Your experience on finding a teacher?

[sevenup]

Hi, I would like to hear your experience and your thought on how to find a teacher in your local area. (I live in Maryland).

 

Obviously, local shops usually have a list of teacher available. Online sites also list many classes or studio that offers guitar lessons. But how do I go about finding one that suits the type of music I want to learn? Right now it feels like even though there are many options, they are all like paper stubs with telephone numbers you find on campus bulletin board; draw of the luck to find a suitable teacher.

 

My music taste into contemporary folk music(artists like, Kris Delmorst, Deb Talan, Lori McKenna, Claire Holley, Rosie Thomas; mostly boston area singer/songwriter types), does not help either since folk music isn't that big in the DC Metropoliton area. None of my friends have a clue who those singers I've listed. I don't have any musician friends.

 

I would appreciate any suggestion and maybe hear your experience on finding teacher that matches the type of music you want to learn. Thanks.

[SpoonyJank]

I've been thinking about tracking down a teacher as well so I'd like to see what people have to say. My progress is starting to taper off. I don't really want to go to a guitar shop to find somebody though, I'm not really sure why either. I haven't been able to force myself to learn any more theory recently. theory is normally what pushed me into doing new stuff each time I picked up the guitar and that made it fun, but recently I've been just playing the same stuff over and over, its difficult for my hands and its not getting any easier, yet its still boring. All the stuff I've yet to learn just seems ambiguous or its like memorizing something thats truly impossible to remember. I was never really too interested in learning other people's music. maybe I should go buy a book full of fretboard charts; like a reference book or something; being taught scares me. I don't like the idea of being molded whatsoever, but I'd really like to learn in a proper fashion. Sometimes when I see somebody play stuff that is just utterly humbling on the acoustic I ambiguously ask them if they teach people. A few of them do, but I never really followed it up. I'd kind of like to know a person before I actually pay them to teach me.

[EvilHippy]

I have a guitar teacher.I take a session with just me and the guitar teacher every monday evening .It's ok, but sometimes I don't feel like saying what I like to learn...but I kind of hint at it and tell him what musicians I like, but I am not sure if he gets it or not.At first I was kind of not sure when he said that I should bring an electric, then, I asked him if I could bring an acoustic and he said sure, then, I brought my Martin yesterday and when I walk in the door he goes "why on earth did you bring an acoustic".At least he got my undersaddle pickup working .We're doing christmas songs since it's that time of the year.....getting into theory......etc. But I really wanted to do some CSN before we moved into something else.We've mostly been doing rock and blues on electric.I have to admit, I think I am better at fingerpicking and fingerstyle stuff on acoustic than I am with electric.I don't know.~EH

[ChrisNJ]

I lucked out by having a really good teacher who happened to be upstairs of a music store but not actually affiliated with the store. He was basically the type that was, "What song do you wanna learn?" and he'd figure it out and write it out and worked with me on learning it. Man I wish I could do that myself instead of relying on teachers, Guitar World & Guitar One magazines, and tab sites

[EvilHippy]

Originally posted by ChrisNJ I lucked out by having a really good teacher who happened to be upstairs of a music store but not actually affiliated with the store. He was basically the type that was, "What song do you wanna learn?" and he'd figure it out and write it out and worked with me on learning it. Man I wish I could do that myself instead of relying on teachers, Guitar World & Guitar One magazines, and tab sites

That's what my teacher does except I kinda drive him nuts by not telling him what I want to learn. The real reason I don't want to say anything is because it may be too hard.I mainly rely on ear and use tablatures as a back up to get me along.~EH