Why Offer a Community Guitar Program?

This is really two different questions disguised as one:

Why offer group lessons at all?
Why offer Community Guitar study groups rather than your own home grown program of group lessons?

Let's look at each,shall we?

Why offer group lessons at all?

Because for everyone concerned there may be distinct advantages over private instruction. From the perspective of the host institution and teacher, here are some big pluses:

You offer a distinctive service that clearly sets you apart from others in the area who are offering generic “guitar lessons”.
Group instruction has great appeal to the many, many guitarists who are not even considering private lessons, but who do want to connect with other players. Offering this option opens up an entirely new market for you.
Unlike private lessons, classes must be offered on a schedule and require active outreach. The marketing of each new round offers an opportunity to engage and expand your customer/student base.
If your lesson program is held at or with the support of a music store, the higher volume of participants translates directly into increased sales of all the things your students need, from strings and tuners on up to new guitars.
Hourly earnings can be considerably higher, especially for prime time hours.

Of course, none of this would matter if group lessons were not an attractive proposition for students, too. But for many people, they are. Here are a few of the reasons why:

The cost per hour should be considerably lower than private lessons.
Group meetings are highly motivating and, ideally, fun.
Multi-week classes have a clear beginning, end, and focus.
Participants meet others players.
Class time provides structured jamming opportunities.
Group classes offer the most natural setting for learning how to play with others.

So - at least in theory - group classes can offer a great addition or alternative to your private guitar lesson program. The trick is making that theory a reality. Which brings us to our second question:

Why offer Community Guitar classes in particular?

Let's assume you like the idea of offering a program of group guitar study for that vast (often stagnant) pool of adult, recreational guitarists. The fact is that putting such a program together is a lot of work.

The main areas of that work are:

Designing the program.
Producing written and recorded teaching materials designed for group use for every class at every level.
Producing high quality marketing materials to promote your program

In all, this amounts to many hundreds of hours of work, thousands of dollars in expense and a lot of trial and error. With 10 years experience doing each of these things, we are in a position to make it much, much easier for you to get your program up and running at a high level of professionalism and profitability. And with the combined input of more and more Community Guitar teachers and hosts, our products and practices are only going to get better over time. In short, what we can accomplish by working together is better than what any of us could do on our own.

Let's have a look at each of these critical areas - program design, instructional materials, and marketing support to see how we can make your Community Guitar Program a turnkey operation for the most modest investment imaginable.