Throughout my work as a guitar teacher, researcher, and practitioner, I have encountered multiple approaches to teaching. These typically fall under two contrasting and overarching perspectives: repertoire-led learning versus learning centred on skills development, and specialised teaching versus multi-genre teaching. 

My guitar pedagogy flows from two interrelated principles: repertoire-driven and multi-genre teaching. In essence, the first holds that learning the guitar is context-specific and context-dependent, while the second positions versatility as the desired objective of guitar study. 

The first tenet has led my teaching towards a repertoire-driven approach rather than a skills-focused model of instruction. As a corollary, music skills are understood and acquired contextually, depending on the specific music genres being studied, while technique is not practised in isolation but assimilated through the repertoire, where it is embedded idiomatically. This ensures that technical development remains relevant to its application.  

With regards to versatility, it is generally understood as the ability to perform across multiple musical genres. However, versatility within a single guitar type differs radically from versatility across different guitar variants. This is due to some aspects remaining stable over guitar families, while other transfer only partially between them. 

For instance, while the pitch system is shared among all guitar designs, sound production, articulations, motor technique, ergonomics and posture differ remarkably between guitar classes. A notable example of such a gap is the contrast between the right-hand finger independence and pick attack, which characterises classical and electric guitar playing, respectively. Therefore, intra-instrument versatility (e.g. blues, rock, and country on electric guitar) and inter-instrument versatility (e.g. classical, flamenco and jazz guitar) represent distinct forms of eclecticism.  

A further distinction concerns functional musical roles, closely dictated by the instrument’s polyphonic affordances. Electric guitarists commonly function as part of the rhythm section, assuming a primary textural role. In contrast, classical guitarists exploit the guitar’s self-sufficient polyphony, functioning as solo performers. 

From this view, versatility involves stylistic flexibility as well as the ability to master different technical demands and musical roles.  Because of this, guitar pedagogy escapes the idea of a universal set of practices and generalised methods. Instead, it leans towards context-dependent learning, conditioned by repertoire, instrument, and musical function. 

If versatility functions as a vehicle for pursuing a comprehensive approach to the guitar and for expanding professional opportunities, in teaching it serves to sustain pedagogical tact and a genuinely student-centred orientation. 

Students respond to musical genres and guitar approaches in diverse ways – through bodily engagement, emotions, and cultural background. In a context shaped by demographic change and unprecedented digital access to music, learners often encounter a wide range of musical cultures and I expose them to different guitar approaches. In this way, I seek to recognise the approaches and genres to which each student attunes, supporting them in that direction rather than shaping their development according to arbitrary stylistic hierarchies. 

From this standpoint, specific teaching methods and emphases – such as embodied or notation-based, improvisatory or score-oriented – are not prescriptive starting points but outcomes of this broader pedagogical orientation. They emerge from attentiveness to the learner and the musical context, rather than preceding them.