45 minutes on Monday and then you don’t practice for a week, but the next Monday you practice for 45 minutes, that’s great. 45 minutes is going to be helpful. It’s better than nothing. But the problem is that’s not consistent enough to start developing those calluses quickly. So you could practice for five minutes on Monday, practice for five minutes on Tuesday, five minutes on Wednesday. At the end of the week you would have 35 minutes of practice, but you’re only practicing five minutes a day. But, in my opinion, even better for Tulsa guitar lessons would be practicing five minutes a day than it would be to practice 45 minutes, one single session. Not to mention the difficulty of sitting down and practicing for 45 minutes. When you don’t have callouses, that’s not going to be efficient progress to build those callouses because you’re gonna lose that feeling in your fingers within 10 minutes probably.
So if you’re looking to take Tulsa guitar lessons, make sure you schedule practice every single day. Ideally, some of our other students that are very successful, another thing that they do as they are continuing to develop as a musician is they consistently make their scheduled lesson times with no exception. Some of our students have been with us for years and they’ve only missed two lessons every year. And if you think about it, the two lessons that they would be missing is probably Thanksgiving week and then Christmas week. And so other than those two weeks, they’re coming in snow, they’re coming in thunderstorms they are coming to their lesson in the summer. This is how you can continually develop as a musician by making no excuses and coming to their lesson with no exception.
Then some other students that are very, very good at efficiently growing in their craft, when they’re at the lesson, they ask questions. And when you ask questions for further clarification during your lesson, it allows the student to go home and practice exactly what they went over in the lesson. Some students have difficulty asking questions or perhaps they don’t actually have any questions in the lesson, but then they go home and then as soon as they sit down to practice their instrument, they may have a flood of questions that come in that they just didn’t even think of to ask inside the lesson. And so one of the things that students can do to help that progression of questions is when they go home and start practicing, if any question comes to mind or if there’s any challenge or difficulty that arises, they write it down and then they’ll present the list of questions or even just one question during their lesson to ask the instructor.
And that’s a great way for students that might be a little bit shy to actually get their questions answered because if they write it down, it will be brought up in that lesson. So even if you’re a shy person, and even if you don’t think you have any questions when you go home from your guitar lesson, go ahead and write down any questions or challenges that you might experience and asked your guitar instructor about Tulsa guitar lessons. So an example of this specifically might be you’re a guitar student and you’re in the lesson and you are understanding everything, but then you go home and then you’re thinking, oh man, I do not remember where I’m supposed to place my fingers. Well, make sure you write that down first and foremost. And then let’s just assume you end up figuring out where to place your fingers.
So that’s number one. Placing your fingers was a challenge this week. Even if you did eventually figure it out. But then you may realize, Oh man, now that I’ve got my fingers in the right place and I’m pushing down these strings, my fingers are just killing me. Why are my fingers hurting? So then you could write down that question so that when you come back to the lesson at your next scheduled appointment, you can ask your instructor, I had a challenge at first placing my fingers on the guitar in the correct place, but eventually I was able to get it, because of Tulsa guitar lessons.
So that first point could be addressed by your instructor answering to help you figure out a way to remember where to place your fingers. And then secondly, your instructor will actually help you with tips on how to develop calluses as you’re playing the guitar.