Teaching Guitar

As I've returned to playing the guitar after a short hiatus while I recover from a shoulder injury, I've been working scales and getting my muscle memory back in my hands. The practice reminded me that at one time, I taught guitar.

I was still a teenager and not yet married. I was 18 when I started giving lessons.

The first young man lived a little way from us. His father was friends with mine, and I believe I was volunteered for the lessons.

They started out well enough, but about six weeks in, his interest waned. I recalled the emphasis my piano teacher had placed on practicing and decided to echo her nearly word for word the things she said to me when I didn't practice.

It went something like, "If you don't practice, you're just wasting my time and your parents' money. If you don't want to do this, speak up and tell your mother that."

I was never sure if the boy decided he didn't want to learn, or if his mother, who was listening in the kitchen, didn't like my tone of voice, but that was our last lesson.

My next student didn't go much better. I attended church with his family, and his father asked me if I could teach his son to play. But only gospel songs.

I said sure. We settled in with some Amazing Grace and a few other songs, I don't recall for how long. Long enough for him to grow bored with C, G, and F chords, I think.

He asked me if I knew how to play Stairway to Heaven.

Sure, I said, and I started playing the intro to the song.

His father opened the door to the living room so fast that I jumped. "Get out!" he bellowed. "I don't want that devil's music played in my house! I told you just gospel."

I packed up and got out as quickly as I could.

They soon quit coming to church, but I think that was because they moved, not because a devil-music guitar player sat in a pew in the building.

My third and final student lived in the city, and by that time I was working. There were no restrictions on what I could teach him and we got along swimmingly. The lessons ended when one of my community college courses and his after-school schedule collided. 

I ran into this former guitar student - now a grown man with a family of his own - a few years ago and he told me he played banjo in a band. He said I'd gotten him started.

I remembered these three young fellows yesterday while I ran scales up and down the guitar neck, limbering up as I begin returning to a regular routine. I thought about how I'd tried to teach all three of them, but only one took to the lessons.

I guess one out of three isn't bad.