Intermediate guitar lesson plans

How to approach teaching guitar players once they are beyond the beginner stage

By the time a student arrives at what we refer to as the intermediate stage a guitar teacher should regard them as “unique” and structure their programme and delivery (sometimes “on the fly”) to the individual student rather than routinely adopt a “sausage factory” approach where all of your students do the same thing in the same order

That does not mean that every student will have a widely different experience to all other students but it does recognise that once they can play basic chords in time teaching (and learning) should be focussed on the student and their development rather than on the teacher

The three pillars of guitar teaching wisdom

The three pillars of guitar teaching are music theory , technique and repertoire

Your lessons for intermediate guitar players should be structured so as to take account of the three main areas of a players development that need to be progressed an addressed in order to create a better musician

Printable practice plan for intermediate guitar students

If you take a look at the image at the top of this page you will see that the printable handout to the right of the image features a printable "practice plan"

The plan has a space for you to fill in that details the things that your student should work on before the next session and although it is often desirable to have (even a small?) task in each of the three boxes sometimes if you are working on a particularly involved problem then only one of the boxes will have any information in it

Theory, technique and Repertoire

Music theory for the intermediate guitar player

During the early stages of guitar playing there is absolutely no need to introduce music theory to guitar lessons but during the intermediate stage the “why” we do things becomes increasingly important

Music theory suitable for intermediate level guitar lessons

Note Naming

Whole and half step intervals

Major and minor scales

Major and minor chords

Chords within keys

Guitar Technique

Scales are of course rooted in music theory but they also serve as the basis for increasing a student’s technical capability on the guitar

A common problem (that you can correct?) is that many guitar players can whizz through a bunch of scales at warp speed ten but do not really know how scales are constructed from a series of intervals and how scales are related to chords and keys

Technical exercises for intermediate level guitar students

Major scale

minor Scale

Blues Scale

Pentatonic Minor Scale

Pentatonic Major Scales

In addition there are a range of guitar technique exercises (I use the Major scale in thirds and in sixths to challenge my students and to rapidly increase dexterity but there are loads more out there if that’s what floats your boat)

Every guitar lesson is a point of collision between two biographies (the teacher and the student) and to be honest that’s what makes being a guitar teacher the best job in the world

Repertoire

This is where it gets really interesting and the “collision of two biographies” thing mentioned above really comes into its own

During lessons it can be great to work things out (such as chord sequences for songs or solo lines suggested by the student) that they want to play in “real time” during the lesson but rather than just showing them where to put their fingers a good teacher will relate the physical act of playing to the theory underpinning that act

How do the chords of this song fit into the key in which it is in? Which scale has been used to create the melody or solo and how does that scale relate to the key of the song?

Which other songs feature the same or similar chords or musical devices This one is a “secret weapon” and I’ve lost count of the number of “Aha!” moments I have witnessed when students realise that chord sequences are “recycled” over and over again but made unique by other devices (groove, tempo, melody, orchestration and lyrical content) to create “original” music

Lessons aimed at intermediate students are also a great opportunity to step into the “black art” of songwriting and to help a student to understand that successful songwriters combine “craft” (common song structures, chord sequences etc) with “art” (often the lyrical inspiration underpinning a song)

Guitar lessons aimed at students beyond the beginner stage should use the “practice plan” document that details activities base around theory, technique and repertoire

An intermediate guitar lesson should concern itself with a single question

“What is the best thing that I can do for this student’s position (not just their guitar playing) over the course of the next hour?”

Taken from a review of my materials way back in the early days of the site before the backing tracks, kid's resources and all of the updates were produced

The materials on this website are designed to allow guitar teachers to teach guitar to players at all stages of their musical journey be that beginner intermediate or advanced

The download is made up of over 450 PDFs covering topics including stuff like music theory for guitar teachers and a bunch of blank guitar neck and chord diagrams that will allow you to custom prepare your own handouts/chord sheets for favourite lessons

There are also 100 Giant Guitar Chord Grids to print and use to decorate your teaching studio wall
We also have a load of printable Bass Guitar Teaching Resources, a set of Jazz Guitar Teaching Materials,some songwriting tuition stuff and even some Ukulele Teaching Materials

As well as all of the fun stuff the download includes a bunch of documents designed to help with the "boring admin side of a guitar teaching business" (follow the links above to find out more)