"Yes" (you will probably need qualifications) if you are seeking work in schools and colleges and "No" (you wont need any) if you teach privately from home (or if you visit your students in their own homes)
Teaching guitar in a school or college environment is one of the three basic types of guitar teaching job that you can find out more about the three basic type of guitar teaching job by following the link in the box below
At home, in schools and colleges or in bricks and mortar music stores......
The first is......
The second is.........
If you are a reasonable standard intermediate guitarist there is no reason why you cannot be a very effective guitar teacher with or without either qualifications or recognised grades just so long as you set out to teach guitar to the right customers in the right way
We have a more detailed article themed around the subject of How good do you need to be in order to teach guitar? here This site also features detailed information and lesson plans for a series of guitar lessons aimed at an absolute beginner or a whole “mini-site” which covers teaching children to play guitar that you may find interesting or you may choose to stay on this page and take a closer look at the business of guitar teaching (with or without qualifications) from the point of view of being able to do it effectively
Before we look at qualifications required (or not!) for teaching guitar you could take a look at our material designed to work with a range of different students and situations
1: Grown ups who decide that since they always wanted to play the guitar it’s “now of never”
2: Young kids (I take them from the age of eight) or teenagers who wish to learn to play because it seems like a fun thing to do or?
One of the nice things about both groups is that in the early stages you cover the same ground (albeit in slightly different ways?) Complete beginners need only (at this stage) to learn how to change between chords and how to strum those chords in time? It’s as simple as that.
An idea for a “good” intermediate standard player who wishes to explore the possibility of developing a long term career as a guitar instructor is to get teaching experience (and income!) from working with beginners whilst at the same time studying towards gaining the recognised qualifications and grades that will allow them to progress “up the teaching ladder” (to schools and colleges). A(by no means small!) advantage of following this path is that by doing so you will also become a better player (guaranteed!)
No matter how "good" you are as a player and performer, if you wish to teach guitar in school and college situations then realistically you will probably need to have recognised grades and qualifications from organisations such as Berklee or The Royal College of Music if only so that the people who dish the jobs out (who are most probably not guitar players?) can justify your appointment to their superiors.
If you do not currently have formal qualifications and intend to make guitar teaching your long term career then you might like to consider teaching in a domestic setting whilst spending time in the medium to long term working towards the grades and teaching qualifications offered by organisations such as those mentioned above that would allow you to operate in all of the areas where one-on-one or group guitar lessons commonly take place
If you wish to teach guitar in your own home you will not be required to have any qualifications (after all its your house and what you legally do in it is your business) but that is not to say that every home is geared up for a successful guitar teaching practice I used to teach in my own home at the start of my guitar teaching career and I wouldn't have missed those years for the world but it is fair to say that after all these years and with the changes to domestic life that children etc brings I would not be over keen on returning to this way of teaching I was a qualified teacher at that stage but as far as I can remember nobody ever asked to see my certificates during all of the years that I taught from home
If you have an interest in the more theoretical side of guitar teaching you could take a ride over to our guitar pedagogy page which takes a closer look at theory, technique and repertoire, the "three pillars of guitar teaching wisdom"
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