Teaching Beginner Guitarists Online and the Rise of AI

This readers question is:

I might try teaching beginners online as a way to connect with others, but with the AI onslaught I’ve become discouraged.

You can see my video response here and a written article below:

Teaching Beginners

This is a great way to start teaching guitar. However, teaching online is a lot harder than you think it is. The way students respond to the online and offline markets are very different.

The online market for guitar lessons is highly competitive, if you want to succeed in this market you have to either:

• Have 1000s of lessons you offer at a low price, for example, like TrueFire and the other big guitar lesson websites
• Be famous on YouTube, where people know your playing and they like YOU, so the competitve edge is your personality

Offline, the competition is Fred down the road who opens a book and says “play this”. Even if there is a great local teacher, some people will like him and some people won’t. They probably aren’t advertising effectively, so even if they’re great, if someone sees your ad and doesn’t know he exists, they’ll come to you.

So I strongly recommend teaching in person.

The AI Onslaught and its Effect on Music

Is your average person going to listen to more and more AI generated music? Yes, and the average person doesn’t care. The average person wants something to listen to in the background, and AI is going to become even better at doing that.

Is this going to affect your as a guitar teacher? Maybe, maybe not. There are always going to be people listening to Queen or Joe Satriani who want to learn songs, and there are always going to be poeple willing to pay to get help from a teacher down the road to do that.

Will ChatGPT Replace Guitar Teachers?

I don’t think so. There are always going to be people who want a guitar teacher in the room with them. ChatGPT can’t give you feedback on your playing, it can’t create exercises and assignments to help you when you’re stuck.

Will AI Make Releasing Your Own Music More Difficult?

Yes, AI music is going to increase the competition for streaming and make discoverabiltiy of your music more difficult.

But, AI can’t replace live music. Whether it’s playing your local venue or playing at a music festival, people are always going to want to see live music. No-one is going to pay to goto a music festival with an AI line up - they want to drink 100 beers and watch some real people on stage playing music.