Locations
throughout
Los Angeles County

Joe Nemchik Guitar Lessons

(323) 205-6320

What it Means to Get Value from Music Lessons

Have you or a family member always wanted to become a better guitar player but were unsure where to begin? My guitar students work hard and see real results, developing not only their musical sensibility, but their confidence, work ethic & analytical skills as well. Call today to join the hundreds of students who have found success through my teaching.

About the Teacher

Joe Nemchik is a professional studio & live session musician as well as a passionate music educator. He holds a bachelor of guitar performance degree from Berklee College of Music, home to the largest & among the most competitive contemporary guitar programs in the world.

His career highlights include performances with former American Idol finalist, John Stevens & playing as an opening act for America's Got Talent runner-up, Cas Haley.

Joe has taught thousands of successful private & group lessons to students ages 7 to adult. He draws on a dense array of strategies for teaching, which include his Berklee studies in guitar & private pedagogy as well as his experience having studied himself under 17 different guitar teachers, all bringing their own set of tricks & personal style to the lesson room.

Me playing Sleigh Ride unaccompanied guitar 2011:

Me playing electric guitar at Berklee in 2008:

How I Teach Guitar

With few exceptions, all teachers teach the same material, scales, notes, tab, chords: this is merely information. None of it is a secret. The secret is in training you to form solid connections between your mind, hands, ears & soul.

An expert teacher doesn't just teach, but coaches proper technique, keeps you motivated & customizes a plan that will maximize your results & whenever possible, avoid frustration. They inspire & enlighten on a personal level.

There are things about your technique I will tell you that very few other teachers explain. I will share with you how to get more out of a half an hour of practicing than most guitarists get in hours. I will show you how to listen for things you may not even be conscious of but make a huge difference in the way your performance comes across.

In your search, understand that there are exceptional teachers that know how to train you & there are guitar players that simply offer you decent information. There is a big difference, & you will see a big difference in your playing respectively.

Before asking what books a teacher uses, where he or she teaches or how much he or she charges, first ask:

• What are this person's qualifications on his or her instrument?
• What are his or her students capable of?
• What are students & parents saying about this teacher & the progress that's been made?

Choose wisely,
Joe

Student Recital

My student Jason (14) plays Mad World on unaccompanied on guitar:

Parent Testimonial

A father talks about his son's experience with guitar lessons:

Student Video

My student Zebas (8) plays & sings The Muppets' theme song:

How Do I Compare?

There are a lot of ways to learn guitar out there. They are all advertised to be the ideal way to help you reach your goals. How do they really compare?

What are lessons with Joe like compared to ______?

1. trying to teach yourself
2. signing up at a local music store/school
3. a less experienced musician
4. a less experienced teacher
5. a teacher who uses ridged lesson material
6. group guitar classes
7. a teacher who does not have a degree
8. a general music teacher who teaches many different instruments

Compared with trying to teach yourself:

There are more resources available than ever before, books, instructional DVDs, the Internet, guitar magazines. These all tell you where to put your fingers in order to play the included songs, but they generally stop there. There are three things books & videos alone can never do:

1. Personalized Goal Setting
2. Person-to-person Motivation
3. Technique coaching (rhythmic control, blocking, ergonomics)

Most successful musicians have had some sort of help in all three of these areas. Even musicians who describe themselves as "self-taught", will almost always talk about the mentorship of other advanced musicians whether it be a parent who played piano or friend who had been playing guitar for years. This is no surprise because without a teacher who can provide all three services named above, anyone trying to learn guitar is at a serious disadvantage. Let's explore them one-at-a-time.

1. Setting goals is crucial for success in learning just about anything. Without a goal, you are just practicing trial & error. You will likely get bored or frustrated before you ever stumble upon something meaningful. Conversely, a person with a goal has a vision to work for. Advanced guitarists usually have a good feel for how to set their own goals. However beginners who know little about the instrument & little about what they may be capable of are usually in need of a lot of guidance when it comes to goal settings. They can tell you a little about the music that inspires them but when it comes to all the steps between them & making that music they are usually very fuzzy. This is where a quality teacher is irreplaceable.
2. Like a personal trainer a great guitar teacher will push you for just one more rep. A great guitar teacher will also inspire you towards new horizons. A poor guitar teacher may push too hard leaving the student burned out toward learning anything new. A poor guitar teacher may lack the expectations to properly motivate resulting in a student who has lost interest & does not practice.
3. Like a baseball hitting coach, a guitar teacher will show you how to coordinate your body efficiently. You will be able to play things cleanly & evenly over the whole neck in the way coached baseball players know how to get maximum power over any part of the plate. Like a freethrow coach, an effective teacher will show you how to develop consistency & control in you motion. You will be able to place the notes where you imagine them in the same way coached basketball players are able to place the ball where they imagine.

Compared with signing up at a local music store/school

For many people the search for guitar lessons begins & ends with a stop at the largest music shop in the area. It is important to remember that while a longstanding, large building does suggest a successful business model, it says little about the success of its guitar students. Some local music schools go out of their way to only hire only the finest teachers. However, having worked at several such establishments I can tell you many are hit or miss. Do not make the mistake of assuming simply because a person works inside a particular building that they will be exceptional. Judge your teacher only on his or her own merits. Ask specifically for the name of the teacher who will be assigned to you. Ask where he or she received their degree in music. Ask where you can watch them play guitar. More importantly ask where you can see their students playing guitar. Ask what clients are saying about this teacher specifically. Armed with these questions you can judge each individual guitar teacher you come across for yourself rather than relying only on the judgment of your local shop or school owner. Be an informed shopper. Don't let anyone talk you out of asking the questions you need to ask in order to make the right decision.

Compared with a less experienced musician

My advanced students choose to study with me because they know they want to work hard & learn to play like me… but what if you're a beginner? Sometimes beginners don't think they need a great guitar player for a teacher because they're only looking for the basics. They may choose to learn from a neighbor, a family friend, a school teacher etc. There is nothing wrong with this logic. If you are determined to learn to play like someone, you probably will. Just understand that you will have to take the good with the bad. This means if your guitar teacher has a bad habit, you will probably pick up exactly the same habit. In fact, the harder you practice, the better you will have mastered this habit & the harder it will be to break if you ever decide you want to progress to the next level. If your prospective guitar teacher is a middle-of-the-road player, ask yourself if there might be things about their practice habits & technique that might be holding them back from being great players. Nine times out of ten the answer will be "yes." They will pass these problems onto you. Why not save yourself a lot of time, money & frustration & start developing great technique right from the start?

Compared with a less experienced teacher

So we've established that it will be of great benefit to have a teacher who really knows his or her way around the guitar. But does that mean that all great guitar players make great teachers? Hardly. Many guitarists spend 95% of their time thinking just about playing & only about 5% thinking about teaching. For them it is a side gig. Some are inexperienced with teaching, some are impatient with people who are not on the same level or in the same headspace as them. Some are just hard to relate to. The list goes on & on. The bottom line is, you don't want to be anybody's 5%. It doesn't matter how musically brilliant they are. All that matters is their ability to transfer their skills to you. You want somebody with a substantial commitment towards helping others learn guitar. While I do have professional performance, composition & production obligations that I thoroughly enjoy, I am passionate about teaching. I believe sharing knowledge with others is our legacy. It doesn't matter if you're in music or any other field. Whatever I've gathered, I feel compelled to share it. I spend a lot of time studying pedagogy, & I am preparing my own innovations to better connect with each student as an individual.

Compared with a teacher who uses ridged lesson material

I often get asked by students & other teachers what books I am teaching out of. The answer is I don't use one particular book. Sure, there are some standard exercises I give true beginners to build some basic dexterity. But on the long term, I guide my students in their choices. I encourage them to choose their own repertoire. I often prepare lessons material specifically for a single student based on his or her current direction of interest. When a student experiences difficulty I will show an exercise I derive, on the spot, from the particular piece. This is troubleshooting. This gives the student a much better idea of what to do if he or she were to come across the piece without a teacher. When a student gets stuck in a book there isn't much to say but, "go back to the previous page."  This is a terrible way to learn & it's also terribly boring, yet many guitarists & book salesmen are all too eager to pass it off as quality teaching.

Compared with group classes

Group classes are a popular alternative to the 1-on-1 private lessons I usually teach. Groups can be good socially; they may also seem like a real bargain because the teacher may be able to spread his or her rate over the entire group. But you need to know there are two big areas in which ALL groups fall short. #1 Everything is a compromise. Maybe you've had a few lessons & you find yourself in a group with people who have never played before. You will be bored & accomplishing very little as the teacher attends to the true beginners. Worse yet, maybe you've never had a lesson before & everyone else can already play a few basics. You will feel awkward while the teacher struggles to catch you up. Better programs may have several groups for players of different levels. But then, maybe you're an intermediate player want to focus on metal, while the rest of the group wants to focus on pop. Or maybe you like pop, but the rest of the group is into jazz. #2 Individual attention is limited. If you're in a one-hour group with nine other guitarists, the amount of time the teacher can spend actually listening to you is 6 minutes. The rest of the time you will be listening to other players, you will be listening to the teacher give generic guitar advice that may or may not apply to you, or you will be playing without the teacher critically listening to you. We've already established that these are all things you could do at home, on your own, without a teacher. So what's offered as an hour lesson on things you want to learn, will, at best, turn out to be a 6-minute lesson on songs you may not even like. My students know they deserve more for their money.

Compared with a teacher who does not have a degree

As stated previously when talking about being self-taught, I do not believe that the only good musicians in this world are those with college degrees in guitar. Some find ways to gain enough skill to get by without formal study. However, when searching for teacher, a guitarist who is self-taught or only studied with one or two teachers is likely to have a much narrower view. They only see the guitar in terms of what works for them. & what works for them will not always work for you. When I look at the guitar I see what's worked for me, & I also see what's worked for the faculty of over fifty world-class guitar teachers I've studied under, as well as the hundreds of guitarists I studied alongside. Everybody learns things differently. Everybody has their own twist on how they internalize music. When these learning styles don't match up with a self-taught teacher, you will feel like you are stuck at a road block. My students rarely get stuck on critical concepts because I am able to work in different perspectives. I see my students' guitar playing through many, many sets of eyes.

Compared with a general music teacher who doesn't specialize in guitar

Many decent, well-meaning teachers will tell you they teach a wide variety of instruments. I personally know many musicians who have marketed themselves as expert guitar teachers, knowing little more than a handful of guitar chords & a few notes at the beginner's part of the neck. Sometimes they do well with the venture because they happen to be excellent piano teachers or excellent voice teachers… Their guitar students on the other-hand do not do well. If you're going to be paying by the minute for the time of a skilled music teacher, wouldn't it be worth the extra step to find a teacher that specializes in the instrument you actually want to play? I play & understand many instruments including bass, drums, clarinet & piano. However when it comes down to it, I am a guitar player. I have a performance degree in guitar. I have spent most of my life playing or teaching guitar. I cringe every time one of my piano player friends asks me what to do with their guitar students. It happens more than you would think. Don't pay for lessons form someone who knows the guitar casually. Find someone who knows the instrument you want to learn inside & out, like nothing else. You are worth it.