About

I'm Derek Neece, Guitar Instructor for Private Guitar. My teaching studio resides on the border of Keller and Watauga Texas. Professional Musician for 30+ years. I've performed in bands ranging from Rock, Blues, Country, Jazz, Metal and Top 40. I have a strong passion for all music, especially Classic Rock, Blues, Jazz and Acoustic guitar.

I was featured in the June '07 issue of Guitar Player magazine. I've worked with Award-winning producer Sterling Winfield of Pantera fame and drummer Mitch Marine from Smash Mouth, Dwight Yokum. My songs have been on 97.1 KEGL, 102.1 the EDGE and KTCU. I recently performed with Susan Giacona on the TCN Studio B Sessions program aired to 44 millions households nationwide.

If you have the desire to be a proficient guitarist, you need the direction of an experienced and talented guitar instructor. Even if you have modest ambitions, you will reach them far more quickly with a quality guitar teacher. There is so much available information these days. Some is good but sadly, there is an enormous amount of conflicting guitar information circulating on our internet. Let's face it, most "teachers" on YouTube are amateur at best.

Many guitar players choose a guitar instructor without having any prior experience or knowledge about what to expect from a good teacher. A good guitar instructor will help you avoid any unnecessary confusion and can save you years of frustration. Books and internet cannot be there to answer your personal questions and help guide you through each step of the way to your musical goals. An excellent guitar teacher will help guide, build your confidence and develop your abilities correctly and efficiently, encourage your creativity and push you to your absolute best potential.

These are valid questions you should consider with any potential guitar instructor:

1. Do you enjoy listening to the teachers playing style? Does the teacher have performance videos to back up their skill? Do they have a style that you would like to develop for your own?
   
   
2. How long have they been teaching? How many students have they taught during that time? Teachers with large volumes of students that have been teaching for over 5 years will be your best bet. The more years under their belt, the better. It takes time to develop good teaching skills. The first 3 years are trial and error for many guitar teaching careers. You don't want to be their guinea pig.
   
   
3. What's the price of lessons? Good teachers are in high demand. The going rate for a competent guitar coach in major cities is $50-$100 hour. Inexperienced teachers may charge less, but there is a good chance your wasting valuable time and money. In most cases, you get what you pay for.
   
   
4. Have you ever tried to take music lessons at a Guitar Chain? They pay their employees minimum wage while they, the corporate company pockets the lion share of the check. Ask yourself; what kind of quality music teacher will work for minimum wage? This is why corporate music stores have such a high turn-over rate. Many of their employees are young, naive and fresh out of school. There is good reason why truly aspiring musicians will seek out individually established and experienced music teachers.
   
   
5. What style do they prefer to teach? Is that the style you want to learn and do they excel in that field? If you want to learn blues guitar, you need to seek out a killer blues guitar teacher that is fully confident in his ability to play and teach blues guitar. If you want to be a great rock guitarist, you want to find an incredible rock guitar teacher, not a country or jazz teacher. If you want to learn acoustic, find a teacher that is confident in teaching you how to read chord diagrams and will have you learning proper strumming patterns and finger-style technique. If you want to play classical guitar in an orchestra, then you must seek out a classically trained guitarist that will focus on classical technique and teach you to read traditional music notation. Reading music is not necessary for a potential rock, blues or folk guitarist. It would be a waste of their time.
   
   
6. Are they fluent teaching beginner, intermediate as well advanced levels? Do they have advanced students that have been taking lessons from them since they were beginners? This is good stock to have in your future musical development with your guitar instructor. Especially if your open to the idea of a career in music, some real world experienced advice would serve you very well.
   
   
7. This is the most important: do they inquire about your musical knowledge, your musical tastes, and your musical goals? Are they dedicated in getting to know you and helping you achieve these goals? This is important information! It would be impractical to teach the modal system to a 15 year old girl that wants to play Taylor Swift on acoustic as it would be teaching an aspiring Blues musician how to shred like Eddie Van Halen. These would be conflicting interests.

Now you should have a better idea of what you should consider while seeking a guitar instructor for your personal needs. Before making a commitment to take lessons with them, use this checklist. When you do find the right teacher, you should expect one year of lessons with them to be the equivalent of three-five years without them. Would you expect to earn your black belt in martial arts within 3 months?

As with anything worth while in life, it takes patience, determination and perseverance to be a success. With an excellent teacher, you'll be on your way to reaching your musical goals much more quickly and efficiently.