Greetings all,
I'm yet another 38-year old beginner - well, actually I'm not a true beginner, having taken a year or so of classical guitar lessons when I was 10, played in a punk band in high school, and then did a semester of intro guitar in college. So here I am picking it up for the fourth time and feeling pretty good about it - it's amazing how quickly the basics come back to you.
I like finding tabs of some favorite songs and trying to bash them out. (I play a cheap Epiphone nylon-stringed classical and an Ibanez semi-hollow electric through a Line 6 amp, mainly on the "chunky" channel.)
But I have almost no understanding of music theory and can read only basic notation. I am considering a weekly "group lesson" for adult beginners given at a local school. Unfortunately there is no way to contact the instructor beforehand (the class is coordinated by the county parks service, not the actual instructor) and I'm concerned that it will be too basic. Does anyone have experience with these types of lessons? Are they geared to true beginners, or might there be opportunity to customize the lessons a little bit to someone with just a pinch more experience? Any comments, positive or negative, would be appreciated.
Cheers,
"Everybody got to elevate from the norm."
I started playing about 3 months ago. I learned most of the chords I needed from this web site. Then I learned a few songs from this web site. I looked into private lessons but they were way too expensive. When I looked into group lessons there were 3 to choose from - first step, the next step and intermediate. The description for first step was tuning the guitar, how a guitar is constructed, basic theory and some simple songs. The next step was for people who new some chords but wanted to learn a little more. And I'm no sure about intermediate.
I chose " The next step ". It took a few classes for me to catch up to everyone but I'm glad I didn't go into the first step. So far we have learned about 20 songs, unfortunately I've only heard about 3 before. The instructor is a little older. We have learned quite a bit of music theory too. Luckily it started off at right about my level of understanding. We learned how to change the key of a song, how to use the capo and what it does and some other stuff. I'm sure that all the basic music theory was covered in the first step but that is all very simple stuff that you can read about on this site.
As for customizing the lesson I think that it would depend on how many people were in the class. In my class we have about 15 people and there looks to be quite a strict cirriculum. There is also a class right after ours. So if you want to ask a question thats off topic you have very little chance. I'm glad that I took group lessons because they were well worth the money. $75 for 10 - hour and a half lessons. It's pretty hard to go wrong for $5 an hour. I think that I will still need private lessons but this was a good start.
Hope this helps.
I can look back with a smile, knowing that my ambition far exceeded my talent.
Thanks J Rock - that's very good info. The description to this course sounds like your "first step" course - tuning, stringing, and then some basics. There is a level II course which might be more like your "next step" so I think I'll look into that.
Regards,
"Everybody got to elevate from the norm."
