When a student arrives for their lesson, and they ask you to teach them Stairway To Heaven, what do you do?

The first step, of course, is to toss initial impulses aside and begin looking as objectively (as possible) at the task at hand. This is the song you were hoping no one would ever ask you to teach—maybe if you just showed them the opening acoustic guitar riff, then they could struggle with that and then it would all be over. But you know you can’t do that, and you also know that this lesson is not about you and your profoundly idiosyncratic biases regarding music in general, but about the student—not about doing it their way, but about learning it the right way.

For example, should the opening acoustic guitar phrase be played with an alternating picking pattern, taking care to not double the down or upstrokes when traveling from one string to the next? The answer is yes, (if you’re using a pick) but that might not be the answer the student wants to hear, especially when you are also requesting that they begin practicing this phrase at a very slow metronome marking, while tapping their foot and counting out loud.

Then there’s the chord strumming pattern in the “and it makes me wonder” section. Chances are that the syncopation and strumming pattern required to play this section correctly is more involved than the student had bargained for (“it doesn’t sound syncopated!”), and it needs to be explained, patiently, that learning it correctly will make it easier in the long run, and the skills learned here will directly apply to other pieces they may wish to learn. Then you have to break this one to them gently: they need to tap their foot, clap and count the rhythms to this section out loud before they begin playing it on the guitar. No one really wants to hear that, so you have to explain as carefully as you can, and probably reiterate it over the course of the next year or so, how important it is to understand the rhythmic foundation of a piece of music before you can ever play it correctly, and by correctly I mean musically.

There’s a definite sales pitch required here; you can’t just muscle these ideas down somebody’s throat. The idea of having to apply concentrated, thoughtful energy to the task at hand is already sounding like a lot less fun, and you want your students to keep coming back. Somehow you have to sell the idea to the student that learning how to play music using proven, methodical strategies will make music more enjoyable in the long run as well as the short run. It will allow them a musical independence that they would never have if their teacher just showed you their bag of licks and told you what chords to play, sink or swim. Figuring out how to explain this gets a little easier over time, but the delivery of this sales pitch changes with every student. Everyone is different.

I do try to base my lessons to a large degree on what the student wants to learn. It’s most important to me that fundamental music skills are developed in that learning process and real, actual songs are learned from beginning to end—not just the intro, or the bitchin’ lead part in the middle, but the whole shmear.

My opinions about what good or bad music might be is of virtually no use in a teaching environment, although I must admit I am a pretty easy read if I don’t like something. Over the course of forty-plus years of playing music a dude can get pretty opinionated, but it’s a lot more important to focus on the right way to play music, whether you care for that piece or not. Often, the process of learning to play or teach a piece you don’t necessarily care for or have just heard way too much will reveal musical elements that you hadn’t previously considered, and will allow your pre-conceived notions to be dashed to bits, or at least subdued. Which is good. For everybody.

Composer, guitarist and arranger Steve Kirk's music has been featured in film, video games and TV. This includes music for the Disney game version of "The Princess And The Frog", Microsoft Games "Voodoo Vince" , the FarmVille Theme for Zynga Games, and to be released in Spring 2011, Cantina music composed for the Star Wars MMOL game The Other Republic.

Steve teaches guitar, music theory and composition privately in Oakland, California, as well as Blue Bear School Of Music and Community Music Center- both located in San Francisco, California. He is also the guitarist for Club Foot Orchestra and Orchestra Nostalgico.