Teaching Guitar in China

[gunsella]

hello friends

i am returning to china in january/february 2006 to teach english. at home i am a guitar teacher and i am interested in pursuing this in china as well as teaching english.

perhaps i could teach at night after classes. details are sketchy.

does anyone have any experience with either teaching or learning guitar in china? i have found nothing on the web and i am just interested to hear anyone's experiences thus far.

i am currently unsure what questions i should even be asking but any help would be greatly appreciated.

nice forums btw.

[phbriggs]

Don't have any experience, but....

Chinese will give anything a go. The school we worked at found at that I could play tennis. As a result I became a pseudo tennis coach (must admit that I have intermediate skills, but these were far better than the locals who had never seen a real racket before).

Imagine the same would apply to a guitar. If you let the locals know that you can teach guitar, you should have a lot of interest. Just promote youself on arrival....and of course take a guitar.

[dalaowai]

If you're planning on going to a big city like Shanghai, there's a demand within the expat community for private home guitar teachers.

I've seen postings on a few other websites requesting a foreign guitar teacher.

[kimberlyandkeith]

Out of all curiousity, how much does a guitar cost? I play and desperately need a new one. I'd prefer to leave my rickety old one in the US and pick up a new one in China.

What would that run me? I don't need anything fancy, just a basic accoustic guitar.

[gunsella]

sounds promising.

dalaowai, i wonder if you could post links to actual requests, or at least some other boards where such a thing might exist. it'd be interesting to check them out.

thanks for your responses.

[dalaowai]

Check it out:

http://www.shanghaiexpat.com/MDForum-viewtopic-t-33456.phtml

I've seen postings on www.asiaxpat.com as well. Your best bet is to place a job wanted post on the above websites, or find a big instrument store in the city you're planning on going to. Give them your business cards and give them a one-time fee if someone wants to hire you, etc. I think that some local Chinese would be interested in hiring a foreign guitar instructor as well.

[prolyfik]

Depending on what you're looking for, there is a large selection of guitars and instruments in China. For a couple hundred dollars you can find a pretty decent instrument - however, it does help if you know how to pick out a good guitar to begin with since a lot of the brands and models may not be familiar. That said, you can find guitars across the spectrum from $20 "starters" (that I wouldn't even venture to have someone start on) to $1,000 nicely made instruments. There are usually districts in most major cities that will have a couple dozen shops selling all types of instruments. My recommendation is to purchase from the larger shops that look like they have a decent inventory and take care of their stock.

[Harvey]

What kind of guitar do you teach? Acoustic Folk?

I'm going to be in need of a classical guitar teacher in Dalian...

[gunsella]

Depending on what you're looking for, there is a large selection of guitars and instruments in China. For a couple hundred dollars you can find a pretty decent instrument - however, it does help if you know how to pick out a good guitar to begin with since a lot of the brands and models may not be familiar. That said, you can find guitars across the spectrum from $20 "starters" (that I wouldn't even venture to have someone start on) to $1,000 nicely made instruments. There are usually districts in most major cities that will have a couple dozen shops selling all types of instruments. My recommendation is to purchase from the larger shops that look like they have a decent inventory and take care of their stock.

a few weeks ago in beijing, i saw many guitar shops on nanxinghua jie, just south of hepingmen metro station. the instruments seemed very cheap to me, between 300 - 1000 yuan for an electric guitar.

What kind of guitar do you teach? Acoustic Folk?

I'm going to be in need of a classical guitar teacher in Dalian...

i do acoustic folk, rock, blues, funk, jazz. but not classical besides, i'm most likely going to be in the south of the country.

[anonymoose]

I started learning the guitar in Dalian last year. I paid about 50RMB for a 40 minute lesson (though the lessons tended to be about 50 mins in practice). I got the tutor through a music school. Chinese people thought that was quite expensive, but it was a lot cheaper than I could have got at home in the UK.

Anyway, the tuition was reasonable, though I think it did more for my chinese than my guitar playing skills.

[gunsella]

what style(s) were you learning? what styles do chinese teachers teach?