[davidbeinct]

I've been learning from "the University of YouTube," for the most part. Lots of good links here, I've used JustinGuitar, Marty Music, Paul Davids, pretty much the usual suspects I suppose. I've split my time between strumming, strum-picking (not quite flat picking but a bit more than strumming), and fingerpicking. I've started using Mark Hanson's book.

I've started with a local instructor, and although it's only been a short while, it feels like he's just giving me stuff I can replicate with what I've been doing. How long should one stick with a teacher before realizing that the match isn't a good one?

I feel like the areas I'm concentrating on are good and reinforce each other. The fingerpicking is good for precision, the strumming for faster chord changes, and the strum picking for a little of both. My teacher seems to agree, but mostly what he's doing is giving me a new song to strum, which I can kind of pick out on my own. I'm not sure the reasons he's picking for giving me the songs he's picking.

I guess my frustration is he doesn't seem to have a coherent strategy to actually help me learn guitar. What are some questions I can ask him to try to tease out the method to his madness?