Missing out on how much, if not taking lessons?

Reading everyone's concerns about money etc is making me wonder if I've got some sort of budget guitar teacher, but anyway...

I've been having lessons once a week now for about 11 months. I owned my guitar for a couple of years before that and would periodically decide I was gonna learn. I'd buy a new book and say i was gonna follow it and practice every day but I never really worked. The main problem I have is with the 'step-by-step' way these books try to teach you. I have one that claims to be a crash course on guitar, with daily lessons to follow. Day one, strumming down. Day two, strumming up and down. Day three, a chord! and so on. If I had stuck with this plan I probably would only now be able to start playing actual songs.

What my guitar teacher does is ask you what you actually want to play, and get you playing it as simply as possible quickly. For example, the first track I asked to learn was Design for Life by the Manic Street Preachers. This is actually quite simple but seemed daunting aat the time. It's some basic chords but played with alternate picking. So looking at the tab knowing very little about guitar I was lost. He explained the chords to me, showed me how to strum them correctly at the start of each beat and I went home a happy young lad being able to play one of my favourite tracks, sort of.

Now, this may not seem like the best way to learn to play, but we talked about what I wanted to get out of guitar (ie being able to play ear melting solos all the way up to the 24th fret for hours at a time) and therefore how much theory i wanted to know. By the end of my second lesson I was able to play three scales, knew how scales fitted with the key of a song and could already feel my inner guitar hero appearing. Since then I've learnt plenty of other songs in the same way, simplifying them as much as necessary so I could play what I wanted, not plodding my way through three blind mice or the meaningless chord patterns in books.

My not too clear point being, my teacher is able to judge how well I'm understanding things and how much information I can absorb each week. I'm not stuck progressing at the speed a book suggests or worse the speed I think i should be progressing (I can be a bit of a perfectionist. One day I'll be rocking the budokan and still feel a bit embarassed at all the people listening to me). You can read a book or an article and think you've understood it, but there's always questions you'd like to ask, and sometimes for me it seems a few pertinent questions asked at the introduction of a new concept can make the whole thing seem much simpler. I find you learn things from a book but you understand them from a teacher (what a cheesy line).

That being said, I'm lucky that the current financial problems in the world haven't affected me really, plus my sister's friend is married to a fully certified guitar teacher who lives two streets away, so it isn't something I had to agonise over. But if it were a choice between two lessons with my teacher or a new guitar theory book, I'd go with the two lessons.

Reading everyone's concerns about money etc is making me wonder if I've got some sort of budget guitar teacher

I don't think you have a budget teacher its just more difficult to spend money on yourself as you get older. For me (40 year old father) to pay for regular lessons would be a luxury. I paid for 2 years of guitar lessons for my son. I saw it as a way of backing him and I thought playing guitar is a good social skill to have and his teacher told him if he learnt to play well he would be fending young ladies off with a ***** stick :wink:

I don't think you have a budget teacher its just more difficult to spend money on yourself as you get older. For me (40 year old father) to pay for regular lessons would be a luxury. I paid for 2 years of guitar lessons for my son. I saw it as a way of backing him and I thought playing guitar is a good social skill to have and his teacher told him if he learnt to play well he would be fending young ladies off with a ***** stick :wink:

Amen to that brother!!!

I don't think you have a budget teacher its just more difficult to spend money on yourself as you get older. For me (40 year old father) to pay for regular lessons would be a luxury. I paid for 2 years of guitar lessons for my son. I saw it as a way of backing him and I thought playing guitar is a good social skill to have and his teacher told him if he learnt to play well he would be fending young ladies off with a ***** stick

I agree, I pay for my 6 year old son and 10 year old daughter to take piano lessons each week. It's $18 a half hour which I think is reasonable, and their teacher is great with kids. Now they want my daughter to double her lesson time simply because her music can't be covered in a short span. I look at it as an investment, studies have shown kids who study music do better in school and life generally. I would rather have them playing music than playing video games (they do that too). I couldn't see spending this much on myself, but I think it is very worthwhile to give my kids a good music education.

I'm so happy I decided to take lessons. I started our on my own for about 7 months and I was very determined and focused to learn the very basics so when the time for lessons came around I seemed to have an easier transition, bad habits acquired and all . :oops: I'm very pleased with my instructor he told me right away I was going to learn theory (big gasp from me) but looking back at it now I wouldn't have it any other way. :mrgreen: If you have the time and money do lessons and make sure you find a great instructor.

Just another brainfart...

My lessons were 1/2 hour. It seemed that just as we were getting into it, time was up. I wonder if most lessons are set at 1/2 hour because, imo, most lessons are geared towards kids. And most kids have a short attention span. I was the only adult at my time spot.

I pay for an hour, 9 times out of 10 I'm there an hour and a half, I even came in an extra day for class with no charge. :D

Just another brainfart...

My lessons were 1/2 hour. It seemed that just as we were getting into it, time was up. I wonder if most lessons are set at 1/2 hour because, imo, most lessons are geared towards kids. And most kids have a short attention span. I was the only adult at my time spot.

The first couple of lessons I had were 30 minute lessons and as I said earlier I left that teacher. The ones I've had with the second teacher have been 90 minutes or more. It probally takes me 10 minutes to warm up and get up to speed, so the 30 minute lessons flew by.

Well, as a young man who pays very little rent i'm happy to spend money on myself (that makes me sound about bit bad, i am actually quite generous, as I have a poor grasp of the value of money. I need to become a rock star before life catches up with me). I pay £9.00 a week for a 45min lesson which seems pretty reasonable. And as i'm the last lesson of the day so we often end up discussing theory and stuff for up to half an hour after. That's another thing i really appreciate about my teacher. He could kick me out after 45mins but he's happy to make sure I completely understand any new concepts before I leave.

Lessons is definetly worth while

I started out self taugh (about 2 and half years ago) and was happy with my progress but came to a brick wall on where I should be going next.

I started getting lessons about a year ago and was happy with that as well but then I stopped going as he was always too busy!

My current teacher is actually a mate which makes it more casual and easy going. He is excellent - I have had about 10 lessons (a 2 hour session a week) and looking back I have learnt a lot. 2 hours fly by as well.

The main thing is you need to keep learning - if you come to a point where your not sure where to go etc... then a teacher is a good bet. They can be expensive but worthwhile if you really want to progress. The main thing is to have fun with the guitar.