Lessons or no??

[tbirdman]

I vote for lessons. However if you get a bad instructor, get them rid of them quickly. One of my first instructors was terrible even though he was a great teacher. He couldn't get down to my level. I now have two guitar instructors, one singing and piano lesson instructor. One of the instructors is a world class player, but to reduce price, we just exchange videos and text messages. That's thru Truefire.

Check out the local college for classes. In my area, if you are a senior, you can 1/2 tuition. I'm auditing a credit piano class which will meet 2X for 2hrs each week for free.

For cheap I would recommend Justin Guitar. I started off my guitar journey 2 years ago with his lessons.

[TimberII]

Originally Posted by janinep7

In person lessons would be wonderful if you can find a good teacher in your area that you connect with who doesn't charge a fortune. That's not so easy with Covid, etc. I looked for a local teacher, too, but quickly gave up.

Then I started scouring the internet trying out different online guitar lessons, all the free ones that are normally recommended. There's a post somewhere with a list of the resources I gathered. Journey of 1,001 YouTube videos.

"Free" online lessons have a varying ratio of actual content to multi-level marketing sales pitch. Usually it's too high for me. Too much fast forwarding required. There is great information available, but you have to sit through an awful lot of blah blah blah to get there. I grew impatient.

I finally decided to do one of the paid courses. I like Sean Daniels, a young guy out of Chicago. His courses are on Udemy. I am doing the basic one right now, and it's been money well spent. I'd rather have to rewind because I want to hear something again than fast forward past all the blah blah blah. The lessons are packed with actual instruction and no sales pitches which I very much appreciate. He's excellent at explaining music theory for beginners and immediately shows you how to apply it to playing a song or a riff. The lessons build on each other in complexity. It's very well thought out.

Which brings me around to my point, and that is, you need some kind of a structure in which to learn and practice, not just guitar but any new skill. It's probably not so important if you get it from a live teacher, an online teacher, an online class, a book, YouTube or wherever. As long as you put some structure around the learning. Otherwise it's easy to just bounce from thing to thing, and usually the bounce point is when you get to something that's difficult. It's natural to bounce to something that feels more comfortable, but then you could get stuck there.

With guitar I gleaned thus far that there are left hand skills, right hand skills, both hand skills. Music theory. Singing. Then putting it all together to make pleasing sounding music. Oh, let's not forget tuning the guitar! And listening skills.

Left hand: Open chords, bar chords and power chords, riffs, licks, runs, walk up/downs. Hammer on/off. Pull off. Bending. And more, no doubt, but this would be a good start.

Right hand: Basic strumming. More interesting or advanced strumming. Damping. Getting percussive effects from the strings. Adding alternating bass plus strumming. Beg/Int/Adv. Flat picking. Beg./Int/Adv. Finger picking. Combining strumming and picking. (Holy crikeys... no wonder this is so hard!)

Singing simple songs while playing simply. Singing more complicated songs while playing. Singing while playing more complicated songs. Figuring out the best key to play in. Sing in. Transposing from key to key on the fly. Knowing the different scales, keys, chords and intervals.

And a million other things I don't know about yet.

At the end of the day, you will become your own best teacher no matter who you else study with. A teacher can show you, but only you can learn it for yourself by practicing.

If you need feedback on your playing, but can't find someone to play with or listen and critique you, record yourself. The recorder app on your phone will become an excellent teacher too.

Good input and thanks- does the recorder app do something the camera / video doesent do? I record myself ossasionally
TimberII

Originally Posted by TimberII

Good input and thanks- does the recorder app do something the camera / video doesent do? I record myself ossasionally
TimberII

Not that I am aware of. I just use it b/c it's easy. I don't think it's necessary at this point to see how I look. I'm pretty sure I look ridiculous.

[Andy B]

Imo you need to know what type of music and style you like to play before going for lessons.
Personally I got so much more from finding Silly Moustache....Andys channel on YouTube and learned so much more than the standard YouTube channel thing of teaching to play a popular song?
Imo all that did was teach a learner how to play like jukebox without actually making one think about the basics of chord changes, bass runs, hammer ons and all of the important stuff that makes all the difference between someone who can strum all six strings and the far tastier nuanced stuff that all of the greats make it look so easy.
The really difficult one for me is muting other strings that again is something that can make a difference.

Looking back some lessons would of taught me that not all six strings need to be strummed at the same time.

[Nymuso]

No.

The lessons/no lessons thing is always a function of one’s goals. From what I can extrapolate from your post I get that you just want to enjoy the instrument but would like a little more clarity on how it all goes together.

With that in mind I’d say absorb what you can from the free on-line instructional videos AND . . . develop an ear. You do that by first making sure your instrument is in tune, then listen to a song you like and try to figure it out from what you’re hearing. It won’t be easy, at least not at first, but nothing worthwhile ever is. The lessons learned from mastering this outweigh any form of musical notation.

Good luck.

[TimberII]

Nymuso…..that was profound my friend!!
Love it and makes sense
TimberII

[Aspiring]

After playing for quite a while and using other resources to help I did some lessons for a while. They really helped me but I also had a great instructor match.

He was able to point to things I didn't realize I could do differently to help with things I was doing or not doing that he could discern from watching me. Online lessons and videos won't give you that. I have found online is great if you have a specific problem area that you are aware of and want to work on. He was also able to help sort through the myriad options of stuff to focus on and provide great recommendations of which area I should focus on next.

I also went in upfront saying I'm a busy adult with kids so I will get to as much practice as I can.

[buddyhu]

Originally Posted by Rootwitch

I've been playing guitar for 24 years, practice 2-3 hours a day, play advanced acoustic fingerstyle at a high level. I'm not saying that to brag. I'm prefacing the fact that I still take the occasional lesson. At this point, it's just to get feedback on playing, but even at a high level, that is invaluable.

I had a classical teacher years ago who worked at a university, and he lamented that he no longer had a teacher. He felt that even the best players suffer when they don't have somebody providing feedback.

There are famous exceptions, but the vast, vast majority of players (and especially beginners) will improve far more quickly, and develop skills that don't hinder their ability to improve even more later on, with the help of a good teacher.

This ^.

It is VERY difficult for an individual to get an optimal balance of challenge and accessibility by choosing YouTube’s or other self-directed learning. You are much more likely to have a (well-experienced) teacher hit this balance when they are collaborating with you about what to learn next…and this means you will progress more quickly if you have a teacher, and you will also experience less frustration as a result.

And, as Riitwitch noted: even great, professional musicians will often choose to have a teacher to help them progress and refine what they do.

The wrong teacher is a drag. An inexperienced teacher won’t offer nearly as much as an experienced teacher. But, in general, taking one on one lessons is one of the best choices you can make as a guitarist, at any stage of development.