What should I be practicing/learning?

[RiseAndfall]

I've been playing since september (I've played cello for 7 years), and I want to start learning/practicing I guess theory, scales, etc... I have a guitar teacher who is great but he's more into bluesy/classic rock stuff whereas I'm into... I guess you could say alternative (radiohead, muse, etc...). Is there anything good for someone who wants to play that type of music out there?

[Essex]

My advice to you is to learn what you want....but blues/classic rock is great music though and should never be overlooked....just compromise with him and have him teach you some of your kind of music...i mean...you are paying him right?

 

Good Luck,

 

Essex

[silverbullet]

Yeah man, you have to remeber, it is your techers job not only to teach you what e thinks you should learn, but what you want to learn as well.

[Nickdel]

Blues happens to be an easy place to start making music immediately. It's very basic in it's construction (most of the time).

 

But like it's been said before. YOU are paying HIM. Make him teach you what you want to learn or go somewhere else. It's important to be "forced" to learn certain things. One of the drawbacks of teaching yourself anything is that there is no guidance, there is no one saying that if you just learn this boring thing first, the good stuff becomes easier. But, if you don't like folk music, learning the basics using folk isn't going to endear you to the instrument, so suggest that he teach you what you want to know, and he should try to structure his lessons around that.

[bdemon]

It's definitely important to speak up about what you want to learn. I'd almost kill for half of my students to answer the question, "What do you want to learn?" Most of them say, "I don't know...whatever you want to teach."

 

Then again, a little forced learning is good. If you like alternative what do you teach, Nirvana songs every week? Better to, as an example, study 12 bar blues for a bit, then look at Nirvana's take on such a progression.

 

Is there such a thing? Can't remember. But I remember a punker kid bringing in a Ramones CD...every tune in the I-IV-V.

[ask]

I've have just got my first student, and I won't teach anything he won't learn himself. I wanted to play "Master of puppets", then I told him, that it would take a couple of years...he had some difficulties with chords...

 

Then I found "Wonderful Tonight" - and he was happy, and I learn but riff and chords and a little of improvisation (i learned him the pentatonic scale in a couple of positions) - and I let him improvise, gave him a couple of licks also. Now I'm teaching him nothing else matters. He doesn't normally like fingerpicking, but when he has to learn this song (he LOVES it) he practices as hell...

 

When I doesn't know what to learn, I play some music for him, as inspiration...i wish my teacher had done that to me - offen I remember, he just tought me stuff, I didn't much know what to do with...and I was pretty young, didn't know why I really went there, I what I wanted to learn - I has learned so much more after quitting (5 years ago)