Lessons = Wasted Money

[jeremy_green]

I will say firstly, I don't teach any more. I just don't have the time these days. But as a former teacher (I had a span of a few years where I had 70+ students, private lessons weekly).. so I do know it from that side a bit.

 

I think students would be surprised to know how important they are to the process. Critical. When a student comes through the door, prepared and excited it makes you respond in kind. I was an AWESOME teacher for people like this... but I think most teachers would be too. I was simultaneously an ashamedly terrible teacher for other students.

 

If you go to your lesson with excitement and an idea of what you want to learn then you stand a far better chance. As opposed to slinking in the door and expecting the teacher to knock your socks off while offering nothing.

 

The process of learning guitar isn't necessarily linear ... a lot of newbs expect the teacher to progress step by step... Sometimes you can, but often times there is one of a hundred different directions you can go. I used to start every lesson the same way - review last lessons materials, answer any questions, make any adjustments to technique then the dreaded "So what would you like to work on this week?" To which MANY had ZERO answer. I mean honestly, you have ALL WEEK to think about what you would like to do... How can people have ZERO idea? I'll tell you why, it's because they don't care, don't practice, no spark, waiting for someone to do it for them. The kicker is these cats walk around and slag that they got nothing from the lessons. I used to fire students all the time. Come back when you are ready to learn.

 

If you expect ANY teacher to turn you into Jimi Hendrix you can forget it. Hendrix turned Hendrix into Hendrix. Just as you will turn you into you. It's up to YOU.

 

My advice - if you are taking lessons, be ready, be excited, be enthusiastic... Mostly be prepared to do the work. If you can be all these things I suspect you will have a hard time finding a bad teacher.

[Yer Blues]

I've though about taking lessons, but I think I'd gain more by talking to better players about how they approach the instrument than sitting down and having a guy teach me a lick or a chord. I can learn that stuff from my favorite players. As I said, when I did have lessons my teacher taught me how to teach myself.

 

Now, if I wanted to jump deep in to a new style (jazz) then I think it would make sense to take lessons. But honestly, it's not something I'm really inspired to do right now. I can't fake what I like.

 

Maybe I am naive though.

[NewGuyonGuitar]

I agree that the student's motivation is maybe the most critical aspect.

 

But a crappy teacher is still a crappy teacher. My first one, for example.... almost never reviewed what I was supposed to practice from the previous week. He'd initiate most lessons with conversations about Xbox games or how tired he was working two jobs....I asked about theory. I asked about reading music. He said he didn't think there was much value in either for me. He said I could buy the a theory book because the place he worked for recommended it, but he didn't see much value....

 

In college, I had a history teacher who on the first day of class said "let's get all the stupid questions out of the way". That's a great attitude to have from a teacher.

 

When you have motivated teachers paired with motivated students, you get the best of everything.

[AXEL276]

The best thing I ever did (guitar related) was take lessons. My parents sent me right away with my first guitar at age 10. I learned to read music/sight read, timing/rhythm, chords, positioning, chord melody, etc. I was introduced to jazz, transcriptions, Parker, Bird, Charlie Christian, etc., theory, scales of all kinds. And I was drilled on it. I leaned discipline! I was shown the short cuts rather than wasting time developing bad habits. I had 4 teachers that I can remember and they all were unique and taught me stuff I would have never found out or had the discipline to seek on my own. I remember going to an audition where I had to play a solo piece. The first thing the agent said when I finished was "who did you study with". It shows. It separates me from the rest of the pack and I still believe it gives me an edge. I'm in 100% about lessons.

[jeremy_green]

I agree that the student's motivation is maybe the most critical aspect. But a crappy teacher is still a crappy teacher. My first one, for example.... almost never reviewed what I was supposed to practice from the previous week. He'd initiate most lessons with conversations about Xbox games or how tired he was working two jobs....I asked about theory. I asked about reading music. He said he didn't think there was much value in either for me. He said I could buy the a theory book because the place he worked for recommended it, but he didn't see much value.... In college, I had a history teacher who on the first day of class said "let's get all the stupid questions out of the way". That's a great attitude to have from a teacher. When you have motivated teachers paired with motivated students, you get the best of everything.

 

 

Let's be crystal clear here - there are definitely BAD teachers out there... LOTS.

 

A HUGE red flag is when you ask for something and a teacher says there isn't much "value in it for you" ESPECIALLY when it comes to dealing with Theory or Reading type questions. This tells me likely THEY aren't comfortable teaching it because they barely know it.

 

Before committing to anyone you should request a single trial lesson. Any decent studio should accommodate this request. If it is a School type place that offers many different teachers then detail what your goals are and ask them to select the one best suited... even then just do one lesson. It can be largely a chemistry thing too. Just like friends you just may not click with someone. There should be some level of friendship there too in the best case scenario.

 

Hell I used to take some of my students to concerts with me! We geeked out like musicians do on new recordings or pieces of gear. I personally miss a LOT of those great people.

 

Then there is "the others" - the vacuous automatons who brought NOTHING. It was SO hard to even come up with ONE lesson for these people.

[AXEL276]

My experience with teachers and students; As mentioned in my post above Jeremy, all positive with the teachers. I can't say the same about students. I use to teach and gave it up in frustration. Most of them (90%) didn't have the disciplane to practice and all they wanted to learn were rock licks and rock songs. I agree, you don't need a teacher for that, just go to YouTube.
There are a lot of good teachers out there but they are way more crappy students!

[jonfinn]

 

My experience with teachers and students; As mentioned in my post above Jeremy, all positive with the teachers. I can't say the same about students. I use to teach and gave it up in frustration. Most of them (90%) didn't have the disciplane to practice and all they wanted to learn were rock licks and rock songs. I agree, you don't need a teacher for that, just go to YouTube. There are a lot of good teachers out there but they are way more crappy students!

 

I was going to say something similar.

This has been a great thread to watch. There's a saying I like:

"If I'm pointing one finger at you, there are three more pointing back at me."

 

My point is that it's easy for the student to accuse the teacher of being incompetent, but a little harder to ask themselves if they're a good student.

 

Same can be said for teachers.

 

If you're a teacher, give your best to every student, knowing that some won't "get it". Doing that will make you better.

 

If you're a student, do the work your teacher asks. Commit to the process. If it doesn't work despite your best efforts, then you learn what NOT to do!

[Jasco]

A lot of food for thought in this thread. I especially like Jeremy's and Jon Finn's replies.

I'd add:

- Teaching is a skill unto itself, different from the activity being taught. Just because someone is skilled at something doesn't mean they can teach it well. If someone starts teaching, I believe they should do some work on learning how to teach.

- One can learn to play music without lessons for sure. Lessons from a good teacher streamline and speed up the process.

If you're a student, do the work your teacher asks . Commit to the process. If it doesn't work despite your best efforts, then you learn what NOT to do!

Not doing the work the teacher asks seems to be the most common failing point of students.

[Longhair]

I've taken a few days off from guitar and at this point I don't miss it unfortunately...

I honestly wish I was able to find a good teacher - as in someone that is able to come up with an outline from the very beginning to a set goal just like a classroom environment. This way of learning would be like "ok, I see that you grasp the concept but applying it needs work. I'll make a note about that and we'll come back to that in 3 months." instead of "I see you grasp the concept but applying it needs work. You are at 50% tempo and we should keep doing this until you are at 100% tempo."

I want to start at the very beginning again is because I am self taught and probably missed some very important fundamentals that are giving me problems today.

[Li Shenron]

Personally I think a guitar teachers job is to get you self-sufficient so that you won't need them anymore.

 

 

Absolutely!

 

I went to lessons for almost 5 years when I was young, with two different teachers, starting from the same week when I bought my very first guitar. I knew nothing: I didn't know what could be done with the guitar, let alone how to do it or how to learn how to do it. I do not regret a single lesson I paid for to study with those teachers!

 

But now, more than 12 years after the last lessons, I would not go to lessons anymore unless I had a specific reason such as a specific style or a specific skill to learn in more depth. That does not mean I'm not interested in learning from other people... if just means I'm not interested in committing into a teacher-student program.

 

At this (guitaristically speaking) age, I know quite well what should be done in order to develop further the ability of playing the guitar into a variety of directions and in more general terms of making music.

 

But I was really clueless when I started, and had I not been going to lessons I would have probably been strumming campfire songs forever in the best case.

[1001gear]

 

I've taken a few days off from guitar and at this point I don't miss it unfortunately... I honestly wish I was able to find a good teacher - as in someone that is able to come up with an outline from the very beginning to a set goal just like a classroom environment. This way of learning would be like "ok, I see that you grasp the concept but applying it needs work. I'll make a note about that and we'll come back to that in 3 months." instead of "I see you grasp the concept but applying it needs work. You are at 50% tempo and we should keep doing this until you are at 100% tempo." I want to start at the very beginning again is because I am self taught and probably missed some very important fundamentals that are giving me problems today.

 

 

Glad I found this tacked on here. I was ready to call troll or some kind of bad attitude or drama but it's not important. I like Jonfinn's angle. He's usually got the wisdom on stuff problematic.

 

I'd never be so diplomatic. I wanna know stuff like what qualifies your rejection of those teachers and further condemnation of the profession? To me, like uh, only 1 chance you're being truthful and nailed it. That leaves an infinity of anything else to guess at. So tell us more about your abilities and goals.

[Longhair]

My abilities - able to form and strum in 4/4 time a handful of open chords and a couple of major scales

My goals - to play & write music.

[1001gear]

Have you any thoughts on how these should be developed?

[mosiddiqi]

My abilities - able to form and strum in 4/4 time a handful of open chords and a couple of major scales My goals - to play & write music.

 

That's really easy to accomplish with what you know already to be honest. Write down some words, play a couple of chords using a 4/4 beat that you like and you're done. Rinse and repeat x100000000000000000000000000000000. Nearly all of them will suck. Record every single one and listen critically. If you do this regularly, all other aspects of what you need to do to get better will gradually reveal themselves to you. When you say you know a couple of Major scales, there is only one, so I assume you mean you can play it in a couple of keys. You don't need any more scales. Just play and write.

[Pitar]

Think simply. I think we can all agree that our popular (preferences) music is three chords and maybe a fourth weaseled into a chorus or turn around. Choose three chords that suit your vocal range, or capo to match, and make stuff up. Like mosiddiqi mentions, most of it will be tripe with a few keepers. Do not overwork anything. Da Vinci did not give his Mona Lisa a toothy smile for a reason. Either she didn't have them or he did not see beauty in them. I think the latter because none of those period paintings showed the pearly whites. Teeth were unnecessary to the beauty trending in art in that period. So, don't give your music teeth if it doesn't need them.

 

Once you have a melody, move onto the lyrics but try to write them musically first. Then, replace the notes with words and syllables. I say and syllables because we're taking into count meter and syllables are very important to that end. They morph from mere grammatical terminology to musical meter.

 

One of the songs I like to hold up as an example of huge popular notoriety in the face of poor lyrical writing is Cold Play's Clocks. What a great (maybe timely?) melody but the lyrics are almost gibberish. You might do as well to record a person's vocal identification of objects as they are randomly passed before his eyes. I can nail this melody in fingerstyle well enough to nicely fill out an acoustic version of the song but the lyrics are too embarrassingly poor to sing. This didn't stop the production of the song due to it's strength of melody, which is nearly the same progression of Dylan's Lay Lady Lay, BTW, with a slight key change-up after the G chord to Dm rather than Dylan's Bm. Dylan's song was also popular if for nothing else than the merits of the progression alone. But, that's a tangent that irks me time-to-time about CP. But, it just shows how existing music can be rewritten to create yet another melody from our own devices and minds.

[chittypantz]

The best guitar lesson I ever got wasn't a guitar lesson. It's a program called BandWorks in the SF Bay Area that sets you up with a band for 2 months. You rehearse a handful of songs and put on a show with the other bands at the end of the session. Felt more about music than guitar if that makes any sense.

 

 

This is a pretty good idea if you can afford it. Otherwise find some other musicians who want to learn some tunes and jam. That will accelerate your learning by giving you a chance to try out what you're learning in a live performance situation.

[sammyreynolds01]

Let's be crystal clear here - there are definitely BAD teachers out there... LOTS. A HUGE red flag is when you ask for something and a teacher says there isn't much "value in it for you" ESPECIALLY when it comes to dealing with Theory or Reading type questions. This tells me likely THEY aren't comfortable teaching it because they barely know it. Before committing to anyone you should request a single trial lesson. Any decent studio should accommodate this request. If it is a School type place that offers many different teachers then detail what your goals are and ask them to select the one best suited... even then just do one lesson. It can be largely a chemistry thing too. Just like friends you just may not click with someone. There should be some level of friendship there too in the best case scenario. Hell I used to take some of my students to concerts with me! We geeked out like musicians do on new recordings or pieces of gear. I personally miss a LOT of those great people. Then there is "the others" - the vacuous automatons who brought NOTHING. It was SO hard to even come up with ONE lesson for these people.

 

 

That's the thing about a teacher. They can only teach you what they know. If they don't know theory or how to sight read then they can't teach it. You have to find a good teacher and once you do that then the rest is up to you.

[Stringbender11]

I'd say find some other people to play with, OP. You can learn a lot by jamming with other people. I'm probably in the same boat as you - not an absolute beginner but far from advanced, not even midlevel really. I learn most of my stuff from online tabs and youtube lessons, and I recently started getting together with a friend to jam with and exchange ideas. the stuff he plays is much different than what i do, but we both learn from each other. I agree with the poster who said you have to have a real passion to learn guitar. If you have that passion move on and dont worry about some lessons that didnt pay off.

Just keep playing and having fun with it.

[Virgman]

That's really easy to accomplish with what you know already to be honest. Write down some words, play a couple of chords using a 4/4 beat that you like and you're done. Rinse and repeat x100000000000000000000000000000000. Nearly all of them will suck. Record every single one and listen critically. If you do this regularly, all other aspects of what you need to do to get better will gradually reveal themselves to you. When you say you know a couple of Major scales, there is only one, so I assume you mean you can play it in a couple of keys. You don't need any more scales. Just play and write.

 

 

Mos is right.

 

Play a few chords and sing. It works for Taylor Swift.