Evaluating my teacher and myself....

Ok...I kind of see your frustration. But...

Do you know the major chords, minors, 7th's this is a basis that you need for guitar.

second... Keep working on finger picking.

third... keep techinuqe practice (changing chords, fingerpicking) a daily routine in your practice schedule and you will progress...

Now about theory..hmm.. i'm still not their yet :)

But try to learn at least the natural note scale and c major.

I know how you feel, I've felt the same way about not progressing, but I've started to get back on track a bit, try a couple of things:

1) Relax, Stressing out about guitar will only make you feel worse about your playing. Even consider taking a break if you feel you need it.

2) You said yourself that you only want to play guitar for fun, Scales will help with technical development but other then that, I would say not to worry about them. Seriously, unless you are going to be dealing with improvisation or alot of songwriting, I don't see the point to obsessing about scales, but of course learning a couple scales will be fine.

3) Figure out what you want to do, and that should dictate what you learn. In other words, you said you want to learn how to play for fun and just play songs... so in my opinion, you really don't need to worry too much about advanced techniques, theory and scales. However, if you are interested in improvisation or playing in a band, then maybe learning that stuff isn't such a bad idea.

It seems to me that your teacher is a decent teacher even if you are just learning songs. What I think you should do is tell your teacher about all this and see what he says or recommends, I doubt he'll be offended.

Oh...and I took lessons as well - where he would tell me his way of picking and strumming a song. I felt the I could have learned that on my own by listening to the song and finding the tab on google. Just type "song name tab" and you will find tons of versions. Also look up powertab - it shows the sturmming pattern and timming for songs.

I'd say that it's a waste of money and time if you are just learning the strumming pattern and tab of a song.

Tell your teacher you would like a structurized 'planning' for the next year the next week and tell him what you'd like to learn. If he does and it sounds ok follow his planning and see where it ends. If he won't or can't, find another teacher.

Donzo,

First of all I wouldn't stress about your progress almost everyone feels the same way, they are never satisfied with where they are with their playing, and there's always someone who after a couple weeks is playing songs.

But for every one of those people there are probably 1,000 more like me and you that have to do it the hard way, practice, practice, practice.

Everyone gave you pretty good advice and Arjen's right if you really feel the way you do then ask your teacher to structure your lessons alittle more.

I've had 3 different teachers in the almost 3 years I've been playing and I wasn't at all happy with the first two. The 3rd teacher definitely has a more structured approach but I still at times feel like there's something missing. It seems that at times things move too slowly.

As for scales, I would say you should at some point get familiar with them, but they probably aren't that necessary for you right now. Scales will be important if you want to play lead guitar or if you just want to improv, but if you just want to strum songs on your front porch, I'd say skip them for now and get all the open chords, barre chords etc down first.

And a big part as someone else mentioned is to relax and not stress out about it. Your the only one putting pressure on yourself and pretty soon you'll stop playing altogether. Just keeping practicing and the success will build on each other so once you learn a few songs the next one gets easier to learn and so on.

It's a long journey just enjoy the ride!!

In my experience alot of teachers (not all) will only show what they think you should know at a given point in your learning eg.0-3 months open chords,4-6 months barre chords etc.
If you want to progress faster you need to tell the teacher what you need to learn.The best way to do this in my opinion would be to learn get some tabs of songs you want to learn try and learn them at home and when you get stuck make a note of what it is you cant do eg.hammer-ons,particular riffs etc that way you will know what you need to learn and can get your teacher to teach you those particular things.The other option is to specialize your learning eg.learn the blues,jazz, finger picking etc.The techniques you learn from these styles will take your playing to a new level and give you that sense of acheivement that your missing.
The above is only my opinion and what I've learned from teaching friends and family to play.
Hope this Helps and Good Luck.

Well , i never had a teacher myself owing to the virtual online teachers like David and Dan cross. 8)

Yet , you must sort out your problem with your teacher.After all , if you don't learn guitar (or anything else for that matter) you can't blame anyone else, the person responsible would be you. (as said by Steven Covey)

So , go out and give your point of view to your teacher.I am sure he will listen. :)

Teachers often struggle with what to show a student. Not your fault, not their fault, just the way it is sometimes in trying to connect the dots.

One of my students (a girl in her early teens) didn't seem to be making much progress to me, although she's still progressing - if that makes sense. I mean, she's starting to read syncopated rhythms, and her chord changes are getting better... but it didn't 'feel' to me like she was putting it all together.

Last week she came for her lessons, and expected we'd continue on reading. Instead, I had her put the music away, and we spent the entire half hour playing through five Beatles tunes I've shown her over the ten months she's been studying with me. She counted them off, then I played to her count, and she had to keep up. After each tune we briefly talked about what she'd done right and wrong, and moved on to the next tune.

Even though I didn't show her anything new - everything we did was simple review - it made something click. A couple things, actually... she understood that if you don't practice something you lose it (she really struggled with a couple chords she hasn't played in months), and she realized that progress doesn't come from learning new stuff - it comes from integrating stuff you've just learned with stuff you knew before. And it got her out of rote rehearsal mode - playing one piece over and over until it's perfected. That's something you should work at, no question, but making music is also about performance, and living with what comes out. That's why we didn't repeat any songs. By the fifth song, she was showing a great deal of rhythm improvement.

I think it was one of the more instructive sessions she's had, even though there was no 'instruction'.

I actually have a point here for ya Donzo :)

If I were in your shoes, I'd take whatever you've just learned and try figuring out how to apply it to other songs you've done in the past. If it's a new position of a chord, like a 3rd fret G barre, try doing a different song using that G. If you've learned about I-IV-V or ii-V-I progressions, go through the old music and see if you can identify those. Then see if you can transpose them into a new key.

In the end, there's a difference between gathering information and learning something. All a teacher can do is present the information (hopefully in ways that are understood). Then you have to do the learning part.

Good luck with it!

Tom

Hey Donzo.. You got some great reading material here but I'll go ahead and throw in my experience as a student just in case its an extra long bathroom break and you need a little more material to read. :lol:

I have been taking lessons since Feb. This isnt my first teacher but it is my first in a very long time. I have had a few failed attempts at learning guitar.

In the beginning I really liked this guy but it quickly wore off and I wondered what was happening. Why was I not progressing with him? Why does it seem like he doesnt remember my lessons from the next guys?

Then about the time I was ready to dump him, I just started talking to him. We spent almost a whole 30 min session just talking about how frustrated I was, what I was wanting to learn that I wasnt learning, how I hated that he was late for my lessons, etc. With that said, he made some changes, and it was magic every since.

Not that I havent had to talk to him since then, I think maybe twice more. But never a whole 30 min session. But I learned to communicate with my teacher and in doing so he knows very well where I am wanting to go, and when that changes (because my interests vary a bit) he can change with me.

I wouldnt trade this guy I am seeing for anything now. He's a terrific guitarist, explains material very well, he is flexible (which is worth more than nearly anything else), and we have a great way of communicating.

My point being that you may or may not have a good teacher, and only you can figure that out. But if you dont spend a session and discuss the concerns with him then he will never know that what he is doing isnt working. If you talk to him and things continue badly then it might be a good time to search around.

Good luck to ya though. I hope you get it worked out cause it stinks to pay money and not feel like you are progressing.

Regards
Geoo

A suggestion:

If you can read music then to some extent you'll know how to fish. A good book for this is the Aaron Shearer book. Actually there's three of them but the second book teaches reading music. The book is called Learning the Classic Guitar Part Two. Maybe your teacher wil help you get through the book in addition to teaching you songs. It has come scales in there, too. :)

Thank to everyone for all the feedback. Most of it fits with what I was
already thinking... but you know when you are a newbie, you don't know if
what you are thinking really makes sense or not :)

I do like my teacher and I don't think this is all his fault. I will talk
to him about it.

I guess "depressed" is a more accurate than "stressed"... the main issue
for me is to keep my practicing and playing "fun". I think the reason why
I'm feeling depressed is that, during my practice, I play a lot of the
songs I've learned... (this is the point, sitting on my porch swing), but
I've become a better critic than a player.... I know these songs should
sound better. (The other reason for depression, of course, is the fact
that the sun hasn't shone here for 2 weeks.)

So... I guess NoteBoat wins the prize.

I have 10+ songs or so kicking around in my practice folder at any given
time.

* There are one or two recent ones with new techniques that I haven't
mastered yet (and so are frustrating - I'm going through a bad bit there,
too, because the last few techniques I've been taught I'm taking a really
long time to get a handle on).

* There is one or two which I have recently "got" and am enjoying.

* Then there are the rest that seem to me to be getting simple and boring -
and should sound better - they are good songs, its not *their* fault :) These
are songs I learned a while ago. Eventually I get tired of a song in this
category and pull it out of my "practice" folder, never to be played again.

So - the solution for me is probably to slow down on pushing the envelope
with new songs. What I need to do is go back to those old songs and learn
how to breath some new life into them so they become fun again. Learn how
to add a hammer-on here and there, get the intro right, mix-up the
strumming pattern, etc.

I've done a couple of 1 hour classes that I really enjoyed, and I now
realise that is because it gave us enough time to run out of
"new material" (i.e. my brain would be full) and so we could go back and
review old stuff and that really helped.

Yeah - yak yak yak - I sure can crank out a lotta words here :) But this
has helped sort my brain out a bit and maybe I can shake the current guitar
blues I've been going through.

Of course, I still need to learn how to fish. But I can take my time.

Thanks everyone!

Don

Donzo, was going to add my thoughts, but it seems they've already been stated by a few people. So, welcome to guitar noise, and keep goin' at it!

Taso