Question:
I’m a guitar teacher and I have noticed in my town lately that a lot of the other guitar teachers are going to 30 min. lessons instead of the hour and I was wondering what some of you guys were teaching 30 min or 1 hr and what your thoughts were.

Answer:
I think for kids 30 minutes is fine. In a music store setting, 30 minutes makes the lessons a little more affordable for the students.
But that format makes it hard to to do too much more than tune, check in w/ previous lesson, assign the next lesson, and move on. I definitely prefer 60 or 90 minute format.

Answer:
Yeah, for beginners I would never go over a hour half.
I only teach intermediate to advance players. So, most of my lessons are minimum of one hour. This way they have time to play back last weeks lesson for me, explain it to me, and then continue on to learning the new material.
I never thought about doing this before but I had a student hit me up about doing two-hours each week...
The guy is married, no kids, has a business that pretty much runs itself and tries to do nothing but play guitar and learn as much as he can. So, I told him we could give it a shot.
It's been working out GREAT for about 4 months now!
Most of the time we split the lessons up into technique, theory, and application. Having the full two hours gives us time to go into detail. Also, he records each lesson so he can go back and take the lesson as many times as he wants through the week.
And, he records himself playing the material I played for him. So I can hear his adaption and absorption each week. It's like a full blown guitar class each week for him. And I can't tell you how much the guys improved. He's dedicated to the point that I'll give him something in a couple of Keys and he'll come in with it written out and can play it in ALL Keys.
Sorry for the ramble...
Yes, half hour for beginners, one hour for intermediate, and a one hour and up "class" for the advanced and real dedicated players.

Answer:
Usually when I pick up the guitar it takes me between 15 and 20 minutes before my mind is actually clear enough to start enjoying and absorbing anything. If I was already being shoo'd away at this point, I don't think I would really learn anything in the lesson.
However, if the student is dedicated and will do the warming up on his own ahead of time, then the 30 minute format might be okay. Then again, these real dedicated students are the kinds who will keep doing it and learning and growing even if they had no lessons, and, ironically, are also the types who would take 1.5 hour and up lessons (or probably as much time as you would give them/they could afford). Funny how that works.

Answer:
sometimes it's the teacher's schedule that dictates the lesson time. for me, i can only do 30min lesssons. if it takes me 1 hr to get to work and 1 hr to get home, a 40hr/ wk job to pay my mortgage, time for family/ friends/ myself, i don't have a whole lot to work with. by limiting my lesson times, i'm able to see 2x as many students as i would if i scheduled them for 1hr.

Answer:
I take 30 minute lessons and it does the trick. The idea isn't to "jam" but rather discuss a concept, my teacher gives me a lesson (tabs or other printed material) and I work on it through the week. The next lesson I can ask any questions I had about the previous week.
Its amazing how busy you can stay working on simple concepts, like the CAGED system and minor vs. major pentatonic scales and memorizing the chords in the most popular keys (CAGE and D). Then I'll get a couple sheets of pentatonic licks (30 or so) and spend a week working on those.
The teachers job is to guide you in the right direction, not to jam with you or jump from one subject to the next.

Answer:
In our area (SW FL) many going to half-hour sessions and teacher to students house?? Not sure how, or why, with gas being what it is they want to go that way.
I liked the hour sessions better for feedback to instructor, but the half-hour is a down 'n dirty, no fooling around time. My instructor said folks seem to do better with half-hour (COST $$$) wise, that is easier to let loose of half-hour fees than an hour $$$.
As someone else already pointed out, by the time you get tuned, do a few warm-ups, time is about gone.
I guess as long as both sides feel they got "value" out of the time & $$$ then we can rock on!

Answer:
I take 1 hour lessons and time seems to fly very fast. Don't think half hour lessons will work for me.

Answer:
I take 1 hour lessons and time seems to fly very fast. Don't think half hour lessons will work for me. Same for me. 30 minutes is probably good for the first 6 months or so, but once you get to the point where you can actually play a simple song without spending a week practicing it, it's probably time to move up to an hour. I find an hour is perfect for me: enough to come to cover the necessary material and go in-depth, but before I get bored or lose focus.

Answer:
30 minutes works perfect. You can waste a little time by tuning with the student (even though everyone should be able to start class tuned anyway except the utmost of beginners but force people that are proactive to tune anyway), have the student play last weeks lesson for a few, demonstrate it (20 minutes gone by). Then show the student the next few pages of alfred's book #whatever, demonstrate, and you should be done. If not, end lesson anyway. Only 2 pages or so of whatever book are actually done so the student has to come back for 30 years to get anywhere. Expend the most minute amount of thoughts at all and rake in small town guitar learners due to lack of competition. Never write anything down ever.
Seriously, I went through 5 teachers in my first 2 years playing and there was only 1 that I ended up staying with and I got a schedule change and couldnt continue with him anymore. The rest totally sucked. One guy even started tuning a 1/4 step up from standard I think it was in reaction to me coming in already tuned every week. 2 of them took up at least 10 minutes as I showed and explained what they assigned me last week, they couldnt remember or didnt care enough to or just wanted to waste time, I dont know which. Fucking robots! And none of them had an hour open, only half hours at a time.
Seriously, if you guys are great teachers, please move to my county!
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