James Gilmore Guitar Studio

Hey y’all, a minute to brag on myself: Those of you who have taken guitar lessons with me know that I am very good at helping people progress in their musical journey. My guitar instruction has been described to me by more than one student as “life-changing”. I don’t think that this is because I’m the best guitarist, or even the most knowledgeable teacher; I think the reasons that many students have had a positive and transformative experience with me are as follows: 1) Honesty. I always see a great musician in the people I teach, so I am not afraid to be honest with them. This goes both ways: I have told several students to pause or stop lessons in order to focus on playing out, more intentional practice, whatever. I don’t want to teach if it can’t be 100% about the student’s progress and benefit, which means that I often talk myself out of $. 2) Hyper-focus on fundamentals. Pitch, sound, time. This frustrates a lot of people until they actually start to sound different. Everyone thinks they need more information, when they mostly need three good licks and a metronome, this goes for me too. 3) Caring. I want you to realize your own aspirations in music, so everything is relative/ tailored to what *you want to do*. This is of course less true with beginners (especially young children, who generally love being told exactly what to play and then repeating it a million times) but generally I have found that students (myself included) neglect developing a relationship with what they like in favor of grinding on what they think they ought to know.
If you think it is presumptuous to post my TED talk about teaching guitar, I think that it would be way worse if I felt I had nothing valuable or insightful to share after 10 years of teaching hundreds of students. Teaching is partly about expertise on the guitar, and I think I have the tiniest bit of that, but it is equally about seeing people, or rather hearing them.

Book a lesson now! Private guitar lessons for all ages, kids and adults, beginner to pro. Increase your technical skill and proficiency, learn to read music, record and write your own music, and play for other students at one of my guitar 'hangouts'. Hit the book now button.