We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Eric Dieter a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Eric thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career

As an owner of my own small music school, my biggest hurdle is undoing most of the “trauma” our western education system has done to people. Before I elaborate, I should point out that most of our students are adults (though we do have a kid’s program). So I have the benefit … or misfortune… of seeing the long-term implications of our current educational model.

I believe the #1 problem of our education system is the way we test our students: Take a test and choose between RIGHT and WRONG. We discourage creative thinking and send the message that the world is a concrete place with ONE answer to each problem. Furthermore, we feed our students data in a linear fashion: now that you’ve learned TOPIC 1, you need to know TOPIC 2. We’re probably never going to ask you about TOPIC 1 again, but we’re assuming you’re still studying that and familiar with it just in case it pops up on the final.

How I see this problem manifest itself in my guitar classes is that students are deathly afraid to give wrong answers. If I ask a music theory question, many of my students know the answer but are afraid to say it out loud because they’re afraid to be wrong. Students in our music lessons really need to be taught that learning in general, not just on an instrument, should be approached with curiosity! Experiment. Test ideas. Take risks. We’re not dealing with explosive chemicals here, it’s just a guitar- who cares if you make a wonky sound? You’ll gain more information about how sound works, what sounds you like to hear, and how to avoid mistakes in the future.

I also see this “worn answer aversion” my staff, so I KNOW this problem isn’t limited to the classroom. When we hold staff meetings, brainstorming new ways to innovate/problem solve requires the freedom to make mistakes. Any time I ask for ideas on how to improve our product, new staff members are terrified to say something that could be perceived as “stupid” or impractical. But even the outlandish or …dare I say “wrong”… answers lead to a better understanding. My seasoned staff know, but even they feel the need to preface their ideas with “this is probably a bad idea, but what if we…”

So I think the “one answer on a test” discourages creativity and a creates a fear of wrong answers. Which for the performing arts is an absolute killer of confidence. You can’t be afraid to play a wrong note. Get out there and give it your best. And if you aren’t satisfied, find a professional to guide you through some self reflection.

If we were to allow for more lateral thinking, by which I mean finding multiple solutions to a problem, I think we’d likely be in a much more dynamic and confident society.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am in the business of helping people of all ages tap into their inner musician and find their inner rock star. I started teaching guitar in 2003, started getting good at it in about 2013, and built it a community of music students over the past decade. I found that the approach of hanging out in a room with professional for 30 or 60 minutes a week did not typically create successful students. Over the past 25ish years, I’ve met with guitar teachers all over the world, trying to find what really EXCITES students… what LIGHTS THEM ON FIRE.

What I’ve found is that creating a learning community… that learning the language of music through meaningful musical experiences with others is the what ignites MY fire. And that passion and excitement fuse together along with the opportunity for our students of all skill-levels to work together on projects in a fun and safe environment allows them to grow.

We focus on adults with business schedules, so we have flexible and creative scheduling solutions. We also have specialized programs for youths AND seniors… because we all learn a little bit differently.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I think the lesson that I had to learn was understanding that my customer’s wants and needs are different than my own. That may sound obvious as a business owner, but far less obvious as a guitarist teaching other guitar players. Early on in my career, I really only wanted to work with “serious” students. And I’d often spend more time teaching them what I thought they needed rather than what they wanted to learn. I really only wanted to focus on advanced students who wanted to write their own music.

It’s easy to get caught up in your own product- whether it’s a widget or guitar lessons- especially when you believe in the quality of your product. The trouble was that while my product was quite good, it alienated the vast majority of the market. Just because I (and my musician friends) loved writing our own music, that doesn’t mean everyone wants to do that. Once I realized that I was trying to sell an advanced product to a market of mostly novices, I initially tried to repackage what I was teaching. I was still going to get to the things I wanted to teach, but I started by meeting students where they were, then slowly coaching them towards what I wanted to teach. This wasn’t intended to be an unethical bait-and-switch, I just “knew” that once students gained a little confidence, they’d WANT to learn the things that excited me.

I tried this approach for my first few years and have very mediocre results. I was able to attract new students and they did genuinely like my teaching style, but I pushed them too hard too fast. So retention suffered. Referrals were not very high. I was financially unstable and needed to find a better way.

It took a while and a lot of experimentation with both lesson content and lesson formats. I started to really focus on getting people what they really wanted from music… and not just want they said they wanted. For example – somebody SAYS they want to play a few specific songs but what they REALLY want is to be able to entertain their friends around the campfire. So I focused on delivering those kinds of results. I always wanted to connect students to their own goals, but it took nearly failing to realize that I was selling them MY goals, not their own.

Now I have a team of teachers and we are constantly looking at ways to deliver our customers the results they want, and in a way that’s fun. And I’m enjoying my career far more now that I’m giving my customers what excites them, rather than trying to convince them to be excited by what I like.

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

We encourage our clients to come to us as often as they can – as in multiple visits per week. I wanted my music school to be a place people could stop by after work/after dinner and hang out and jam with friends. So first, we increased the number of face-to-face interactions with my teaching team. By holding regular social events, we encourage them to build connections to other students. Additionally, our staff will reach out by phone/text/email to check in on progress towards goals. Finally, our customers are asked to fill out weekly online progress reports where they can comment on their perception of their progress. Our team combs through each answer and will respond directly (via audio or video) to the comments.

The intent is to encourage our students to have meaningful musical experiences with others, while giving them more access to a teacher than any competitor would.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.quarterbendguitar.com
• Instagram: quarterbendgtr
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/QuarterBend/
• Youtube: @quarterbendguitarstudio5658