G4 GUITAR TEACHERS

Guitar Teachers Working Together

G4 GUITAR is Australia’s No.1 name in guitar learning.

G4 GUITAR Teachers are highly trained and employ the proven G4 GUITAR METHOD  and are experienced in working with students from as young as 4 years to adults of all ages.

The G4 GUITAR METHOD is a tested and proven system for learning guitar that is based on the 7 Essential Skills of guitar. We also incorporate benchmarks via levels. There is a Junior and Senior program as well as additional materials for the young beginner. AMEB exams are also an option.

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Learning Guitar

*Top 5 tips for success on guitar.

*Does music make your child smarter?

*Why putting off guitar lessons is not a good option.

*”When is my child going to learn a new song?”

*Do you need to purchase a guitar or accessories?

*Why children do not want to practice guitar and what to do about it.

*How to get results (on guitar) through rewards.

*Learning guitar. What is the teacher’s role?

*Success on guitar is about clarity.

*Finding Inspiration.

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The best way to learn anything is via a proven strategy with a qualified teacher. There are many ways to learn guitar but all guitarists need to learn and practice  the 7 essential skills. Having a teacher trained in teaching these skills will save you time and make the the whole process a lot less frustrating.

The G4 GUITAR METHOD is now Australia's most recognised and successful method of learning guitar and focuses on the 7 essential skills. A qualified 

G4 GUITAR METHOD  teacher will help you to reach your goals with speed and clarity which will result in you becoming a confident superior guitarist.

The following are just a few examples from our Blog.

Long term thinkers make the best guitar players.

In the book 'The Winner's Brain' (A book written by two Harvard brain experts) the authors describe what the successful few do differently to the majority and have actually found their brains not only function differently but also eventually grow differently. In other words successful people shaped their brain for success in the same way athletes shape their physical bodies for their chosen sport.

A very strong point that resonated with me as a guitar teacher was that of long term thinking verses short term. Successful brains are wired for long term success. They see how what they do today affects their long term plan. But ironically they don't get caught up in the long term goal. They live in the moment but with their compass firmly pointed in the direction of their goal and avoid distraction or getting side tracked.

I can easily apply this to learning guitar. Students who understand that learning guitar is a long term challenge and who focus on the day to day enjoyment of practice knowing they will one day be performing their favourite songs with precision are more likely to possess the winner's brain. If that is you then consider yourself fortunate. For the rest of the population the good news is the winner's brain can be developed. As mentioned its like physical fitness. You just have to exercise the brain so to speak by emulating the decisions and actions of a person with a winner's brain and learning the guitar is a great way to develop your winner's brain.

When you decide to take up guitar you should focus on the 80/20 principal. 80% of your time should be spent on the 7 essential skills and 20% on songs. Most people do it the other way around so their skill development is very slow if at all. Most students get distracted by songs. Yes your goal is to play songs but they need to be done at the right time. Practicing each day with a well structured plan based on a balanced approach is the best strategy. The G4 GUITAR METHOD is a skills based plan that will help you to develop the skills necessary for almost any style. Once you complete all the levels of G4 GUITAR METHOD you can then begin to specialise. Think of it like learning a language. You need to be skilled and well versed in the fundamentals before you can branch off into poetry or creative writing. Same applies to guitar. Once you have the fundamentals in place you can focus more on the songs you want to play or on particular styles like rock, blues, jazz, flamenco or whatever your chosen style.

Conclusion - Think long term and your brain will become wired for success. The G4 GUITAR METHOD is a long term plan and will bring about success. The are no magic pills or potions.

The Power of a Good Coach.

On 60 minutes on Sunday night they had a story about how the Australian Olympic athletes were not going to do so well in the up-and-coming Olympics because our secret to success was now out. In both the 2000 and 2004 Olympics Australia ranked fourth place in the world because we had a secret. Keep in mind the fact the three countries in front of Australia have much larger populations. USA with 307 million, China with 1.3 billion and Russia with 140 million. Compare that to Australia with only 21 million. This in effect means a country like China should get 61 times as many medals as Australia to be comparable. 2004 Australia won 49 medals and China 63. China would have needed to win over 3000 medals to be comparable by population.

Now the story on 60 minutes was actually predicting bad news for Australia. In the 2008 Olympics in Beijing Australia slipped from 4th place into 6th place in the overall medal tally. For many Australians this went unnoticed but slipping two places was significant. The most notable threat to Australia was Great Britain who more than doubled their gold medal tally in 2008 compared to 2004. So what is really going on here?

The reason behind the success of Australia in the past has come down to 'superior coaching'. The Australian government had a very generous budget which was spent on ensuring our athletes had the best coaches and that our coaches had the best coaches (yes good coaches have coaches) and access to the latest technology. In other words we were one step ahead of the competition not because we trained harder or had naturally better athletes but because we trained smarter and recognised the advantage of a good coach.

So how does this relate to learning guitar? While guitar and music also have an artistic component becoming a technically great guitar player is similar to becoming a sports champion. It's not enough to simply train harder you must train smarter. The message in this story is the power of a coach. Australia's significant advantage in the Olympics has come about not as a result of superior athletes but as a result of superior coaches and technology. The reason Great Britain has dramatically improved its performance is because they increased the budget allocated to training their Olympic athletes. In other words they now spend a lot more on good coaches than they did prior to 2004 even poaching some Australian coaches. Apparently they fund their Olympic training program through the national lottery.

The moral therefore to this story is simple. If you want to be good at almost anything start with a good coach. If you want to be great then find a great coach. Successful people know that trying to achieve success alone while a noble idea is not the choice of champions. The 60 minutes story was perhaps trying to create controversy over the fact that some of our best coaches have now defected to Great Britain but was also pointing out that whoever has the best coaches will win. My conclusion and advice is to make sure you have a good coach.

Learning guitar online. Does it work?

On one hand learning guitar online once seemed like a futuristic possibility whereas on the other it given our current technology that it should now be the norm. Everyone is very busy these days so traveling back and forth each week to see a guitar teacher takes time not only for the student but often a parent. I When I was a kid (I was born in the 60's by the way) watching 'The Jetsons' it seem to me by 2010 we would all be driving space cars and living among robots. At the very least I expected the visual interaction via TV screens to be common place. The technology is now here of course but its still a little shaky mostly because of the bandwidth required to make it all run smoothly. In saying that it is advancing literally by the day. Internet speeds that were only affordable to the very wealthy a few years ago are now common place. In a year or two from now most people will have all the bandwidth they need for crystal clear visual communication.

Teaching guitar online up until recently has not really been a good option. Skype can still be unreliable at times and the varying quality of video cameras, lighting and computer speeds all play a part. Given all that I do believe we are ready to teach guitar online. It will have its limitations of course but we have now reached a point where the benefits of learning online are now starting to out weight the face to face or at the very least have equal appeal. I now have regular meetings with people online and it works very well. The online lessons so far have gone well. The fact that you can learn from your laptop means you don't have to travel. For parents it means they don't have to drive their children to and from lessons.

Teaching guitar online is not a new idea for us. Our team at G4 GUITAR has been pondering this question for some years now because we knew it was only a matter of time before students starting requesting to learn the G4 GUITAR METHOD online which seems to be a common request this year. The reality is millions of people are already learning guitar online via Youtube videos, blogs and the various online lesson options. It is rapidly becoming the norm. The only problem is most of it is unstructured much like the internet itself. Its one huge maze that usually only confuses students. Much of the content is valid and even helpful but information is best absorbed through a teacher and even better a teacher with a plan. The reason G4 GUITAR continues to enrolled thousands of new students every year is because we understand what you the student needs and in what order.

G4 GUITAR is now introducing lessons online so here is your chance to learn with a real live teacher but from the convenience of your PC. How it works is you book in to an available time like you would into one of our schools and our qualified teacher from one of our Sydney schools will come online and do a face to face lesson with you. We will mail the lesson materials to you prior to your first lesson. We will also be able to recommend downloads and links to help you make the most of your online lessons.

To learn more and get started please visit G4 GUITAR ONLINE LESSONS.

What is Deliberate practice?

The term 'Deliberate Practice' can at first seem a little confusing because one would assume all practice is deliberate right? Apparently not. Firstly deliberate practice is now a recognised term and the most prominent researcher on the subject is Professor Anders Ericsson of Florida State University in the USA. Ericsson and his team have focused on the question of what makes people great. They wanted to know what makes a Tiger Woods or a Michael Jordon. I think most guitarists want to know what makes a John Petrucci or a Steve Vai or a Steve Morse or a Paco Pena. Well the conclusion is Deliberate Practice.

Here is a quote from a Fortune article entitled 'Secrets of greatness' 'The best people in any field are those who devote the most hours to what the researchers call "deliberate practice." It's activity that's explicitly intended to improve performance, that reaches for objectives just beyond one's level of competence, provides feedback on results and involves high levels of repetition.'

Lets apply it to guitar (of course) to help gain a better understanding of the real meaning of deliberate practice. Most researchers agree that to earn the title of a master in almost any field takes around 10,000 hours of practice. But as we all know just strumming a guitar for 3 hours a day on your lounge for 10 years won't necessarily make you a master guitar player. The practice has to be focus and goal oriented. In other words 'deliberate'. Just going through the motions is not enough. In fact if every practice session you did was well planned with both a short term and long term goal you will almost certainly reach mastery if you are prepared to do it everyday for several hours for around 10 years or in some cases less. The researchers agree that no one masters anything without hard work. Ericsson quotes, "Elite performers in many diverse domains have been found to practice, on the average, roughly the same amount every day, including weekends."

After more than 20 years of teaching guitar I have found that natural talent usually only separates beginners. Those with a natural talent may shine during the beginner stages often because they have a good musical ear from perhaps from watching/listening to a family member or friend practicing at a young age. This natural talent advantage however diminishes over time and deliberate practice becomes the deciding factor.

Here is a quote form Will Smith (Actor) in a interview a few years ago. “I’ve never really viewed myself as particularly talented. I’ve viewed myself as slightly above average in talent. And where I excel is ridiculous, sickening, work ethic. You know, while the other guy’s sleeping? I’m working. While the other guy’s eatin’? I’m working. While the other guy’s making love, I mean, I’m making love, too. But I’m working really hard at it,” he tells Kroft, laughing.

Conclusion: If you want to be great its really has little to do with talent. One of the great guitarists of all time was Django Reinhardt and he only had 2 and a half fingers. The G4 GUITAR METHOD focuses on one single objective. Getting students to practice with a clear goal in mind. i.e. Deliberate practice.

How long does it take to learn guitar?

When you begin guitar the whole process of learning can seem very mysterious. The most common question I get from beginner guitar students is 'How long will it take to learn?' This is a reasonable question. When I get on a plane to fly somewhere my first question is 'How long will it take?' The difference with the plane trip is it is passive. I don't need to do anything. I will arrive at the same time as the pilot. The pilot determines my time of arrival. In the case of learning guitar the student largely determines the time of arrival and the teacher is more like a navigator ensuring you stay on course.

The first determining factor in a student's time of arrival is knowing the destination. The student must have a clear goal or outcome in mind. The best way to do this is to write down a list of songs you hope to one day play. At G4 GUITAR we call this the ULTIMATE SONG LIST. You can get a free copy from our downloads by joining our MEMBER SITE.

The next determining factor is speed. In my early years of teaching I found overwhelming number of students learning guitar were not really sure about why they were really learning guitar. Without a clear reason there is nothing driving you to practice. I began asking questions like 'Why did you originally decide to take up guitar?' Here is a list of responses I recall;

1. 1.I was inspired by a great concert, guitarist or song
   

2. 2.A friend is learning
   

3. 3.My parents wanted me to learn an instrument
   

4. 4.A sibling was once learning but gave up so there was a guitar in the house
   

5. 5.I needed a hobby other than watching TV
   

6. 6.Want to inspire my children to play music
   

7. 7.Seemed like the cool thing to do
   

8. 8.The game 'Guitar Hero' inspired me
   

9. 9.Was watching Youtube and came across some easy lessons
   

10. 10.I was given the guitar as a gift so I thought I'd better learn
    

Now as you can see most of the reasons are not exactly compelling. I personally do not see guitar as a passive hobby. A passive hobby to me means movie watching or stamp collecting. Guitar requires daily practice and a certain level of discipline. If your motivation to learn is because you needed a hobby other than watching TV then you are unlikely to have the drive that will push you to consistently practice an hour or more a day.

The first stage of learning guitar can be fun and exciting as you put some basic chords together but then comes the first hurdle. It may be a chord or a picking pattern that just seems impossible. It is at this point that many give up or worse yet they just shy away from the hurdles and stick with what they know. For many this the F chord or bar chords or reading music.

The trick is to take the hurdles head on. When I was 14 years old I remember having to play on stage for the first time in front of my whole school. I was so terrified that for weeks I was trying to plan how I was going to get out of it. Problem was the teacher was knew it and made sure there was no way I was going to back out. So about a week before I resolved myself to the fact that I was not going to escape what seemed like a fate worse than death. I took the hurdle head on and practice for hours everyday. On the night I had to perform I was still extremely nervous but also quietly confident.