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Taking lessons


Grodon

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Posted

I've finally started my journey on learning to play guitar and about to book my free first lesson given by the music store I purchased my guitar from.

 

I'd like to continue taking lessons to help my progress along more efficiently, just curious on how often a beginner should have lessons and for how long before a level of comfortability is achieved to continue self-teaching? I know everyone is different, just trying to see how long I am looking at in taking lessons for.

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Posted

Don't know how much this will help you, but I've been taking half-hour lessons once a week since I started playing guitar a year and a half ago.

A friend of mine, who has been playing slightly longer than I have, has decided to focus on classical guitar, and he takes 1 hour lessons once a week.

Personally, I would be nowhere without lessons, and if it were not for time concerns (school etc), I would love to take one-hour lessons.

That being said, make sure you find a good teacher before you plunk down a few hundred for months of lessons.

Hope that helped!

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Posted

congratulations on getting started on guitar-
taking lessons is great from the get go, too. i found that taking about 3 yrs of lessons when i started fueled me for a couple years of "self-teaching". but any amount of lessons you take will help you, and you can always start again if you stop, as i have many times.

i'd say one half hour lesson a week is great. you should also try to practice at least a half hour a day, 5 days a week. the important thing is to play every day. in no time you will amaze yourself, impress your friends, and strike terror etc etc.


peace

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Posted

I've been playing about four months now and started at a late age (37- a recent hospitalization prompted me to take it up). Started out with a method book that I was almost through but wasn't getting anywhere with. Now I take half hour lessons every other week and in the last month and a half have made leaps and bounds of progress! I'm even able to play the songs in the book that I had no hope of playing before. But as stated before, you have to put the time in everyday and get the practice in. Lessons don't magically make you a better player!

L8R

Raths

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Posted

Thanks for the replies guys. I realise lessons are not a magic bullet but I think they will help in stopping me develop bad habits at the beginning and set a good foundation of playing principles. I'm 31 myself so I guess it is never to late to start learning something new. :)

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Posted

I teach and always recommend lessons once a week. A half hour is fine, but an hour is better if you can afford it. For adults, I feel like a half hour is a bit short to really get in depth as much as I would like.

I agree that you should find a teacher you are comfortable with. The right teacher will make all the difference in the world.

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Posted

I teach but I still get lessons. While I'm at uni weekly lessons are part of the course, but even during holidays I try to get one every few weeks. I find that as I get better, I use my teacher for different things. Now, it's not so much to show me what I can work on, but to focus me and help me with little things. Just having an hour in which to really talk through stuff is worth it for me.
It's a little bit the same with my students. I don't teach them troo many tunes, as that's something they tend to do anyway. Instead I'll just listen and point out useful exercises for them, and little things to work on.
Basically my lessons go something like this:
'Do you use a metronome much with that?"
"use a metronome"
"how are you going with the metronome?" :D

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Posted

Lessons are a great help - i used to think that it didn't matter as i was playing at a pretty advanced level and had been 'self-taught' (by which i mean learnt by ear, books, internet, jamming with others) for 12 years.

I recently got fed up with being stuck in a rut (i.e. playing at more or less the same level for 4 of those 12 years), 2 months ago i found myself a really good teacher that could play the arse off me (unfortunately about 2 hours drive away :( ), and have been taking twice monthly lessons since. My technique and understanding of music have been increasing expotentially ever since, the difference a good teacher can make is just astounding and i should imagine the benefits for a beginner are even greater...

My advice is - if you want to get the level you want to play at as fast as possible don't stop taking lessons until you get there.

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Posted

When I decided that I wanted to get more into jazz, I went back to lessons once a week for an hour. As I got more and more into theory, the hour wasn't long enough for me to go though eveything I wanted to, so I extented it to 90 minutes.

After 18 months, I felt that I needed to switch teachers. Not that my original teacher wasn't good, but I felt that Iwasn't getting the most out of the lesson. Plus, I didn't feel the need to take a weekly lesson.

I'm with a different teacher now, and I book a lesson with him once a month. I pay for 90 minutes, but I'm at his house for at least a couple of hours.

Lawrie

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Posted

I have a really decent teacher and although I can't attest to making leaps and bounds (only taking for about 3-4 months now), I can say that my chops steadily getting better.

But if you've noticed it's always like that for any hobby anyone picks up. You get good at it really, really fast and things seem like it's speeding by but all of a sudden you hit a plateau.

For guitar, I think the lessons are slowly but surely making me run through this plateau stage and hopefully I can get a lot better. But seriously, lessons help you focus and get back on track every week (or every other week), for me, it's just simply going into the studio, hearing my teacher play a little and learning a little from that, then all the stuff he tells me and teaches me is the bonus :).

Honestly though, it helps you stop becoming stagnant in your playing, I think instead of physically better I'm dynamically better in most all aspects of the guitar.

Oh, reading through HCF is a good way too :thu:.

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