Guitar Lessons

TL;DR

What it is: Teaching guitar to students one-on-one or in small groups, either online via video call or in-person at their location or yours.

What you'll do:

• Plan and deliver structured lessons based on student goals
• Teach techniques, music theory, songs, and practice methods
• Provide feedback and track student progress
• Manage scheduling and student communications

Time to learn: 1-3 months to build basic teaching skills if you already play well and understand fundamentals. Teaching effectively is different from playing well.

What you need: Intermediate guitar skills (comfortable with chords, basic theory, multiple genres), ability to explain concepts clearly, patience with beginners.

What This Actually Is

Guitar teaching means working directly with students to help them improve their playing abilities. You're not performing or creating content. You're sitting with someone (virtually or physically) and guiding them through techniques, songs, theory, and practice routines.

Most guitar teachers work with beginners learning basic chords and songs. Some teachers specialize in specific genres like classical, jazz, blues, or metal. Others focus on certain techniques like fingerstyle, improvisation, or music theory.

You can teach online through video platforms, in-person at students' homes, at your home studio, or at music schools. Online teaching has grown significantly and allows you to reach students anywhere in the world without commuting.

This side hustle works for people who already play guitar at an intermediate or advanced level and want to earn money sharing that knowledge. You don't need to be a virtuoso. Many successful teachers are solid intermediate players who excel at breaking down concepts for beginners.

What You'll Actually Do

Your day-to-day involves several activities beyond just teaching:

Lesson planning: Before each session, you'll prepare what to cover based on the student's current level and goals. This might mean selecting songs, preparing exercises, or organizing theory concepts. Planning time is unpaid but necessary.

Teaching sessions: During lessons, you demonstrate techniques, watch students play, correct mistakes, explain theory, and answer questions. You'll repeat similar explanations across different students, especially with beginners.

Student management: You handle scheduling, rescheduling, payment collection, and communications. Students cancel, forget lessons, or need to adjust times regularly.

Marketing yourself: Finding students requires promoting your services on platforms, maintaining profiles, responding to inquiries, and sometimes offering trial lessons.

Continuing education: You'll need to keep learning new songs students want to play, stay current with teaching methods, and expand your own skills to teach more advanced students.

The actual teaching is probably 60-70% of your time. The rest goes to administration and preparation.

Skills You Need

Playing ability: You need solid fundamentals. This means clean chord changes (including barre chords), understanding basic scales and theory, reading chord charts, and being comfortable in at least one or two genres. You don't need to shred or perform professionally, but you should be able to demonstrate techniques correctly.

Teaching skills: Being able to play and being able to teach are different skills. You need to break down complex movements into simple steps, identify why a student is struggling, and explain the same concept multiple ways until it clicks. Patience is essential because beginners make the same mistakes repeatedly.

Communication: You must explain musical concepts in plain language. Not everyone understands terms like "fret," "downstroke," or "time signature" immediately. Clear verbal instruction combined with physical demonstration is the foundation.

Curriculum knowledge: Understanding what order to teach concepts matters. Teaching barre chords before students master open chords creates frustration. You need a logical progression that builds skills incrementally.

Interpersonal skills: Students range from children to retirees, each with different learning styles and motivations. Some want structure, others want to just learn songs. Adapting your approach to each person determines retention.

Basic tech skills: For online teaching, you need familiarity with video calling software, screen sharing, and sometimes music notation software or backing track apps.

Getting Started

Start by assessing your current playing level honestly. If you can play intermediate-level songs cleanly, understand basic theory (scales, keys, chord construction), and can teach someone to play a simple song from scratch, you're ready to teach beginners.

Learn teaching fundamentals. This isn't about becoming certified, but about understanding how to structure lessons, create practice plans, and troubleshoot common beginner problems. Search YouTube for guitar teaching methodology videos and watch how experienced teachers explain concepts.

Set up your teaching space. For online lessons, you need good lighting, a camera that shows both your hands and face, and clear audio. Test your setup with a friend. For in-person teaching, a quiet space with two chairs and a music stand works.

Create a basic curriculum outline. Decide what you'll teach in lessons 1-10 for a complete beginner. This gives structure and makes lesson planning faster. Include basic open chords, simple strumming patterns, a few easy songs, and fundamental theory.

Choose your platforms. If teaching online, sign up for teaching marketplaces where students actively search for teachers. If teaching in-person, list on local classifieds and community boards. You can also build your own student base through social media.

Set your rates based on your experience and local market. New teachers typically start on the lower end of market rates and increase as they gain experience and reviews.

Start with a few students to build experience. Teaching your first 10 students will reveal what works, what doesn't, and what you need to improve. You'll refine your teaching style and curriculum based on real feedback.

Income Reality

Guitar teacher income varies significantly based on how many students you teach, your rates, and student retention.

Hourly rates by experience:

• New teachers: $20-30/hour online, $30-40/hour in-person
• Experienced teachers: $35-55/hour online, $50-80/hour in-person
• Specialized instruction (jazz, classical, advanced theory): $60-100+/hour

These are market observations from platforms and independent teachers. Your actual rates depend on your skills, location, and how you position yourself.

Monthly income scenarios:

If you teach 10 students per week (10 hours) at $30/hour, that's $1,200/month. At 20 students per week at $40/hour, that's $3,200/month. Most teachers doing this as a side hustle fall in the 8-15 student range.

Group lessons can increase income per hour. If you teach 4 students together for $25 each per hour-long class, that's $100/hour. However, group teaching is more complex and works better in-person.

Factors affecting earnings:

Student retention matters most. A student taking weekly lessons for a year is worth $1,440-2,880 annually (at $30-60/hour). Losing students means constantly marketing for replacements.

Your teaching schedule flexibility determines capacity. Evening and weekend slots fill fastest. Daytime availability limits you to students with flexible schedules (retirees, homeschooled children, shift workers).

Specialization can command higher rates. Teachers who focus on specific genres or advanced techniques often charge more than general beginner instructors, but the student pool is smaller.

Platform versus independent teaching affects take-home pay. Teaching through marketplaces brings students but platforms take a percentage. Building your own student base takes longer but keeps all revenue.

Note: Platforms may charge fees or commissions. We don't track specific rates as they change frequently. Check each platform's current pricing before signing up.

Where to Find Work

Online teaching platforms: Websites like Superprof, Preply, Lessonface, and TakeLessons connect teachers with students. You create a profile, set rates, and students book lessons. These platforms handle payment processing but take a cut.

General freelance marketplaces: Thumbtack and similar services let you list teaching services and respond to student requests in your area. More common for in-person teaching.

Local advertising: Post on community Facebook groups, Craigslist, Nextdoor, and local bulletin boards. Many teachers find their first students through neighborhood connections.

Music schools: Some local music schools hire part-time teachers. You work on their premises and they provide students, but rates are often lower since the school takes a portion.

Direct outreach: Once you have a few students and some positive results, word-of-mouth referrals become a significant source. Encourage satisfied students to recommend you.

Social media presence: Posting playing videos and teaching tips on Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok can attract students who find you organically. This takes time to build but creates a steady stream.

Your own website: Building a simple site with your credentials, teaching approach, and booking information gives you a professional presence. Useful once you have experience to showcase.

The fastest path is usually starting on an established platform to get your first 5-10 students, then gradually building your own student base to reduce platform dependency.

Common Challenges

Student cancellations and no-shows: Students cancel last minute or forget lessons, leaving gaps in your schedule and income. Some teachers implement cancellation policies requiring 24-hour notice.

Inconsistent income: Your earnings fluctuate based on how many active students you have each month. Summer vacations, holidays, and semester breaks often mean fewer lessons.

Repetitive beginner content: If most students are beginners, you'll teach the same basic chords and techniques repeatedly. This can become monotonous for teachers who want musical variety.

Student motivation issues: Many students don't practice between lessons, which slows progress and can be frustrating. Managing expectations and keeping unmotivated students engaged is draining.

Time spent on admin: Scheduling, rescheduling, payment follow-ups, and responding to inquiries takes time you're not paid for. As your student base grows, this administrative load increases.

Competition: Many guitar teachers exist, and students can choose from dozens of options. Standing out requires building a reputation through reviews and results.

Equipment and setup costs: Quality audio and video equipment for online teaching isn't expensive, but it's necessary. Poor sound quality loses students quickly.

Pricing pressure: Subscription platforms offering unlimited lessons for $20-30/month make some students question why private lessons cost more. You need to articulate the value of personalized instruction.

Student plateau frustration: Students sometimes hit learning plateaus and lose interest. Keeping them engaged through these periods determines retention rates.

Tips That Actually Help

Specialize in something specific: Rather than being a general guitar teacher, focus on a specific style (blues, fingerstyle, metal) or student type (young children, adult beginners). Specialists often command higher rates and attract more committed students.

Record your lessons: With student permission, record sessions so they can review what you covered. This helps students practice correctly and reduces questions between lessons.

Create practice plans: Give students clear, written practice routines for the week. "Practice 10 minutes daily" is vague. "Practice G-C-D chord changes for 5 minutes, then play 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door' twice" is actionable.

Build a lesson template library: Create reusable lesson plans for common topics (first lesson, introducing barre chords, teaching rhythm, etc.). This reduces planning time significantly.

Implement a clear cancellation policy: Decide your policy upfront (24-hour notice, no refunds for late cancellations, makeup lessons, etc.) and communicate it clearly. This protects your time and income.

Focus on quick wins early: New students need to feel progress quickly or they quit. Get them playing a simple song or recognizable riff in the first 2-3 lessons to build confidence and momentum.

Set clear practice expectations: Tell students directly that progress requires regular practice. Those who don't practice won't improve, and that's not your failure as a teacher.

Ask for reviews and referrals: After a student has been with you for 2-3 months and is showing progress, ask them to leave a review or refer friends. Most satisfied students will if you simply ask.

Keep learning: Stay slightly ahead of your students by continuously learning new songs, techniques, and teaching methods. This prevents you from plateauing as a teacher.

Use backing tracks and apps: Tools that provide rhythm backing or slow-down features help students practice more effectively. Recommend specific practice tools that match their level.

Group similar-level students: If possible, teach small group classes for students at similar levels. This increases your hourly rate and creates peer motivation.

Learning Timeline Reality

If you already play guitar at an intermediate level, expect 1-3 months to develop basic teaching competency if you're actively practicing teaching (either with real students or friends).

This assumes you're spending a few hours each week learning teaching methodology, creating lesson plans, and getting feedback on your instruction.

If you're starting from scratch as a guitar player, reaching a level where you can teach beginners typically takes 1-2 years of consistent practice (30-60 minutes daily). You need solid fundamentals before teaching others.

The skills that take longest to develop are not playing-related but teaching-related: how to identify why a student is struggling, how to explain concepts multiple ways, and how to keep students motivated. These come with experience teaching actual students.

Your first 10 students will teach you more about teaching than any course or video. Expect to refine your methods significantly in your first 6 months of actual teaching.

Is This For You?

This side hustle works well if you already play guitar comfortably, enjoy explaining things to people, and have patience for repetition. If you get frustrated when someone doesn't understand something immediately, teaching will be difficult.

It's a good fit if you want flexible work you can do from home and can handle variable income. Some months you'll have a waiting list; other months students will drop off and you'll need to market yourself.

Consider this if you want to stay connected to music without performing or creating content. Teaching is about helping others improve, not showcasing your own abilities.

It's not ideal if you need guaranteed, consistent income. Student retention varies, and building a full roster takes time. Having other income sources while you build your teaching business reduces financial pressure.

If you prefer playing guitar to talking about guitar, this might not suit you. Teaching is more verbal explanation and watching students struggle than it is performing.

This works for people who find satisfaction in someone else's progress. When a student finally nails a chord change they've been working on for weeks, that's the reward. If that doesn't excite you, teaching probably won't either.