Tulsa Guitar Lessons | Education
This content was created for Curtis Music Academy
All right. So this topic in this podcast is going to be about why and why my education is helpful for teaching students. One education helps the instructor to become a better instructor, right? It helps the student to learn and it also, I believe helps the instructor to learn, my education as a guitar instructor, giving Tulsa guitar lessons, also Tulsa guitar lessons. And being a guitar teacher is, my knowledge is very helpful because it helps the student go further faster. It helps my student who doesn’t understand the concepts of music, the concepts of a guitar, the concepts of rhythm, melody, harmony, tuning here, training, pitch, things like that helps them to have someone to look up to. And some of the pull from the knowledge base to really pull from, to kind of enjoy and begin to ask questions to get to their real goals.
I like to think of music instructors as kind of a mentor of sorts to guitar students,because I am 10 years, if not 12, 13 years ahead of them and their guitar playing. And so whenever someone is that far ahead of you, they are considered as a mentor, someone who can definitely go into detail about their experiences that you’re wanting to go through, that you’re wanting to learn, things that you’re wanting to grasp, things that you’re wanting to kind of go into. And so that is what we’re going to be talking today. My education personally as a guitar teacher has been rough in the beginning stages. And then I formally received Tulsa guitar lessons when I was 16 so I started playing guitar when I was 12 years old.
My dad purchased a small, cheap guitar from target store here in Tulsa, and I began playing for an hour a day on that small, cheap guitar.And so when he got it, when he gave it to us that Christmas year, I fell in love with the musical instrument, the guitar, never did I think about giving Tulsa guitar lessons or teaching, you know, Tulsa guitar lessons or becoming a guitar teacher. I just simply wanted to play and become a famous guitar player and musician, also a singer. And so that is kind of where my guitar journey started in my teaching journey started. I had to become a student first.
And so I began looking up YouTube videos on courts and exercising my ability to play for different periods of time for 30 minutes to an hour to two hours. And in doing so as a young boy, I began to feel pain in my fingertips and this was really, really a lot of pain in my fingertips. I would play for so long that sometimes they would be on the verge of cracking and bleeding. And so that’s something I didn’t want, but I always kind of kept to my fingers lotion and realizing that that was actually hindering and prolonging the callous phase as an entire player.
So I discontinued lotioning my fingertips, which helped me to get gain counselors a lot faster. So I began gaining and growing calcis on the tips of my fingers, which allowed me to play a lot longer periods of time until this was very helpful. And something that no one really told me was going to happen. I just kinda had to learn that, that piece of information on my phone. And I, from my perspective, I really value my, my years in learning and even learning alone by myself without a guitar instructor for four years, you know, started at 12, and then at 16, I gained a lesson, got Tulsa guitar lessons. So it was a long period of time before I actually received any formal training.
And I think I really, I really wouldn’t change that aspect of, of it because I learned some very good disciplines. It made me push through. It helped me to really press through and gauge whether this was an instrument I really wanted to be playing for the rest of my life. So after the caliphs phase, I started, you know, I was learning tons of new chords and putting them together into songs that were on YouTube. So I started learning covers and then I got to the point where I was like, you know what, why am I playing other people’s songs? I can just play and make my own. So I started to formulate my own cords and kind of make my own music instead of writing my own songs and my own lyrics. And so I began the beginning stages as a songwriter as well and a music maker.
And,I just kind of took that, those cores and ran with them as far as I could. Until this day, I still write songs. I still make up chords that are already court, but to me they’re new because I’ve never played them before and I’ve just kinda came up with them, but now I know what to call them. And so, you know, in the early stages I just kind of experimented a ton and I got good enough with guitar. I said 30 to 12 now, 13 year old kid. And I was invited to, I asked, actually, I wasn’t invited. I asked to be on our church praise and worship band. I started out as a bass player, which is a lot simpler and easier to play thing than it is to play guitar. So, it’s only four strings as opposed to six strengths.
And so playing the bass was actually a very, very, very fun experience for me. I played, you know, bass that was one of the funniest instruments string instruments I’ve ever played. And I played on that band until I was 20 years old. So I played on there for 13, 48, eight years, almost nine years. And I had an awesome time. I learned so much with working together as a team, so I got to play on bands and even traveled, playing in a church band as well. I mean, you travel to about four different States and many different youth conferences and I was one of the main organizers and leaders of the, of the band at that time. And it was a very, very fun experience and I don’t ever regret it.
And so that was about, you know, in that church man starting out, I was about 13, 14, and I was asked to be the youth worship leader and, and then, soon to be a key band member in the adult worship team. And so I just played really for as long as that possibly could. And did that for as long as possible. But, you know, those stages, my experience in playing and having to grow callouses and life experience and, going through the hard work and the practice and the learning new skills, a new skill learning, you know, chords on my own, learning from YouTube videos, learning from maybe a friend who knew a few chords.
I kind of develop a neck for learning in those, in those earlier years. And so I know that that’s where a lot of my students are right now. That’s another reason why my education was helpful for S for my students that I’m teaching now. And so it’s very, helpful to have a musician who’s been there and done that, who has been playing for a good amount of time. I’ve been playing for about 10 to 12 years longer than my students, my incoming students have. And so that is one reason why it’s my education is very helpful to the students that we acquire. My education as a music teacher also helps me to kind of address and locate some areas that the students in the future may have rough spots in and that can kind of warn them and be a kind of a guide through those times for them. And so this helps them to kind of navigate their path as a guitar student and kind of helps them to go further faster in their learning.