Illustration by Peeter Piik

It can seem like a difficult question but nothing can be easier to answer if we use some logic and deduction. We could begin like this: The best guitar lesson is the one that helps to achieve the set goals.

Then we have to ask two further questions – 1) Who’s goals and 2) What are the goals?

To answer the first question let’s see who could have goals in this case at all. I can come up with the following –

• A teacher
• A student
• Parents
• School’s owners/leaders (if the lesson takes place in a school)
• Country

Furthermore, other important participants of a guitar lesson are study material and the environment but they can’t have goal. It is clear that different parts may have set different goals. Let’s start with a teacher. What could be the goals of a teacher?

• Earning a living
• Making the world a better place
• Lifting one’s EGO
• Having fun
• Social communication
• Obtaining a professional skill (in the case of an aspiring teacher or a pedagogy student).

What about the student? A student can have following goals:

• Obtaining a profession
• Having fun
• Pleasing others (parents)
• Social communication
• Lifting one’s EGO
• Discovering the world (the last one was an idea that I got from a recent lecture that I gave on this subject and I decided to include it because it can make sense).

If we take only a teacher and a student then we can see that there are already numerous possible combinations. Some of them I would call happy ones and the others unhappy because some goals can be achieved together but some will fight and disturb each other. Here are the so called happy combinations:

• Teacher wants to earn money, student wants to obtain a profession (to make money in future)
• Teacher wants to earn money, student wants to please others
• Teacher wants to lift his/her EGO, student wants the same

Of course, there could be more but let’s see the other side – the unhappy combinations:

• Teacher wants to heal the world, student wants to have fun
• Teacher wants to lift his/her EGO, student wants to socialize
• Teacher wants to socialize, student wants to obtain a profession

However, in most cases the goals are mixed but ideally the professional intentions dominate. One important thing is that goals can change in time. There is more to come on this topic but meanwhile I’d suggest that you’d think about your goals. Why do you study/teach the guitar? It may not easy to answer the question but even trying to think about it helps you to clear your sights and see if you are moving towards your goals or not.

Any thoughts are welcome!