Across the second semester, I spent my time teaching guitar to my student Zayn Yousaf. During the lessons I made a concious effort to focus on what Zayn’s learning style was as well as what the most effective way for me to teach each topic would be. After observing the way Zayn processed information I came to the informal conclusion that he is a kinesthetic learner and made the most progress by me playing the concept i was teaching in front of him and then having him repeat it back to me on his own guitar. 

As we progressed through the weeks we also shifted from a Teacher-Directed lesson format to a more Student-Directed one, this allowed for Zayn to send me things he wanted to learn in advance e.g. chord extensions or songs he wanted to learn, which in turn allowed me to prepare in advance for our lessons more effectively.

I also made use of formative assessments in most of our lessons, as this gave me a chance to test if Zayn was properly absorbing the material in the way that was required to progress and to adjust my teaching methods in real time if they were not working.

In our final lesson together I gave zayn a more formal summative assessment on all of the topics we had covered so far as a way of rounding off our learning together, which showed me what his strengths were as well as what topics perhaps needed revisiting in future lessons should he decide to continue with them.

Week 1

In our first lesson, before beginning with anything music related  I prepared some questions to ask Zayn in order to better understand his aims with the guitar. Each question I asked was specifically aimed for me to be able to understand what Zayn’s purpose for learning the guitar was, as this would allow me to change what we cover in future lessons to be more suited to his musical aspirations. 

In the main body of the lesson I began showing Zayn some simple open chord triad voicings. This choice was made via my own personal experience as well as an article written by the Liverpool Academy of Music, which also recommended open chords as one of the most important things for a beginner to learn. The reason I chose to teach open chords specifically in the first lesson as it provides Zayn with a solid foundation to build more advanced concepts off of, such as adding in chord extensions as well as understanding the CAGED system. 

At the end of the first lesson I gave Zayn a chart of all the chord diagrams for the open chords on the guitar in both their major and minor forms and asked him to start looking over them in preparation for next weeks lesson

Week 2

At the beginning of our second lesson, during my initial chat with Zayn, he told me that he had not had much of a chance to practice since I last saw him which ended up forcing me to change what I had initially planned on covering during the lesson. 

As Zayn said he had not had much of a chance to practice since I last saw him, I spent the first five minutes of the lesson revisiting what we covered last week as I wanted to ensure that Zayn wasn’t making any mistakes that could damage his fundamental development as a guitarist.

The main thing I wanted to focus on with Zayn today was for him to learn what a power chord is and how they are constructed on the guitar. Power chords are typically taught to beginner guitarists as they require very little physical strain to be played and also provide a more natural transition to playing barre chords I confirmed after reading through other peoples learning experiences in the ‘Guitar and Music Theory’ Facebook group. Furthermore,  reflecting back on my own journey learning guitar, the power chord was one of the first major things I learnt in my own lessons.

To help cement the muscle memory of the shape of a power chord into Zayn’s mind I decided to teach him the main riff to the song ‘Iron Man’ by Black Sabbath. This riff is played using entirely power chords and is often cited on lists of the most beginner friendly guitar riffs to learn.

The last thing I showed Zayn in our second lesson was position one of the minor pentatonic scale. This scale is the most widely used scale by guitarists of every genre and is an essential thing to learn as part of becoming a confident guitarist. I was not initially planning on showing this to Zayn just yet, however due to the fact that he was not massively struggling with both open chords and power chords I thought it would be beneficial to introduce a scale shape to Zayn’s learning to, at the very least, break up the monotony of practicing the same chord shapes for a week until I next saw him.

Week 3

I began our third lesson as I had the previous 2 by having a recap of everything we had covered in the previous lesson to check if Zayn was feeling confident in his ability to recite the material correctly. 

He played his open chord shapes correctly and started to begin articulating them with confidence which in turn allowed for the timbre of the chord to sound less “amateurish”, which showed me he had been practicing them.

I suspect he had not invested as much time into the Iron Man riff or the minor pentatonic scale as they did not sound as well prepared when I asked him to play them for me.

In the main body of the lesson I decided to try having our lesson being more student led so that I could specifically teach Zayn things that he wanted to learn. Student-led learning is also proven to “foster an environment where students take an active role in their learning, leading to more meaningful and deeper learning experiences and exponential personal development”. With this in mind, Zayn asked if I could start to show him 7th and 9th chord voicings as both extensions are common in the style of music he listens to and composes.

This video depicts me showing Zayn how to play a C minor 7 chord with an A string root. While I was showing him the extended voicing, I also made sure that he knew how to play a regular minor barre chord composed of just the root, third and fifth. This lesson also functioned as Zayn’s introduction to the CAGED system which I had mentioned to him briefly in our earlier lessons.

During this part of the lesson, I was showing Zayn the relationship between the open chords we looked at in lessons 1 and 2 and the new barred shapes we were looking at now, which is also how I taught the remaining 7th and 9th voicings. I found that this method of relating a new concept to something he was already familiar with allowed the information to stick better. This is something I kept in mind for future lessons when I was showing Zayn new chord voicings as this had even worked previously when we looked at learning power chords; although Zayn couldn’t remember the exact riff to Iron Man, he was able to recall the power chord shapes as he had something to relate the shape to.

To end off the lesson, I asked Zayn to practice swapping between chords to a metronome, holding the chord for as long as possible before swapping to the next. This is an exercise my own guitar teacher gave to me to help maximise the sustain of each chord before switching. Provided Zayn practices this effectively, he should exponentially increase the efficiency in which he can transition between chords.

Week 4

In the time between our third and fourth lessons, Zayn demonstrated a sense of student autonomy by sending me the song ‘Risk It All’ by Bruno Mars and asked if we could take a look at it in our next lesson. This song would be a significant step in difficulty from what we had looked at previously, however after seeing Zayn’s progress so far I had full belief that he would be able to play it with some practice. The main chord progression that Zayn wanted to learn could be split into two halves so we agreed to work on the first half this week and to cover the second half next week as it would end up being more difficult.

This was the first time we had done a lesson that involved any kind of fingerstyle, as up to now we had been using a pick to play everything. I made the choice to start Zayn playing with a pick from the first lesson as it is a more difficult skill to master the fundamentals of. My main focus when teaching Zayn fingerstyle was to ensure that he was using one finger per string as well as using his thumb for the bass notes. Apart from initially having to correct his hand placement to have his thumb be more parallel with the strings, he generally had very little issue with transitioning from a pick to fingers.

While I was writing out the song for Zayn I realised that it was going to end up being a great tool to help Zayn practice the extended chord shapes that we covered in last week’s lesson as well as a few new ones that will help develop his harmonic vocabulary.

Week 5

In our 5th lesson, we continued to work on ‘Risk It All’. We finished looking at the main chord progression that Zayn brought to me in our last lesson. Zayn made great progress with the first half of the progression in his independent study and was starting to become fairly confident about playing barre chords as well as transitioning between chords. 

The second half of the progression proved to be tricky for Zayn at first as the walkdown presented Zayn with several shapes he had not encountered before. All I could do to help him was to show him the correct way to play each chord position and give him positive reinforcement to ensure he was not discouraged.

In the last part of this week’s lesson, I decided to get Zayn started on some basic improvising as up to now we had been very focused on chords and had neglected almost any kind of lead playing apart from briefly covering the first position of the minor pentatonic scale in the second lesson. I felt it was important to cover this as playing solos is a large part of being a guitar player and the guitar is a very common instrument for a solo to be played on.

As it was Zayn’s first time improvising on the guitar I began with playing a two chord minor blues vamp and asked him to intentionally play slowly and to try and find notes in the scale that sounded pleasant or “safe” over each chord. The purpose of this was to firstly, develop Zayn’s ear by finding chord tones to end phrases on and secondly, to have him subconsciously develop the muscle memory of where those chord tones were. As he became more confident with the notes he was playing I added in a third and fourth chord to see if he would be able to cope with the comping changing on the fly and I was definitely impressed with how well he coped.

Week 6

In the last lesson I had with Zayn I decided to give him an assessment of everything that we had learnt so far. The format of the assessment was a summative assessment as I wanted to see how well Zayn would do without any help from me.  In hindsight I should have decided that I wanted to do this assessment further in advance so that he could have prepared more effectively for it however he dealt with the pressure and spontaneity extremely well.

I decided to give the assessment in a similar way that I have done my own technical exams while studying at Leeds Conservatoire whilst adjusting it slightly to make it an appropriate environment for the stage of learning Zayn is at. For example, I performed my own tech-test to a metronome, however, as me and Zayn were yet to do any rhythm practice to a metronome I decided to abstain from using one. Overall I think Zayn’s performance in this mock test was more than satisfactory and I believe with more preparation time, independent study and a few more lessons he would be able to attempt some of the graded guitar exams if that was something he wished to achieve.

Conclusion

In conclusion I am pleased with the progress Zayn has made since we started our lessons and I believe that he put in an exceptional amount of effort into his independent study, despite having a busy schedule which has come across in his articulation and confidence of playing. I look forward to seeing how he continues to develop his skills on the guitar, whether he decides to continue his lessons with me or not.

Bibliography

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Facebook.com. (2026). Are power chords easier to learn than open chords?. [online] Available at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/118464738839430/posts/1062782804407614/ [Accessed 5 May 2026].

Justinguitar – Free Guitar lessons with Justin Sandercoe. (2020). Awesome Power Chord Songs. [online] Available at: https://www.justinguitar.com/guitar-lessons/awesome-power-chord-songs-bg-1207 [Accessed 5 May 2026].

Adamson, J. (2024). The benefits of embracing student-centred learning. [online] OxfordAQA International Qualifications. Available at: https://www.oxfordaqa.com/news/the-benefits-of-embracing-student-centred-learning/ [Accessed 5 May 2026].

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‌Justinguitar – Free Guitar lessons with Justin Sandercoe. (n.d.). Introduction to Fingerstyle Guitar. [online] Available at: https://www.justinguitar.com/guitar-lessons/introduction-to-fingerstyle-guitar-bg-1105 [Accessed 5 May 2026].

Gordon, R. (2025). Positive Reinforcement in the Classroom. [online] The Hub | High Speed Training. Available at: https://www.highspeedtraining.co.uk/hub/positive-reinforcement-in-the-classroom/ [Accessed 5 May 2026].

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