A website with free "lessons" for players

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by EllaMom

In total agreement, Tony. I've done my fair share of flailing around the last few years, trying to learn to play music, not just songs, on guitar.

It occurs to me that some teachers are better at delivering one course, while others might be better at others. In grade school I had one teacher who taught everything, math, reading, writing, etc. Starting in middle school, and right through graduate school, I had different teachers for different disciplines. Perhaps if a teacher knows s/he is not skilled, or interested, in teaching music theory, s/he should at least know enough to see that the student still needs this course, and so recommends another teacher or resource to get that information.

Also, I'm guessing that a fair number of teachers have students who don't stick with it long enough, and/or aren't motivated enough, to be able to absorb or appreciate what's being taught. How frustrating that must be! I'm guessing it is quite common with beginners and early intermediates.

It's a puzzle, for sure. But for me at least, one worth figuring out!

If the teachers of different aspects of the guitar could get together and cooperate to provide the student with a decent progression of lesson, one leading into the next, the student would benefit immeasurably. The piecemeal approach ultimately leaves frustrating holes in the student's knowledge, and it then becomes difficult to accurately and completely identify those holes and fill them properly, with the difficulty increasing as the student gets farther and farther along in his or her journey.

It may well be that this problem is well past repairing in our culture. Maybe folks will read my earlier post and think "what is the big deal", everybody seems to learn to play one way or another". It is later when a person is attempting to arrange tunes and get them to REALLY sound good (not just slapping chords under the melody) or to really play authentically in some genre, or work with other musicians who have been formally trained, that they find out that they are missing something fundamental. Maybe the person has been playing for years, and now finds it difficult to go back and find what is missing. Wouldn't it be better all around to have gotten it right the first time?

Tony

[Burzum1349]

I definitely see where some of you are going with the comments on this. I agree that there is no way that a person can supplement a good in person lesson taught by a good teacher. Some teachers have methods and refuse to realize that there are other methods. If something like this was to happen. It would have to be one heck of a coop to get it done effectively. There would have to be a discussion between those teaching about methods. A lot of these methods can work together. This information could be made available on the site as well as forums for specific categories to delve into each of the subjects. Then the teachers would have to be just about interviewed in order to ensure that the information they were giving out was acceptable. But then I feel that that would destroy the point of what I'm saying once that point was hit. Learning is a process, guitar is a process that takes a long time in order to become very proficient at. Yes people can be misled down a corridor where its not where they want to be, but whos to say that couldn't happen with a teacher. I strongly believe that as a student of whatever it maybe and a will to research ,that student can at least develop information, to push them in that direction. I think a database of information created by and edited by the active members after discussion would be a big plus to this idea. I hope someone out there can see what I'm trying to accomplish with the freedom of realtime open discussion, even if the person is wrong. Thanks for the comments so far. I would like to see this keep going.

[Burzum1349]

I was thinking that maybe another option or two on the poll would be a good idea. I started this and was going to put 4 options and decided against it. I think in hindsight and regret that decision. I think this idea would be more supported if an additional option, was that this idea needs more work and once a better layout was agreed on. Which proves my point here. Just the comments on this so far, allows the ability to improve where its shortcomings are. I think as musicians none of us would probably say we WOULD NOT benefit from a teacher. You see that's where I for instance have the problem. I do not have access to a quality teacher where I am at currently. So when I pay for lessons it is occasional, but I do and those lessons have pushed me into the next direction, and between forums, and actual lessons, and my own guidance I have gotten where I am now, it took awhile and a high quality instructor would have made that progress much quicker. But I'm ok with that. I am ok with learning from my mistakes, as I'm sure we all are, there is a great freedom in the way that I personally learn. I have gotten 99 percent of the information I have learned for free. The purpose of this idea is to give that back to those people that are trying to learn for free. I mean if you go to youtube you can see people do want free lessons, I think a live website, because they will find someone that is in the know for themselves and it allows them to ask questions realtime, to ensure that. Let me know what you guys think.

[Toby Walker]

I still will say that by offering free lessons, you're picking the pockets of the dedicated musicians who depend on teaching as part, or as the whole source of their income. Where is your philanthropy in doing that??

[amyFB]

Originally Posted by Burzum1349

I....Let me know what you guys think.

Hey Burzum,

Your enthusiasm for the idea is clear to us, no question at all.

You've been asking for, and have been receiving, all kinds of input pro/con.

With this latest round of new ideas, and another request for input, I suspect you are refining your proposal in hopes of getting a consensus from everyone.

My suggestion for the best next action step is to go back and carefully review what has been offered to you so far. Focus on the 'why nots' first. There may be valid information that helps you decide where your energies need to be spent.

As a general request, I will ask for some paragraph breaks in your writing to make it easier to follow and digest your thoughts. It's very hard to read long blocks of text without a breath.

good luck

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by Toby Walker

I still will say that by offering free lessons, you're picking the pockets of the dedicated musicians who depend on teaching as part, or as the whole source of their income. Where is your philanthropy in doing that??

As far as I am concerned, I don't think the ideas I posted would be feasible with a "free" site. I also believe, and learned this from personal experience, that people value what they pay for. I could give real life examples of my own and from other folks I know personally, but I think that with a bit of reflection, we all would come to realize this.

However, somebody mentioned in this thread putting together a database. I think that is a great idea and could be done at no charge. The database could serve to put in some kind of organized order, pointers to those learning materials that work well together to help a student attain a desired goal. Those learning materials would be commercial, but the database itself could be free.

There would have to be some serious editing to insure that the data in the database is (and remains) accurate, that the courses and materials referenced are of GOOD quality (meaning most likely, commercial by qualified professional teachers), and that the suggested lines of learning actually make sense.

Tony

[fazool]

I don't see how this business model would be sustainable.

If you are asking for "support" does that mean donations to fund it?

I don't get it.


Some people absolutely will prefer live communication in lessons.

I prefer pre-recorded lessons and tutorials because i can endlessly rewind parts I want to repeat.

[Grinning Boy]

Originally Posted by Toby Walker

I still will say that by offering free lessons, you're picking the pockets of the dedicated musicians who depend on teaching as part, or as the whole source of their income. Where is your philanthropy in doing that??

I think Toby is right about this.

[BFD]

I read most of this thread...and scanned the rest pretty hard, but didn't find anything by any proponent of a huge, all-encompassing, all-knowing, all-answering, well-structured, totally free, 24/7 live guitar resource that said:
1) here's what I would like to see, AND 2) here is what I WILL DO to make such a thing happen. Did I miss that?

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by BFD

I read most of this thread...and scanned the rest pretty hard, but didn't find anything by any proponent of a huge, all-encompassing, all-knowing, all-answering, well-structured, totally free, 24/7 live guitar resource that said:
1) here's what I would like to see, AND 2) here is what I WILL DO to make such a thing happen. Did I miss that?

I could come up with such a list and description, but I am not interested in making such a site. So there is not much point in my talking about what I personally would do if I am not going to do it anyway.

Back in 1995, I wrote a paper that is about 70 pages long, detailing the CAGED system AND how to use it. I provided a step by step description of diatonic theory, how the CAGED system applies, and how to make use of all that. The paper is all over the internet, and has been since then. Over the years, I have gotten many emails thanking me for writing it and even some questions from a few study groups that formed to study it. If you go to the "Lick By Neck" site, you will see my paper featured there. The site owner told me it really helped him learn what he needed for that site and all the arrangements he did on the site. The y asked, and I gave them permission to reformat the paper as a PDF. I originally wrote it as an ASCII text file because there wasn't another standard yet that I could trust would have a long life into the future as I know ASCII would. Now, we do, of course.

At the end of the paper, I provide a full bibliography of all the materials I had studied in the process of researching and writing the paper. Back then, I didn't talk about it, I just did it. There was a guy who wanted to make a web site with free resources for guitar on it, so I donated my paper. I had originally written for myself to get everything I was learning situated in my head. I massaged the paper for public consumption, and sent it to him. From there, it proliferated around the net. It was even discussed on the Truefire forum for a while.

That was a long time ago, when there weren't many teaching materials of that kind around. I don't know that I would do something like that today because it seems so many folks are now trying to make a living off of stuff like that.

Here are a few links to it:

http://www.lickbyneck.com/Lesson-CHO...olinSobers.htm

http://www.djangobooks.com/forum/dis...-method-wanted

http://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/chord...rd-melody.html

http://www.tdpri.com/threads/progres...teacher.20508/

http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Arch.../msg03965.html

http://www.akordi-za-gitaru.net/file...ody-Guitar.pdf

Etc., etc., etc.

So, been there, done that. If nothing else in the paper is of value, the bibliography should be for those who care to really dig in to this stuff. There is talk, and more talk (forums are great for that), but sooner or later somebody has to start doing something if anything is to actually happen. The information is already out there everywhere, so why not just dig into that (whether my paper or any of the offerings by myriads of other folks, commercial or otherwise)? it really comes down to level of desire and willingness of the individual to follow through. If I could find all that information in 1995, imagine what there is available today! We have the likes of Toby Walker, Doug Young, and others who have written books, created videos and courses, and years of posts that can be searched to find darn near anything a person could want to know. I honestly believe that, at some point in the life of these forums, we started repeating ourselves because there really was not much more new to be said.

There comes a time when we have to ask if the continued search for information becomes a means of putting off really sitting down with the guitar and getting to work.

Tony

[Burzum1349]

So after seeing all these opinions I have come to this conclusion. My goal in this really is exclusively for guitarists to just maybe help other guitarists clear things up they may be confused about. I see all the points here and I think that some of the point of this was taken far off course from where I wanted it to go. The goal of this was not to supplement and lessons, or a teacher which is to be preferred I would think. To create something like that would require a lot of time and effort. Which would be fine, but again ruins the whole point. I think the some people when struggling with internalizing a specific concept sometimes benefit from having it stated a different way or seeing it from someone elses eyes. It was like with the CAGED system for me I knew exactly how it worked but couldn't figure out what I was actually supposed to do with it. I went through hours and hours of video and playing. I found a channel on youtube called thesecretguitarteacher. He explained it in such a concise manner in seven minutes and I immediately understood what all the other people were trying to say but just weren't articulating in a way that I could understand. I would want this to be something free and spontaneous. So I thought about another way to go about this. This forum is pretty well developed. The people that are here have developed a good strong community, so instead of creating a website and trying to do all these complex things just so someone can answer a few simple questions without paying 30 dollars, or wasting hours upon hours needlessly on something that could potentially be solved rather quickly, we could start something here. How about a list that is kind of set aside with a list of people that wouldn't mind being contacted like that? A free website could be used such as skype. They could list their personal information for that, to the person needing info upon request. Even to put aside lessons and confusion and such. I live in Oklahoma in the boonies, I'm not going to find someone that I can talk guitar with in realtime anytime soon. We could just simply talk to eachother if some others wouldn't mind that. Just essentially use a thread as a pointer to say hey if anyone out there would like to talk about music or whatever have you a little bit more In realtime contact me.

What do you guys think about this?

[Wyllys]

I think...

If you're capable of learning without the direct oversight and mentoring of a good teacher you should be able to go to YouTube and find more than you'll ever need. But remember you're learning two things:

1. The music.

2. The instrument.

It's good to have someone to help you sort that out and minimize any confusion/wasted effort.

[Burzum1349]

I think my wording with the use of lesson was a bad choice more like realtime discussion. To talk about concepts, ideas, anything, it can be confusion and things like that, and instruction if the person so chooses, but my intention was something more free and open. This why I keep saying I support lessons, but this isn't something to stop them this is something to allow people that want to have a conversation of music and whatever that maybe to them not through a forum. Yes its nice and its definitely better than nothing, but nothing beats a one on one conversation. I hope I have cleared up my intentions here. Yes we can learn it from teachers, yes we can find a ton of info on youtube, or on here, we can find it all over. This is simply and clear cut a way for people that have an interest to actually have a real conversation about the things they want.

[amyFB]

Originally Posted by Burzum1349

So after seeing all these opinions I have come to this conclusion. My goal in this really is exclusively for guitarists to just maybe help other guitarists clear things up they may be confused about. I see all the points here and I think that some of the point of this was taken far off course from where I wanted it to go. The goal of this was not to supplement and lessons, or a teacher which is to be preferred I would think. To create something like that would require a lot of time and effort. Which would be fine, but again ruins the whole point. I think the some people when struggling with internalizing a specific concept sometimes benefit from having it stated a different way or seeing it from someone elses eyes. It was like with the CAGED system for me I knew exactly how it worked but couldn't figure out what I was actually supposed to do with it. I went through hours and hours of video and playing. I found a channel on youtube called thesecretguitarteacher. He explained it in such a concise manner in seven minutes and I immediately understood what all the other people were trying to say but just weren't articulating in a way that I could understand. I would want this to be something free and spontaneous. So I thought about another way to go about this. This forum is pretty well developed. The people that are here have developed a good strong community, so instead of creating a website and trying to do all these complex things just so someone can answer a few simple questions without paying 30 dollars, or wasting hours upon hours needlessly on something that could potentially be solved rather quickly, we could start something here. How about a list that is kind of set aside with a list of people that wouldn't mind being contacted like that? A free website could be used such as skype. They could list their personal information for that, to the person needing info upon request. Even to put aside lessons and confusion and such. I live in Oklahoma in the boonies, I'm not going to find someone that I can talk guitar with in realtime anytime soon. We could just simply talk to eachother if some others wouldn't mind that. Just essentially use a thread as a pointer to say hey if anyone out there would like to talk about music or whatever have you a little bit more In realtime contact me.

What do you guys think about this?

If you want to offer to help folks , by all means offer to do so.
If you want to publish your skype handle and invite folks to contact you for help, that's a generous thing to do! Have fun with it!

The PLAY forum here is a really great section for getting and giving constructive information.
Youtube is swimming with instructional videos.
The internet abounds with offerings on how to play guitar or learn music theory. YOu know that already beacuse that's how you got to understand the CAGED System.

At the very least, you can simply start a thread here at AGF with your specific question and you'll get feedback from the group. I think many of the members here do that already.

[Burzum1349]

This isn't necessarily about that though. This is about people that want to have REAL conversations. I love the feedback I get on this forum and on youtube and such. But I want to TALK to someone not type to them. I feel that there may be and probably are others that are the same way. I am fine with doing that for myself, but that doesn't get me in contact with other people that feel the same way, that's what I'm trying to accomplish. Why not have a specific area that says hey you want to really talk these people do to, these are their interests and etc.... I'm not looking necessarily for feedback on anything. Yes you can find people that would like to do this. Within 24 hours of my account on here I was in contact and literally talking to another member about a ton of different things concerning music. We were talking about scales and this person used the solfege system for counting intervals and I had never considered that. I wasn't looking for feedback or anything. Yes I could have gotten that information through typing back and forth with them. But I got so much more out of a conversation. We talked for one hour, do you know how long that would have taken to accomplish via a forum. I'm not knocking the forum or anything I mean its serving my purpose right now in other ways than just this thread. I'm failing to see the harm in this and it seems like some people are totally against it. It can be about theory but it doesn't have to be, it can be about bb kings style or anything. Just a way for players to literally talk to players, find out who they have things in common with, and develop a deeper friendship. A deeper sense of things that what the specific thread is directed at, and faster than private messages, or instant messaging.