At Quarter Bend Guitar Studio, it is our commitment to each student that we do not simply put a guitar in your hands once a week. As your guitar coach and mentor, Eric Deiter will help you become the guitarist you’ve always wanted to be! Your teacher will spend as much time showing you how to master the guitar as you are willing to invest.

Instead of being taught how to correct mistakes, you will be coached on how to prevent them from happening at all. Unlike other teachers who say they individualize their lesson plans, our owner and curriculum writer has a formal education in both music and psychology. We use research-based practice methods alongside proven behavior modification and motivational strategies to keep you focused on the big picture!

Most students mistakenly make decisions based on price, convenience, and the playing ability of the teacher. All of these have obvious drawbacks.

• Price- Keep in mind that teachers tend to charge what they are worth because we typically get what we pay for. Discounted lessons lead to bargain-basement results.
• Convenience- Similarly, while your neighbor or your dad’s best friend may be a convenient teacher, what are the odds they have experience working with students with your specific obstacles? Saving 20 minutes per week in your commute may end up costing you years in missed growth simply because your teacher lacked experience.
• Playing ability- This one is less obvious to most students. Of course, your guitar teacher should be able to play guitar. Rarely are great players and also great instructors because both take practice and work. Think about what YOU need. If you had to choose one, would you rather have a teacher that put in 10,000 hours of guitar practice or 10,000 of guitar instruction? Beginners rarely can take advantage of expert-level knowledge. You could pay your favorite guitar player thousands of dollars for advice. But if they are just a competent teacher, they are going to give you beginner-level advice. This so rarely happens. The expert player greatly overestimates what a beginner can do and almost always will overwhelm students with college-level explanations where elementary-school activities are more appropriate. Then the student, through no fault of their own, will take responsibility for the failure and often give up on playing guitar.

The best way to choose a guitar teacher is to think about the big picture of what you want to do with your guitar. Even if you have just a vague idea. Then, find a teacher who has a track record of getting students who are like you to the place you want to go. Find someone who understands you, can motivate you, and knows what skills you need will in the long run. This will save you time and money in the missed opportunities that come with choosing a lower-quality teacher.

Videos can’t assess what you’re doing wrong or answer your questions. They can’t rephrase their explanations in terms you understand. Keep in mind that you get what you pay for, and if something is free there is usually a reason. YouTube instructors don’t become successful for providing great instruction. They gain success through being entertaining and/or telling half-truths and hiding the reality (that this “one quick hack” can get you playing in minutes!) behind a paywall.

Apps that “teach” you songs are simply helping you memorize a sequence of notes. Memorizing the order of notes doesn’t make you a great guitar player any more than memorizing the Gettysburg Address makes you a great leader! Learning how and why the sounds are put together and what they mean is the reason most people wind up coming to us. They know a few songs and can put the notes in the right order but it still sounds stiff and lifeless and the process is unfortunately a grueling exercise in memorization.

Subscriptions to video libraries often winds up overwhelming most students. There are a lot of apps out there by big names that claim to have thousands of lessons in their database. But getting conflicting answers from 100s of teachers on random topics that you have to search for is a recipe for disaster.

The bottom line is that in the information age, we are very quick to look for knowledge. Guitar students often mistake knowledge acquisition for skill acquisition. They think because they “learned” it on an intellectual level that they should be able to do it. Recognizing a G chord is not the same thing as being able to play it correctly. And being able to play it correctly in your bedroom to “Sweet Home Alabama” is not the same thing as being able to play it at any speed and from any chord.

It is easier to sit and look up another video than it is to just sit down and practice. Especially if you don’t know how to practice effectively. Our lessons are designed to coach you through the practice process and to make repetition less mindless and more fun.

We have a specialized curriculum for kids that is based on developmental milestones that occur between ages 7-8. For this reason, we typically do not teach children under 7 years old.

Our oldest active student is 90 and more than half of our students are over 40 years old.

We have a number of packages that can fit into almost any budget. Because every student’s goals, backgrounds, schedule, etc. are different, we offer a FREE one-on-one consultation to find out what package is the most appropriate to get the result you desire.