Whats the most important thing about playing guitar

Playing guitar includes lots and lots of different skills and techniques.. It includes speed, maintaining the groove, playing in rhythm, maintain a good dynamics, understanding the musical theory and be a good composer and improviser. But what is the most important out of all? Well if you ask me I would say it is maintaining the groove/tempo and playing in rhythm. You can be the fastest guitar player or great improviser but if you can't maintain the groove it will never sound that pro and your audience will never be able to feel your music to the extent you want them to. So your first priority would be to get the groove going and this is something that you should practice from day one.

You should always practice with the metronome. Playing with metronome can be quite boring at times. You can try the drums presets. There are many computer software out there where you can choose the type of beat and control the tempo. You can also practice playing along with different songs.

One advice that I always give to my students is to learn maintaining the groove by tapping the foot while playing a certain tune. It can be a little tricky at first specially while playing some difficult tunes. But soon you will get used to it. And your playing will be a lot tighter than before. You can also try bobbing your head instead of tapping your foot or you can try them both together.

You need to work on all the other skills but this should get the highest priority. This one skill makes the biggest difference between an amateur guitar player and a professional one.

How to be a successful music teacher

Teaching guitar can be a great way of improving one's own playing but apart from that financially it can be a very rewarding job. I can say from my own experience that once you can setup the business and get it going, you can make more than many of the blue-collar jobs out there.Getting it started and building a good loyal client base is the hardest part. I will share few things that I did over the years that helped me big time in setting up my business and hope it will help you too.

1. When you start a music school, you are not just a musician or music teacher, you are also a businessman, so be professional:
Most musicians completely forget the fact that they are also businessmen the moment they start a music school. If you cannot think like a businessman, no matter how good you are as a musician or music teacher, it is highly likely that you will make less money than what you could. You have to get that professionalism and businessmanship along with being a good music teacher. You can do courses on how to manage a small business, read books on entrepreneurship, talk with other people who are successfully managing small businesses and learn from them. The moment you understand the business aspect of guitar school and learn how to manage it properly, you will start to experience the difference.

2. Branding is important, You need to focus what is different in your school:
This is the key to long run success. There has to be something different about your music school. Either there has to be something unique about the pricing or something different about the lessons you provide. Whatever it is, you have to figure it out and more importantly you have to spread that information, use it as the special feature of your school when you do your marketing. Using a logo for the guitar school, a unique tshirt for the teachers etc are some other important factors in establishing your schools brand.

3. Let your students feel that they are getting more than what they are paying for:
This is another important thing in becoming a successful music teacher. If your students feel that they are paying more for each lesson then you know you are going to lose them. It has to be the other way round. They need to feel that they are  paying less than what they are supposed to. Now how can you make them feel that? One obvious way is to lower the lesson fees but from my experience I know that it doesn't work that well. You need to charge the regular fee or perhaps a little more but you gotta offer them some added benefits. Small little things like offering a monthly exclusive jam with your band or just you, building an online database of teaching materials and giving them access to it, giving them picks/music books etc are some examples. None of these are very expensive but these added benefits will make your students feel that they are getting the value of their money and as a businessman this is what you want your customers to feel.