Alternative thread on guitar lessons

I've been playing for 4 years and have never had a lesson. However, I have done a lot of "informal jams" with guitar playing friends and I can honestly say that's what helped me the most. This site, a few good tabs and ambition is all you really need to become a decent guitar player. There are some free (but not necessarily great) lessons on youtube as well, but I use those mostly just to see if my hand positions are correct.

Many will disagree with me but I think that if you have the will you can be a good guitar player without formal lessons. If you want to be the next ____________ (insert your guitar hero here), then you might want to spend the money.

Thanks for the reply. I suppose I should throw in that I do NOT expect to become the next Kirk Hammet, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Andy Summers, Link Wray, or otherwise. Are my inspirations obvious?? 8^)

No one here would say that you cannot become a good player without a formal instructor. Most would say that it is easier with a formal instructor.

But if you cannot afford it, doesn't seem like it matters to me :P You can only do what you can do, ya know? Learn all that you can, if you become able to afford lessons, take them. If not, keep learning through the internet and friends, and more importantly by watching and listening to your heroes.

Theres plenty of grerat guitarists who haven't taken formal lessons. The best thing about lessons IMHO is that you get instant feedback as to what you're doing right or wrong. Theres some great beginner lessons here on guitarnoise. You might be able to find a teacher who will work with you and do lessons on alternate weeks, so it would cost 1/2 the price. Jamorama seems to be a pretty good program.

I've never had a lesson, and haven't played with other's that much, but still feel like I have progressed quite well.

The plus side to teacher's is that they can impart all of their knowledge on you and give you feedback.

The down side to teacher's is, often they will try to impart stuff you don't want to know, and give you feedback you don't want to hear! :lol:

I think that self-teaching is OK, and that if you cannot afford the lessons then make do without. With the amount of lessons available here (and elsewhere on the internet) and the amount of players around here to help you out with any problems, you'll do fine!

Pete

you will progress faster if you have a good teacher, and with outthe bad habbits 8)

I've gt 4 hungry kids, a wife that seems to not understand how I can't decorate and practice and a cat that is obsessed with emptying my bank account in vet fees - so, like you I can't afford lessons. I admit I would love a chance but who knows, maybe one. In the meantime I seem to be inuindated with things I want to learn and you know the best thing I ever did? Coming to this site!! I have had more support in this forum than all my local pals and all the other internet courses. So stick around Kirk and ask all your questions the guys/ gals here will always support you.

As for black guitarists being louder? Guess that depends on the size of the amp they are using :-D

My pals are able to play sweet, soft and gentle stuff or crank it up so your brains hurts. I guess it depends on the talent behind it. I guess I have been lucky in that all the black guitarists I have ever met didn't feel they had anything to prove so they were more interested in letting the music speak rather than frying my brains.

Hey! Thanks to everyone for the tips. At this point I plan to stick with Jamorama for the short term and we'll see how the money holds out. I'm going to check into lesson every other week rather than every week also. If an instructor would support that, it would help a lot! And, you'll probably see lots and lots of newbie questions here from me. :wink:

I also want to clarify that I asked whether black "guitars" were louder, not black guitarists. Kind of like asking if red bikes are faster. And, I notice only one person responded to that question, so it remains - are black guitars loudest? Or, are the Steve Vai custom, random squiggle a la Jackson Pollack loudest??

I assume it was a joke but Black guitars aren't any louder than white ones or any other guitars for that matter

But I'm almost convinced that the black ones scream a little louder. Maybe the acoustic properties of black paint vs other colors at the quantum level. Different colors affect photons differently, why not sound waves? Do sound waves have a quantum particle, or perhaps a duality? Light is both a particle and a wave, maybe sound waves also have particle properties. But I digress... 8^)

Black guitars are louder, the photons are not reflected back into the surrounding electromagnetic spectrum, the trapped photons are transmogrified by the hidden fuzzy lignite cells of the wood whereas they go through a transmutation into spiritual waves of infinite oscillations where the undergo a strange but beautiful.........

Oops, sorry, getting too transcendental there! :oops:

I think that if you can at least get lessons for a short time, it will speed your progress. It will give you a starting point in certain technics and how to play right. Even just the basics can open doors and make everything easier. Then everything here will make a lot more sense. In the thirty five plus years that I've been playing, I only had about six months of lessons, but these are also things that I still use everyday!

My story is similar to yours Kirk ..... only I kept playing when I got that guitar back in 1977. :lol: I've never had a lesson and yes, I can play the thing. Lessons can help a lot, I did not have the option. I was not in a financial situation to afford them. Today with the internet and sites like this your chances are so much better. I'm not telling you a teacher wouldn't be better or easier, I just don't think you necessarily need one. I'm here to help if I can. :wink:

Oh, and I have a lot of black guitars. Mine are loud. :twisted:

...hehe :twisted: ... well, after six months I finally felt compelled to go out and get...... A NEW GUITAR!!! It is a Takima acoustic sweetie and it talks to me.... with my old guitar it was less than of a dialogue and more like a wrestling match :cry:
OK the greatest thing was walking into the music store yesterday and just playing different songs for over an hour, while the guy handed me different guitars to try..... I had the best time since??? Probably before I had children and a regular job LOL :?
Now I did have 2 years of piano lessons when I was 12 and this is what I learned, that I haven't had to relearn on the guitar, and that has helped me so enormously in the last 6 months:

- how to read sheet music
- the most common scales and their major chords
- the arpeggio and how to move those fingers in even time!
- something about how transposing works

Pretty much everything else I picked up on my own. Hope that helps!! :D