I started teaching when I was a teenager. Before the internet, we were reliant on magazines and books to help us learn the songs of our favourite bands. I soon discovered I had something of a knack for transcribing songs from cds for myself and my classmates. 

My first students were local kids that I taught out of my parent’s house. They were largely children of friends sourced by my first and most successful talent booker, my mother. Many guitar teachers will quietly tell you they don’t enjoy teaching small children, they prefer teenagers with whom they have more in common. One thing that has stood to me in my career is that I’ve always enjoyed the company of kids. They always surprise you and have yet to learn the scripts we so often recite as members of polite society. 

If the digital age has taught us anything it is that information is cheap and not as inaccessible as it once was. The best teachers I have known and look up to are not the ones who know the most stuff. They are the ones that laugh with you, argue with you, push you, hold you accountable for your progress, celebrate with you and most importantly listen to you and answer your questions.

Music teaching is an odd profession. I have yet to hear a fully comprehensive, all-encompassing definition of what makes a good music teacher. In my experience all have their strengths and weaknesses. It’s not evidently clear  to me that it is either something you can learn or something you have to be born with a capacity for. However, I do think there are a few things that my students are entitled to ask of me.

They should think I know what I’m talking about. They should think I have their best interests at heart. They should feel I am not judging or limiting them by my perception of their capabilities. They should feel what I ask of them is attainable even if it may feel unfair in the moment. They should feel they know more leaving than they did on the way in. They should feel their achievements are their own and not mine to claim but that I take pride in them. They should feel supported and that I won’t give up on them, even if they lose heart.

I am very proud to have spent most of my teaching career at Limerick School of Music where I currently teach guitar and ensemble. It is the type of school that I would have liked to attend as a child. Music lessons are for everyone, not only those with the cash or prerequisite skill. This is an ideal of course and resources will always have their limits. But if this isn’t the ideal to aim for we would need a very strong one to take its place. Music is not a tiered system as it is often perceived from the inside and out. It is an ecosystem that flourishes as it grows. The students grow within it. Music schools are a part of this ecosystem where that growth can be nurtured and when properly resourced can have its limits erased.