Had my first (free) lesson with a local instructor who has been a pro musician for forty years. We didn’t play any songs, he didn’t get me to demo where I’m at. He went into talking about scales which I already know three positions of the major and two of pentatonic. He said I needed to learn the diatonics and has given me a print out of each 7th chord in the C major scale and told me to learn them. He said that will help me form chords and improve technique. My goals are to play slightly complex rhythm songs (Jeff Buckley live at sin-e style) to perform and to be able to jam some solo / blues style for my own amusement. Im confused about what to do with these diatonic chord charts and why I need them and if it would help with my goals. Would it not be normal to have a look at the songs I’m learning and give advice in lessons? Not sure whether to continue. Thanks
That’s a red flag right there. If he didn’t evaluate you how did he know where to start you lessons.
Just because he is a professional musician doesn’t mean he’s a good teacher.
The best way to find a good teacher is to treat the first lesson like a job interview. Tell them what you want to learn and show them what you know. If they’re not cool with that and have their own agenda keep looking.
Yes, it is.
This is fundamental.
They would be:
Cmaj7
Dm7
Em7
Fmaj7
G7
Am7
Bm7b5
Is that what he has given you?
If yes, using what grips, as open position chords or as barre chords?
Did he explain how those seven chords will help you form other chords? What technique will it improve? How do those diatonic chords in a single key help - was that explained?
Yes those are what he’s given me. I didn’t know I needed to learn 7th chords as a basis other than the ones that come up during songs.
They are in the position of c major root on 8th fret. I don’t see what knowing those chord compositions in that position teaches me about playing songs.
The pentatonics have been useful (learnt form justin) as they have allowed me to figure out some of the licks from the songs I want to learn by ear (once I had the breakthrough that they were from the pentatonic of the chord and not just random choices!)
Agreed. They sound like a one trick pony teacher. They have a curriculum that the student is expected to conform to… Regardless of where the student is in the learning process and what the student goals are.
If they can’t explain why they teach this way, I would definitely look for a new teacher.
Fwiw, I’d lower the red flag and raise a white one. Put it down to experience and look elsewhere.
Online teachers are quite comfortable with making best use of this medium now, and you need to find one that fits best with your aim and objectives. As ever, caveat emptor, but try here : all have been “vetted and approved” by Justin Guitar.
Not my place to recommend an individual; read their bio’s, (all 4 tabs), and consider which fits best with you.
Keep it fun … 
I went to an an instructor that was a life long professional musician . He also did not ask me to play for him or assess where I was at when we started.
I should have followed my gut feeling and quit after the first lesson. Instead I wasted four months and hundreds of dollars going to these lessons that were not related to where I was in my learning or where I wanted to go.
I’m still a little unclear.
There is a Pattern 1 major scale shape for C major whose root note is at fret 8 of the E string.
Do you also mean the chords are in close proximity to fret 8? Played (mostly) as barre chords?
Or are they open chords but the scale pattern is based around fret 8?
Further …
For barre chords, the conventional approach is to learn E-shape major barres first.
And spend a lot of time assimilating those and using them alongside open position chords.
A-shape minor barre chords can come next although A-shape major chords usually come next.
Then E-shape minor barres.
barre chord shapes for Major 7, Minor 7, Dominant 7 and Minor7flat5 are not preeminent.
And that was your first lesson? Think you need to look somewhere else.
My approach would be to ask questions and listen first:
- What do you want to achieve? why do you play guitar, where do you see yourself going short term and long term
- What do you know now and what are you working on.
- What is your self-assessment on the things you already know? What parts go well, which need work?
- What do you think is next for you?
- What songs do you play, which are you most proud of? let’s hear it. 2 different styles of songs would be even better
- I would see if you showed some form of rhythm, strumming technique, timely chord changes and consistency.
That would give a good primer to start from.
Good coaching consists for a large part of…asking the right questions. Questions the student can’t answer, you can teach, provide advice about and you plot the next steps.
Result: a custom approach for every student.
My feeling: this guy thinks that giving you a standard homework he got from a book 30y ago will make everybody improve. Chances are he’s not empathic enough to search for factors that could boost the intrinsic motivation in you, make you shine in your Strengths and develop your Weaknesses.
You could either discuss this with him…or try somebody else, just to compare.
Bonus: you could consider a one-off session with @Richard_close2u Lee or myself to help you in self-assessment, your search for a local teacher or perhaps even an occasional check-in. more info: https://www.justinguitar.com/teachers )
Hi yes so it’s the major pattern from fret 8, but he’s given me a chord pattern of (from memory here don’t have the paper to hand) of fret 8 E string, 7 on A, 10 on A then 9 on D. Then the same patterns making a d minor 7, G maj 7 etc.
So these are open 7th chord constructions (triads?) I would say. But I don’t know why he thinks I need them… he did mention the diatonic scale was more useful than pentatonic but then hasn’t given me a full scale to practice but rather chord patterns I would say.
Thanks also to all that have commented. I’m debating at the moment whether to go back to him and ask if we will work on songs going forward etc. Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough with what I wanted to learn and he hasn’t charged me anything for the first meeting. He has messaged me saying he hopes I found it useful and to get in touch if I have any questions.
Those four-note sequences you describe are not chord grips and they are not triad grips.
Nothing nearly so useful.
They are the lower portion of the arpeggios of the diatonic chords extended to 7ths (Justin calls these 4-note chords quadads).
Those arpeggios are all well and good - but they are incomplete ant likely to be of practical use to you any time soon. Theoretically interesting but not good if you want to get basic song craft down.
I feel like a teacher/student relationship may be something that builds over time. It’s hard to tell with only one class. It’s like reading the first 10 pages of a book, it does not tell the whole story. I agree that communication is key and that you will have to discuss your goals and expectation with him before making the decision.
When I started 15 years ago I took lessons locally with two different instructors and basically gave up playing. After discovering Justin’s courses a couple of years ago, I realised there was no structure to what the prior instructors were trying to get me to do. They were trying to get me to run before I had learned to crawl and walk, and there was no help on how to get the basics down such as how to change chords and practice properly.
So similar to my experience. The guy knew his stuff but wasn’t a teacher, certainly not of someone just starting out with guitar. The problem is you don’t have a frame of reference when you’re starting and think it must just be you that doesn’t get it. There was exactly the same lack of structure that you mentioned too and I also quit. Sadly it’s a bit of a lottery
I had a similar sort of trouble with my first private instructor, especially.
My biggest problem being that I didn’t know what I didn’t know, so I had no idea that I needed to talk with the instructor to make adjustments to his lessons to suit me and my challenges better. I spent a lot of months at that and didn’t make near as much progress as I have in a similar time period within the past year. The second instructor I hired after I moved didn’t go much better. I still didn’t really know. I trusted the instructor to be able to ask the right questions and make the lesson decisions for me and he didn’t really do that. Some years later I took a group class and that didn’t work because the pacing was just too fast for me. It worked for some folks, it seemed, but for me it was a no go.
The instructor I have now is more attentive to my progress and what I’m having trouble with. I also understand myself better, as well as the teaching/learning process in general. There have been a few times where I’ve slowed my instructor down on new material so I could ask questions about the previous lesson and do more practice time with it before moving to the next. He certainly has things he wants me to work on. He’s been pretty good about explaining why he wants me to learn those things from a practical standpoint. Not from an obscure music theory standpoint.
He’s asked me how hard to go into the theory, and I’ve asked him to be easy with it. I find music theory to be interesting, but I think my previous instructors were too heavy with it. Part of that was because I said I was interested, but again, there was so much I didn’t know at the time that I didn’t check them on that and tell them to ease up. I want to be able to play songs first. And if there’s some helpful theory that will help me with that, then yes, I want to know some of those things. But theory for the sake of theory at this point is not going to help me play.
So, certainly part of it is that some instructors have a hard time reading their students or asking the right questions to understand what that student needs, because the student doesn’t always know. That’s why the student is there! Unfortunately, I didn’t really learn this until I started getting training on how to teach and started working as an instructor in different fields.
The other part of it for me was that as a student, I didn’t know what I needed or how to express that to my instructor. Many failed attempts with different methods certainly informed me on that, too.
I’d look elsewhere if I were you.
The first meeting should have been a two way dialogue. For you, to explain the goals you mention in your post and for him to suggest a teaching path for you to get there.