I have had 5 weeks of guitar lessons and on the first week he told me the parts of the guitar gave me some finger patterns and told me to make him a CD of songs I like. Week 2 I gave him the CD and he gave me a blues pattern and some more finger patterns. Week 3 I asked him if he got a song off the CD, he said he didn't get a chance to look at it. He gave me another blues pattern and the C major scale. Week 4 he taught me about whole steps and half steps the notes on the guitar and told me to play the C major scale. Week 5 we listened to the CD and he wrote down the chords and strum pattern that was only about 15 seconds into the song. He gave me the G and D major scale. I only get a half hour a week and I don't feel that things are progressing at a normal pace. What do you think?
I have been teaching mysef to play for a year but I just started lessons two weeks ago. My first two lessons have basically been about finger exercises, learning a few major scales, and how to find the notes on the fretboard. The finger exercise's and scales are not the most fun thing to play, and learning the notes and how to find them wasn't that fun, but it was not difficult either. My teacher says he basiclly starts teaching everyone from the same point, I guess how much a person knows or how quick you learn will determine how fast one progress. He told me during my first lesson that his focus is not teaching me songs, but rather teaching me to play guitar, he has a certain approach and I think the things I'm learning now are just building blocks, thats the way I choose to look at it. Whats a normal pace for lessons, I would be interested to hear what others say. If he were just teaching you songs, and not the scales and blues patterns I might be more concerned, but then I dont know your current level of playing, either way I wish you the best, If this teacher dosent work for you I'm sure there are others that can help. Have you tried talking with your teacher about your concerns?
I actually have not taken lessons in a lot of years but mostly because I dropped out for awhile.
When I started lessons I had already been playing for close to a year and was being taught by the 2 brothers that I was already playing with. Since they were basically teaching me songs by showing me the chords and patterns for rhythm I felt I needed to get to a teacher.
When I was taking lessons the teacher focused on the finger board, scales, chords and mostly technique. I remember him telling me that if he taught me these things I could teach myself the songs and he was right.
I was actually taking double lessons from him. 1/2 hour on the guitar and the other 1/2 on reading music. Rarely did he give me songs to do unless it was to exercise chord changing.
Is he teaching you how to apply the scales you are learning? Is he teaching you the theory that goes along with those scales? Are you learning anything about chords and rhythm? Do you have a specific guitar goal that you are trying to achieve?
I think your first step is to figure out what it is exactly that you want to get out of the guitar. Then you need to sit down with your teacher and discuss how he is going to help you acheive your goals.
"My ex-boyfriend can't tell me I've sold out, because he's in a cult, and he's not allowed to talk to me." --Dar Williams
I really don't like the teaching that just does scales and notes on the guitar. I think this is just either school music teacher approach or someone trying to teach a concert guitarists - which probably most of us will never achieve.
Much better for a teacher to start showing you how to play something, like the lessons on guitar noise. Have some fun from day one. I took classical lessons for 5 weeks and it was just one excercise after another - OK it taught me some stuff, but I learn more quickly when I am enthusiastic. Anyway at 57 years old I figured by the time I had learned all this theory and note reading stuff I'd be too old to carry the guitar!
Just learned to play American Pie - love it..
I have had a lot of teachers over the years and now I am teaching people - not for money, just because I like it. You have to understand that you will not always realize the importance of things you are learning. Go rent the Karate Kid part one and you will see what I mean. I think your teacher is on the right track. I usually take a brand new player and tell them to learn the open ABCDEFG chords, then I give them a major scale and a pentatonic scale to get their fingers moving. After that I give them the ABCDEFG minors, and introduce barre chords. Once all that is pretty well learned, I start them improvising melodies (solos) over chord progressions.
Scales and chords and whole/half/mis-steps are all important, but I feel strongly that they need to be taught in the context of learning songs.
"This is an E, and this is an A. Now go home and play 'Feelin Alright' until you're sick of it."
If your teacher is not giving a purpose to your lessons, I would discuss it with him, and switch teachers if he doesn't react. Remember that YOU are the customer.
-Laz
Let him know how you feel. Tell him that while you know that scales and whatnot are important, but you need a actual song to make sure you don't burn out on guitar. He should understand (especially if he has been teaching guitar for a while). If he still doesn't do that, you need to find another teacher.
Gun control is using both hands!!!
I realize that 30 minutes is not very long, but it seems there should be a way to spend maybe 20 minutes on some of this basic theory, scales etc, and at least 10 minutes applying this to some "real world" song that the student is interested in. Even if you're taking lessons to learn formal theory you should also spend a little bit of time learning something fun. Maybe this presents a burden on teachers to spend too much time preparing for their students (Like I said, 30 minutes can go by real fast) but then 25-30 bucks/week is a fair chunk of change for most people.
