Matthew Passingham

I currently teach one-to-one guitar lessons in 2 primary schools and to private students. I play classical guitar and electric guitar, and I am able to help students learn a wide range of genres including pop, rock, classical and jazz.

Through my experience of teaching I have learned to make my lessons fun & engaging by including a variety of different activities in my lessons which all teach what I consider to be fundamental guitar and musical skills. These include learning to play with a plectrum and plucking the strings with the fingers, strumming chords, playing individual notes to play melodies, learning the notes on the fretboard, playing with a backing track or song and playing solo.

I play duets with my students as much as possible and find this helps make lessons fun & engaging, and teaches pupils about timing in music. One of the instructive guitar books I teach from, called ‘First Class Guitar’ by Tatiana Stachek has lots of duets for the teacher and students and I have found students thoroughly enjoy playing these duets.

When important, I also explain important music theory concepts such as the notes used in western music, time signatures, playing rhythms by ear and by reading them, how chords are constructed and scales & key signatures.

Through my experience of teaching guitar I have developed patience when teaching and an understanding that different pupils all learn different things at different rates, and that no two students follow exactly the same path when learning the guitar. I have developed good verbal communication skills through explaining concepts and developed skills at teaching through demonstrating techniques.

I am a classical and jazz guitarist who came to those styles from rock and pop, and I feel this musical background enables me to teach a wide variety of musical genres. When teaching beginners I have two different books to follow depending on what genre the students want to learn and I also provide them with some of my own teaching material.

I am DBS checked and have my own safeguarding policy.