Lessons for oldies

[Li Shenron]

Well I'm not exactly old, just older... I'd like to hear some opinions and personal experiences about taking guitar/music lessons after years of not taking lessons at all, how did it feel for you and what kind of lessons are you taking or did you take.

 

In my case, I've been going to electric guitar lessons since I bought my very first guitar at 17 yrs old. Those lessons were twice a week and included a bit of everything: basics, technique exercises, music theory, guitar styles and genres, rhythms, solos & improvisations... While the Berkley books were the "reference" for the lessons, the teacher used very different sources of material and there wasn't a specific target style or music to focus, but rather a broad approach to as many possibilities as we could.

 

After 3 years of lessons I moved to a different teacher (for another year and a half) who focused on raw technique, but then also added listening & analyzing guitar styles, expressions, ensemble arrangements and effects usage.

 

After those years, because of university & work overload I stopped going to lessons and quitted playing for a while. A few years have passed, during which I've occasionally picked the guitar up again and pleasantly found out that I have lost only a little bit of my skills! With more free time coming up in the near future, I wondered if I should start going to lessons again or instead just train myself.

 

Here's what:

- about technique I don't really feel like I need lessons at all; it really feels to me like I am very aware of what I would need to exercise in order to improve any technical aspect of my playing. If I decide that I want to improve technique (but at the moment I don't need it), I already know what to do

- the same can be said about studying styles or genres: I have a large public library with years of listening possibilities and music scores to study by myself

 

However, I am considering going to lessons nevertheless. At the moment I'd take lessons on music theory. There are endless books about this, but I think that a teacher would be able to organize the subjects more "tailored" to our tastes, while a book will necessarily follow a pre-determined learning scheme which may be boring or unsuited for myself.

 

What do you think?

If you have been going to lessons for many years and still going now, are you still studying technique or something else?

If you have been going to lessons, then stopped, and finally resumed, did you find it hard or was it a good idea?

[nuke_diver]

Well as someone else err older......

I got my first guitar about 25 years ago and learned a few chords mostly. I didnt have money or time to go and take lessons.

For years I said I would but I never did. I finally got really serious about a year ago and signed up for lessons. My first instructor was a great musician, perfect pitch and knows all the theory. But his life had to take him in another non teaching direction. My new teacher while he might not be as gifted as the first, has a good disciplined approach to learning which is helpful. I struggle with alot of stuff since I've never had to do it before and my hands don't move that good

The best thing about a teacher I think is that it's someone who can see what you do right and wrong. Since you are relatively experienced you might have to look for someone that will provide you with what you need.

However I'm not really the audience you wanted so I don't know if this is helpful at all or not.

[social]

It sounds like you have a pretty good idea of what you want to learn, which is a good thing, and a hard thing for a lot of people. Can you read music? By that I mean standard notation of course. If you can read standard notation you have all the building blocks you need to learn theory on your own.

I recently went through the teacher or not debate myself. I'm happy with my technical ability but I really wanted to learn to/improve my sight reading abilities, and my knowledge of practical music theory. In the end, I chose not to get a teacher, and here's why.

With the reading, I can read music, just not sight read. This is something that simply takes time and a lot of reading music to develop, so now I only practice to standard notation, and practice transcribing tabs, and my own works into standard notation. That covers that quite well with no teacher.

Theory was the more complicated half of the debate. There are so, so many internet and book resources for learning theory. I found that alone to be daunting, which put a little weight on the "get a teacher" side of the argument. The way I learn however, I digest information well, and draw inferences easily. So I again decided to tackle theory on my own. To do this, I picked up the mel bay complete guitar method. It kills a bird and a half with one stone. It gives me nearly 300 pages to practice sight reading, and it drops important nuggets of theory here and there. I've found that little bit of theory and excellent foundation to slowly increase my grasp on music theory via internet references and other books.

This approach works well for me, because I'm very good at figuring things out on my own. The only real stumbling block with my theory progress has been adjusting to enharmonic naming, which always gives me problems, though less these days.

There is always something you can learn from a good teacher, and I don't discredit lessons on anything in anyway, I'm sure the time will come when I feel I've gone as far as I can on my own, and its time to find a teacher, I just know based on my needs that time isn't now.

The bottom line, if you don't feel like you can jump into theory on your own (its not that hard, I promise ) then a teacher is probably a good idea, just be clear with the teacher of exactly what you want.

Best wishes

[Li Shenron]

I can read standard notation but definitely not in real time. Meaning that of course I know all symbols and the meanings of keys, but I cannot just pick up a music score in standard notation and play it right without preparation. I used to be able to sing it on sight (simple scores only) when I went to lessons, but since I didn't keep practising afterwards, I'm not able anymore.

OTOH reading on sight isn't in my wishes. With theory I rather mean things such as:

- how to form scales and modes and how to play on them
- how to derive chords on top of a mode
- how to modulate between scales/modes
- how to go out of scale and still sound nice

That about melody & harmony, plus something about rhythm:

- how to use odd times in interesting ways

All of these can be approached with a learned theory (which is where a teacher would be needed) and also require lots of listening training (which the teacher can give a guide for but is not 100% necessary).

[can't remember]

Li,

I was in a similar situation roughly a year ago. Instead of going back to a teacher, I opted for more of a real life experience.

I started jamming with others.

This is more valuable then all the lessons and teachers put together.

Of course, back in high school and into college I was in a band and those were fun years. But being older and into the music more than the "extras" really makes it that much more special. Not too mention that I'm a little better now than I was then

:jb

[Li Shenron]

Heh of course playing is always the most important thing! But that doesn't exclude lessons