Helping people learn guitar is often thought of as a fairly fluid exercise, without a linear path to follow. It's true that some of what is covered in a given guitar lesson (particularly the early ones with a new student) has more to do with where that student is at in terms of their skill-set and what kind of guitar player they want to become.

Image Courtesy of agullalee

But if you take away those two variables, there is a teaching structure that can and should be followed. It can be adjusted and tweaked, but you never have to go into a lesson without a clear overall picture of where your student is at, and where they need to go, in terms of topics and concepts being covered.

Think of it as going to a college class and being handed a syllabus. It tells you (usually) everything you're going to cover, when you're going to cover it and what you'll know when it's all over.

Most teacher's use that syllabus to craft their lesson plans, which is what we'll do here.

We'll use the structure to cover some practical advice for what a good guitar lesson should include.

Topics versus ApplicationOne thing I always like to draw a distinction between when it comes to learning guitar is topics and applications. It helps to put a little bit of skin on some of the other things we're going to talk about, so let's go ahead and define both, as they relate to guitar lessons:

Topics: Concepts or ideas that are new to the students -- Em chord, pentatonic scale, etc. 

Application: The use of topics to create something musical -- tabs, songs or

improvising. 

Every good guitar lesson will have both of these elements, in one form or another. What's difficult, is getting people to know how to move from topical learning, into musical application. This is part of why a lot of guitar lessons stop with learning chords and scales.

Learning chords and scales is fine, but it's just the beginning. You've got to do something with those topics, instead of just learning them and then moving on.

If you don't use them, then it's going to be harder for the student to recall them in the future.

The Responsibility of the StudentI know some of you might be thinking, "Isn't it the student's responsibility to use what they've learned"? Yes -- it absolutely is.

To use a tired cliche, the "real learning" will take place while the student is playing on their own during the week. If they don't do that, or if they're not interested, then the topics will likely never take root.

However, I would also say that far too many students avoid application on their own, because they don't know how to do it and they're never able to see the connection between the topics they've learned and the music they're hearing on their iPods.

As the teacher, you need to illustrate that connection to them and show them how application actually works.

It's difficult -- certainly more difficult than going over a chord sheet, but it can be done.

Ordering Guitar TopicsA few months ago I wrote a post called Practice and Progress: How a Guitar Player Advances and included an infographic to illustrate the post a little more succinctly. 

The post basically covered how I would recommend ordering guitar topics in the early stages, where different goals (rhythm or lead guitar, etc) don't really come into play. Now what I'm not trying to say is that the "order" needs to be the same for every teacher. Not every history teacher's syllabus is the same, so not every guitar teacher's topic order will necessarily be the same either.

What you should do is sit down and plan out several months of lessons. If you have to

adjust, no big deal -- just make sure you've got something on paper.

We'll do a template after this next paragraph.

Student-by-Student ConsiderationsFeel free to reference the Practice and Progress post, but also keep in mind that those are beginner topics that don't take into account variables that are unique to certain students. This is something you'll have to be aware of, so we need to at least mention them here.

1. Goals -- Rhythm or Lead Guitar: Not every student will even know the answer to which one they're more interested in, but the learning path for each side is a bit different.

2. Skill-Set -- Complete Beginner or Prior Knowledge: What your student already knows will have a lot to do with how you schedule and plan their lessons. It might save you a few steps.

3. Musical Interests: This one usually won't have a great deal of bearing on what you teach them until later in the process, after you've covered the "gen eds" of the guitar.

Making a SyllabusSo now we'll set about the process of making a generic syllabus that gets us through ten weeks of guitar lessons.

Now I know that some people do 30 minute lessons as opposed to one hour, so if that's the case, just double the amount of time, since I'm assuming one hour lessons while writing this up. We'll do a basic schedule that outlines each topic and then talk a little bit about how it could be adjusted to account for some of the variables we mentioned

earlier. 

Guitar Lesson SyllabusWeek IPhysical Components of the Guitar

Covering the physical construction of the guitar, different types of guitars, how to hold a guitar and pick as well as stringing and tuning to standard E-A-D-G-B-E.

Application 

Basic strumming, picking (usually open or single strings), learning how to use a tuner and posture technique can be assigned as homework or for practice time. 

Week IILearning the Fretboard Notes

Build off of tuning the strings by learning the open notes of each string in standard tuning (E-A-D-G-B-E) and then learn the notes of the fretboard for the first 12 twelve frets for the sixth and fifth strings.

Application

Assign the student to learn the other four strings, based off of the repetitive pattern of every 12 frets (if you learn one, you can learn them all). Memorize each fretboard spot by note by moving your finger through each one and calling out each note.

Week IIIPlaying Single Notes and Tracking them on the Fretboard

Use the knowledge from week two to start playing single notes, covering the physical technique as well as working on naming each note's musical letter (G, C, D etc.).

Application

Assign student to play single notes both in order (up and down the fretboard) and at random while naming the musical letter of each note as they play.

Week IVLearning Chords, Correcting Buzzing Notes and Improving Overall Physical Technique

Cover basic open chords, usually G, C, D, E, Em, A, Am and F, while also teaching how to avoid note buzzingand using chords to strengthen your fingers and prepare them for barre chords and arpeggios.

Building Chord Transition SpeedStop Buzzing NotesChords sound terrible -- why?

Application

Give the student a list of chords to play along with some tabs that show how to break the chords out into single notes or arpeggios. Instruct the student to concentrate on maintaining clear notes that don't buzz and show them how to correct the ones that do.

Week VLearning other types of chords: Minor, Major, Power and Barre.

Discuss the difference between major and minor chords and introduce student to the basic barre andpower chord shapes.

Application

Give student some simple songs and tabs that use the chords they've learned. By now, they have enough chords in their vocabulary to play a lot of music.

Week VIStart learning basic scales: Major and melodic minor and all four pentatonic scales can be covered in one lesson.

Help the student learn both the pattern and the sounds of the scales that you're covering, while also providing an understanding of the root note of a scale and how to move that scale on the fretboard. Make sure to articulate how the single notes, chords and scales are all interconnected. 

Application

Illustrate how to use the scales for basic improvisation and allow the student to experiment by trying to incorporate "new notes" into the scale that aren't listed. Introducing songs with very basic lead guitar segments is fine at this point.

Week VIICover the basics of intervals and power chords and how you can use intervals to start hearing the fretboard.

Explain the theory behind intervals, how they can be used for chords and how they can be used to understand how the fretboard sounds. Cover how this can relate to improvising and playing lead guitar.

Application

Take some of the scales you learned in week six and try to add some new notes to those scales by using intervals. Do they sound good or bad? Use this technique to develop the students ability to improvise on their own.

Week VIIIIllustrate soloing techniques like bends, vibrato, hammer-ons, pull-offs.

Cover the physical and musical aspects of these techniques and show the student how to apply them to single notes and intervals. Also discuss how these are represented in tablature.

Application

Provide a few of your own improvised tabs for the student to practice soloing techniques. Assign the student to come up with their own improvised lead piece by using a scale of their choice and at least five improvised (or added) notes based on intervals.

Week IXAdditional and more complex scales should be covered, while discussing the correlation between scales and improvising a little more specifically.

Cover some more complex pentatonic and blues patterns and provide more theory and detail about how those scales help you improvise by giving you a structure and foundation by which to work.

Application

After memorization the student should be able to work in and out of the scale and know

when they're improvising as opposed to playing within the structure of the scale itself.

Week XAddress rhythm and song dynamics.

Discuss how rhythm impacts your strumming technique, while also covering how the dynamics and intensity of a song should impact how the guitar is played.

Application

Assign songs for the student to listen to that exemplify the dynamics of the guitar and help the student hear when they need to pull back or play heavier. Have the student work on their ability to play softer and louder on command by making use of effects and their own technique. 

Accounting for VariablesSo this is essentially what I would consider a rough skeleton of a ten-week syllabus for teaching guitar, with plenty of room to adjust if you need to.

If we go back to the variables I mentioned earlier, you'll probably have a few of those coming into play. For example, a student might know some of this stuff already, particularly the more basic stuff like how to hold, tune a guitar, etc.

When that happens, you can obviously just skip ahead.

What's not quite so straightforward is when you have a student with a specific goal or focus. Let's say you've got someone who really wants to be a rhythm guitarist and is interested in jazz. When that happens, you change your syllabus in terms of emphasis not necessarily in terms of content. That means that you'll focus more on beat and counting, along with chords and chord changing mechanics.

As you cover the more basic topics, you'll be ready to start incorporating jazz specific lessons that will be much more interesting to the student.

ConcludingIt's tough to understand what someone's ideal learning patterns and situation might be. As a guitar teach, you've got the advantage of usually having a 1-to-1 student to teacher ratio.

Take advantage of that by having a structure in place that you can work off of, rather than just winging it and hoping for the best. A student will be more confident in what they're learning if you're confident and assertive about when and how it needs to be taught.

Hopefully, this can help by giving you a framework to start from -- thanks for reading.

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