Am I missin' something?

[Hamhand]

OK, simple question. I've been taking guitar lessons since the turn of the year. My guitar teacher has never had an acoustic guitar in his hands the whole time. I'm learning acoustic guitar........is this odd?

[bigby]

Not necessarily; especially at the beginning of your lessons. Other than teaching with an electric, how would you rate his overall effectiveness so far?

[Hamhand]

Great guy, very positive. We hit it off immediately. However, as a quasi-test I didn't take my guitar out of the case when I arrived for my last lesson. As is becoming a regular feature of my time, we talked for nearly 20 minutes before we turned to the instrument. I enjoy the conversation, as he has a great knowledge of guitar players past and present. When I get home I realize he has given me almost no direction. So I end up strumming thru the same song I've been learning for three weeks (slow learner,lol) on my own. It may be my fault, as I told him I just want to play songs with family & friends. Every week I ask how do you read this, or what does this mean, or any number of little how-to-do type questions. I don't feel a direction. I'm paying quite a bit every month, which is only a minor discomfort, and he must see lots I need to work on, yet no "Do this or practice that". Hmmmm.

[brahmz118]

Speaking as a teacher, I do think there's a difference between no direction and some direction. I also think that sometimes 'progress' and 'direction' get interchanged -- i.e., the student feels he or she is not making progress, but articulates the problem as a lack of direction from the teacher, when the problem could be that or a number of other factors.

 

I liked your 'quasi-test' idea. It seems you're a student of the guitar, but also 'studying' the teacher-student dynamic. It's what any smart consumer would and should do.

 

I have a suggestion for another test. Devour your assignments. Show your teacher that you're hungry for a clearer direction by mastering everything in a 10-mile radius of what he gives you. If he teaches you a scale, learn it backwards and forwards. If he assigns one song, learn two. If he pulls a knife, you pull a gun! Oops sorry, getting carried away.

 

Anyway, I personally tend to place quite a bit of responsibility on the student. A good teacher can open doors in your mind, but learning the guitar is a great deal of physical, motor work that ultimately has to be done by the student. I think many teachers outside of classical models do hold back on the structure a bit, to keep from overwhelming / boring / alienating beginning students.

[Cripes]

I'm a teacher, or instructor, or whatever word is fashionable for it these days. It's usually with a small number of people in a scheduled formal session and then one-on-one on an ad-hoc basis dependent upon the student and his/her course-relative level of understanding. It's a knowledge-based rather than combination knowledge-based / motor skills regimen of courses.

 

I wait for the eyes to show when the lights come on. If I don't see that then I take a different approach, and so on, until the lamps are lit. Then, and only then, have we both learned something. Some people damn near put words in my mouth while others don't "hear" a word I'm saying. All in all, it's a lot of fun. Probably the best thing about my job is that it's like a one room school house where students also teach themselves. Sort of like this forum.

 

I'm self-taught on guitar and it was all chord and motor skill development. Now, as a father with a son who is a first chair violinist in school, I'm getting the rest of the good stuff from him. Now he has to wait for my headlamps to glow.

[Hamhand]

Thanks for a teachers view. You made my point for me. He did not give me anything to work on, period. I put in lots of time on the guitar practicing, so I am making a little progress. I don't know what I don't know, so I don't know what direction I'm headed. I am working on rhythm/tempo basically. I realize there will always be more to do or learn. I am not blaming him, I'm just frustrated that I don't have any goals, unless I assign them myself. PS thanks for the chuckle.

[Dan Hall]

Anyway, I personally tend to place quite a bit of responsibility on the student.

Hear hear. Someplace around here I have a State of Cal teaching credential that says I'm a teacher, but I'm not sure I ever taught anybody anything. I think they teach themselves. I just presented the atmosphere and the proper materials to facilitate that. Unfortunately higher education often requires us to learn a bunch of stuff we don't want to learn. That's when the good teachers get separated from the really good teachers.

[brahmz118]

 

Thanks for a teachers view. You made my point for me. He did not give me anything to work on, period. I put in lots of time on the guitar practicing, so I am making a little progress. I don't know what I don't know, so I don't know what direction I'm headed. I am working on rhythm/tempo basically. I realize there will always be more to do or learn. I am not blaming him, I'm just frustrated that I don't have any goals, unless I assign them myself. PS thanks for the chuckle.

 

 

Hamhand I see what you're saying, and that does sound frustrating. Perhaps you can address the issue of repertoire directly with your teacher. Tell him you're willing to buy tab, scores, books -- whatever would be appropriate for your current level, but you'd like his help in finding something that's not too basic and not too difficult. Even if he is teaching you to play entirely by ear, I'd think he could still recommend some recordings.

 

By the way, even though I'm a teacher, I do respect those who choose the self-teaching route. There are lots of free resources available these days, and sometimes I think the greatest momentum in learning guitar is generated from repetition, not necessarily mental breakthroughs.

[Cripes]

Learning guitar is a passion-modified interest, hobby, or focus. The nuts and bolts of learning always seem to be in the way of satisfying the passion to just play. Your head is way out in front of the steering gear, so to speak, and the mechanical parts are holding you back. I think it safe to say that describes most of us here.

 

I started with finderstyle because I couldn't hold a pick as well as I could drum my fingers on a table. That's 20-20 hindsight perspective, of course. I picked up some chord books, song books and listened to the music. It took me about a year to play Stephen Still's Helplessly Hoping - playing and singing - fingerstyle. I practiced a lot and still do. Now, someone listening to me might say I play well. I prefer to think of it as well-practiced. That's largely because I've never considered myself accomplished on the guitar. If playing guitar has taught me one thing, it's that I'll never accomplish everything I want to do with the guitar. So, I keep practicing. I don't need a teacher to tell me that or take me from one lesson to the next.

 

Mixing up styles and genres, and the mental discipline to accept them, will expose you to lessons that lie outside the formal lesson-plan teachers tend to stick with. Theory can be learned anytime. Don't be afraid you'll become lost or mis-directed if you take learning into your own hands.

 

Develop your ear. I can't stress that enough. I can hear a song now and go home and play it chosing a key best suited to my voice or style. That comes from a training regimen that has developed my ear into a sort of subliminal tonal filing cabinet. That, and knowing the fretboard eclipse the need for any tablature at this point in my practicing. Now I play strictly my own stuff because learning someone else's music has become a mute point to me. I know I can but now I'd rather spend the rest of my 98.6 days exploring my own musical mind.

[Hudman]

I get asked to give guitar lessons fairly often. I never agree to it because I feel that I would be cheating the student. Why? I didn't learn to play the guitar in the traditional manner.

 

My music theory is weak, and I have no interest in improving it at this point in my life. Do I have enough guitar knowledge to get a beginner off to a good start? Yes. I could keep a beginner busy for a year or two with minimum effort. Unfortunately, they would miss out on a good deal of music theory. They also would be unable to read sheet music.

 

I guess I could be a good teacher for people that just want to learn how to read tab and play pop, rock and country songs.

[Hamhand]

Cripes, right there is a small direction in your reply. ...."that, and knowing the fretboard"..... I assume you mean the notes at all positions up and down the neck? I am teaching myself that. I just need anyone to step up and tell me what I need to make the journey easier. I am weary of picking answers out of webspace. Hudman, from my point of view, you have LOTS you could share. That start is what any student craves. From there I think he or she should be able to figure out where they want to take it. Just as an aside, I am very passionate about my playing. I literally spend hours everyday on practicing my strumming, then playing a song all the way thru without mistakes. (That doesn't happen). Then I experiment with different chord transitions (with barres) and end when I get run out of the room. I will be talking about this to my teacher, hopefully I make my point a little more clearly than I have here.

[Cripes]

You are asking for specific basics for a training syllabus and I have been speaking around it with generalities.

 

There are no standard practice techniques that come under the heading "Easy". From what you have posted here you are going down the same road most go down. It is a time consuming regimen of focus and motor-skills development that can be as frustrating as it is rewarding. What you need to recognize is the reward part of it.

 

Today you are better than yesterday, and so on. Don't think a fortnight of hard, dedicated practice is going to propel you to virtuosity. I know you don't think that. I'm just high-lighting the fact that impatience is always ready to take its toll if you let it and it will always, always be tapping on the back of your head prodding you to move along. So, concentrate more on knowledge and development of your ear and motor-skills rather than on some magical poll vault learning technique. I'm a 33 year veteran of learning and I'm pretty sure the tunnel ahead is still dark. But, I still thoroughly enjoy it.

[Hudman]

Cripes, right there is a small direction in your reply. ...."that, and knowing the fretboard"..... I assume you mean the notes at all positions up and down the neck? I am teaching myself that. I just need anyone to step up and tell me what I need to make the journey easier. I am weary of picking answers out of webspace. Hudman, from my point of view, you have LOTS you could share. That start is what any student craves. From there I think he or she should be able to figure out where they want to take it. Just as an aside, I am very passionate about my playing. I literally spend hours everyday on practicing my strumming, then playing a song all the way thru without mistakes. (That doesn't happen). Then I experiment with different chord transitions (with barres) and end when I get run out of the room. I will be talking about this to my teacher, hopefully I make my point a little more clearly than I have here.

 

I learned "backwards". I started with "power chords" at age 15. Power chords are 2 to 3 note barre chords. For example the G power chord = G at the 3rd fret low E string, D at the 5th fret A string and the optional G at the 5th fret on the D string - in other words the "power chord" is the first 2 or 3 notes in a major chord. You can use them all day long on the E and A strings.

 

After learning the power chord I began learning scales. At this point I knew 2 open chords (E and A major). I spent several years practicing scales and playing power chords. I learned a few minor and 7th chords along the way (although, I didn't know what they were called back then ). It worked great for rock and heavy metal. I was able to play the music I liked at the time. I was also decent at playing solos thanks to the scales. I managed to play in a hard rock christian band for 2 years with very little guitar knowledge.

 

I discovered how weak my knowledge was at a family reunion about 6 or 7 years after I began playing guitar. Several of my cousins pulled out acoustic guitars late in the evening. I thought it was going to be painful because they tried playing without tuning to each other. No one had a tuner. One of my guitar playing cousins knew I played in a band a few years prior, so he asked me to help him tune the 5 guitars to each other by ear. After we got them tuned up, I sat back expecting to hear crappy guitar playing (hey, I was young and cocky - ). Man was I wrong.

 

Those guys played and sang a ton of country music cover tunes. No one had tab or lyrics in front of them. They played requests as they were shouted out by the 60 or so relatives sitting around watching them. One guy would say, "I know that one, it's G, C, D and adds an F at the bridge" another guy would say, "I know the words". This process took 30 seconds or less. I was stunned because the guitars and vocals sound amazing and no one ever left the open position. They also did it with no amps or PA's.

 

I ended up sitting in doing leads and fills. They thought I was awesome because I could play blues leads in key with the songs. Trust me, I thought I sucked. I never felt more humbled or dumb at any other point in my life. I went from thinking I was a pretty good guitar player to feeling like I barely knew a thing after 7 years of playing.

 

I started respecting country music that night. I didn't even own an acoustic guitar at that point. I bought one 3 days after the family reunion and learned all of my open chords within a week of buying it. I worked at developing my ear strumming along with country tunes on the radio. I got to the point where I could pick up simple country tunes by ear.

 

I will never be as good as I want to be, but I always make it a point to remain humble about the little bit of skill I do have. I still can't remember lyrics very well and I need a cheat sheet to remember chord progressions for certain songs (not tab, just a quick overview of the chords used in the song). Once I see the chords, the song clicks and I don't need to look at anything else.

 

Now I am being challenged by fingerstyle guitar. That's the cool thing about guitar. You can remain a student of the instrument as long as you want. You will never run out of new stuff to learn.

[bigby]

IMO, the best teachers are those that understand that everyone is unique, so an approach that works for one, may not work for another. Letting him know you'd prefer more direction, possibly assigned work for the week and such may be all you need to do. If he doesn't seem to be right for you or seems set on "this is how I teach"; move on. Here's a good article about some things to consider:

 

http://www.playjazzguitar.com/articles/find_a_teacher.html

[Hamhand]

Great stuff Hud. I used to belong to a flying club when I was young and went to a few parties wherever we landed. There was that exact same situation at one party. A good ol boy played and sang every request anyone made, all in open chords, with the occasional barre chord. And I can't remember the words to anything to sing it solo. YET. Now I'm the age of that good ol boy............

 

Thanks for the link Bigby. That pretty much says it all, from both points of view.

[T0MCAT]

I took guitar lessons on two occasions. Both lasted a month. I don't think the teachers and myself had enough of the same tastes in music so that didn't help. I do remember sitting and BS'ing too much too--that's a waste. If I were you I wouldn't waste my money if that's all your going to do. At, what, 15 bucks or so a half freaking hour your pissing your money away mightily.

 

I'd like a teacher, but I just wasn't learning anything. I could take my very limited funds and buy tapes, tab books and videos and learn a lot more (tunes anyway). Maybe now that I've progressed so much further in my playing, I would learn from a teacher. Actually, now I'd like and could benefit from a teacher. my ear sucks, my knowledge of theory suck. blah, blah blah. But I'd need someone with similar musical tastes, and someone I really hit it of with. Teachers are however, quite pricey for a half hour lesson.

[Hamhand]

Tomcat, I'm paying more than that, so that thought has entered my skull. I've bought CD's (eMedia guitar method), song books, etc to keep challenging myself to exercise my brain and my fingers.

[Hudman]

 

Tomcat, I'm paying more than that, so that thought has entered my skull. I've bought CD's (eMedia guitar method), song books, etc to keep challenging myself to exercise my brain and my fingers.

 

 

Keep playing. Muscle memory is what you want to develope. You want to reach a point where your fingers instantly form the chord you are thinking about.

 

There are no short cuts. It takes time and practice.

 

Guitar playing is very similiar to sports. You didn't start throwing curve balls the first day you learned to throw a baseball.

[bloolight]

When I hear my own (physics) students talk about taking beginning lessons, they seem to spend most of their time writing down watered-down tablature versions of popular songs which they don't have any capability of playing at that point. While there's nothing wrong with learning these sorts of beginner versions of songs (my own experience playing butchered versions of "More Than Words" comes to mind), it seems silly to pay 40 bucks an hour for the experience.

 

I think the best way to learn as an absolute beginner is from a good beginning book coupled with a friend who has experience playing. This way, you get your theory and tab from a book when you need it, and the nteractions/encouragement from your buddy for free. Paying for lessons doesn't seem to pay big dividends until you have some experience under your belt.

 

Oh, and if your teacher spends 3/4 of your lesson time talking about his musical tastes, guitars, failed bands, etc, I would get a different teacher. When you're on the meter, your time is precious!

[bigby]

I was fortunate enough back around 1984 to take lessons from a guy named Kenny Grimes who was the lead guitarist for a local legand, Gary P. Nunn. Great guitarist, maybe even a better teacher. I remember him getting kicks off of the stuff I was wanting to learn from this "new" band called Metallica; jeez how things have changed! He really pointed me in a good direction...was well worth the $35/month once a week fee back then.