Lance Kotter LLC

The first step I take with students, is:

Establishing their vision or "WHY" behind what their mission is behind learning a certain instrument.

Then based off of their WHY, we will create together step by step goals, in other words their tactics, to accomplishing thier vision!

Then will have just 30 minute lessons because anything longer than that tends to overwhelm the mind.

I am 24 years old and I've played the guitar and electric guitar since I was 5, and have been teaching it since I was 16. My private-lesson mentors were: Arron Stokes and Todd Que.

I've played the cello since I was 8, and teaching it since I was 16. My private-lesson mentors were: Grover Wilhelmson and Johnathan Findlay.

I've played the harp since I was 16, and have been teaching it since 22. My private-lesson mentors were: Arron Stokes and Grace Nielsen.

I'm a self taught drummer and have been playing since I was 15. I play many styles, such as: jazz, rock, metal, etc...

I play several other instruments, like vocals, the bass, pennie whistle and some piano. These instruments I understand and have been more self-taught in comparison to the others, but I play them nontheless.

Yes, usually the first lesson is free, so we can set a strategy and set goals to accomplish the tactics. This first lesson usually lasts, at most, just a half hour. After this, the lessons cost $25 a lesson for a half hour of time.

I started teaching because word of mouth honestly, kids and people in my local community knew me or knew someone that knew me and then wold get in touch with me. And from there I realized that I find joy in empowering others to learn and play music.

The instruments that I play require a lot of time and practice, after a while of playing them, I realized that others want to play them but quit them because they either get discouraged or bored because of school orchestras or comparing themselves to people who they think play "better" than them. 

I want to show students and potential students that learning music can be fun, empowering and exciting! They can look forward to it. They can play and learn the music and songs they want to, rather than be forced to play music and pieces they find boring or discouraging. 

I really like teaching students how to write and compose their own music and express the music that is inside of them! This, from experience, has been the most empowering experience because people don't get any more excited by playing music than when they can tap into the music that's inside of them and share it with the world.

I've worked with:

Children

Teenagers

College students

And adults

Just recently, more recent than a week ago, I've been helping a fellow student peer of mine learn the guitar. We're still working on it. He plays the piano and wants to learn the guitar. I've been able to help him understand the guitar by: relating it to the piano, taking it step by step with him, touching technique, theory and understanding how tthe guitar works. 

In my opinion, I would reccomend that you look for a teacher that has experience, prefferably years of experience. A degree doesn't translate better than having actual hands-on experience does, from experience I've learned this from my own private-lesson professional mentors. If they have a degree, great, but if they don't have years of hands-on experience, I would look elsewhere. 

Students, in my opinion, should consider their "WHY," or in other words their "Vision," behind learning an instrument first. Then they can ask questions, like: Do they want to perform? Just learn? Join a band? Are they in school? Are they trying to get into a certain program? Etc... 

After understanding their purpose and vision, they will want to consider but not overwhelm themseves with how they learn best, where are they currently with playing and understanding music and their instrument?