What do you look for in a teacher – or in a student?

You've covered all the basics, I think. There's one more I'd add from personal experience: a sense of organization.

When I was a guitar student, every teacher I had began each lesson with the same question:

"What were we working on?"

It really ticked me off.

Had either one of the teachers I've had, had just done that one time I'd still be taking lessons. Sigh, too bad Noteboat is three hours north. :P

I'm teaching myself, I'm hopeing on geting some tips from this 'friend of a friend' dude that plays in a band, that could be in the next week/month, he told me he wanted me to learn this scale pattern, learn it well, backwards forwards FAST. I've done that, but so that are hour or so is worth it, and succeds all, so that I can take all that I possibly can from it, is there anything I can do, learn, practice...Oh and this bloke is heavy on guitar slang, so he says something that I totally 'know' but uses player slang and I can't understand, and I look like I know allot less than I actually do... :( any suggestions? tips? ANYTHING!? It would be very helpful :)

Sorry Chris C didn't mean to take over you post...I've been meening to ask on this board, just havent't gotten around to it, well haven't found a popular thread like this that I'd actually get an awser from :).

Oh and I should tell you all what I know. Lets start with the easiest riff ever...Smoke on the water, don't know the whole song though, anyone know where the rest of the tab for it is??? A lot of Major and minor chords, no b's though, I should work on that...I can do most/if not all scales I'm shown give me 15 min. or so... I don't know alot of tab, some sybals confuse me..

Thanks all
RagDoll

I thought about taking lessons. My dad was also adamant that I take lessons when I bought the guitar. Though his feelings about it couldn't have been that strong since he didn't want to pay for them.

I eventually decided against it for many reasons. First, I have my own way of doing things and learning things. Not only that, I question things too much, especially while learning. A teacher could tell me "open chords are the basis to guitar playing." And until the teacher proves it to me, I'm not going to believe them. And of course, money is always an issue.

So the best person to teach me to play would be............me. Though you all on the forum have been a tremendous help. I doubt I'd be at the level I am now if it weren't for your help.

I once read a quote that said "anything worth learning can't be taught." I wonder if it's true for learning guitar.

I suppose there are pros and cons.

Really though, every student learns things in their own way, and a good fit with a teacher will accelerate the process.

Plenty of students challenge everything - you're sure not alone there. I've sometimes gotten into discussions on physics, notation history, and other stuff that's pretty far afield. I try to keep those conversations fairly short - there's a balance between a student thinking they've gotten an answer to their question and a student thinking they're not learning enough guitar :)

I eventually decided against it for many reasons. First, I have my own way of doing things and learning things. Not only that, I question things too much, especially while learning. A teacher could tell me "open chords are the basis to guitar playing." And until the teacher proves it to me, I'm not going to believe them. And of course, money is always an issue.

So the best person to teach me to play would be............me.

Funnily enough, I'm extremely similar to you. :wink:

After many years of being self taught in a number of fields I find being shoved down somebody else's path very difficult to adjust to. I prefer to be able to set my own pace, and to either skip things or learn them obsessively depending on how I feel about them, and so on. And if I'm set some task to complete before next week I seem actually less likely to do it than if I'd chosen the the exact same task myself. Just cussed I suppose.

But I'd still recommend some contact with a teacher, if you can find one who will let you have some control over the process.

Here's why:

I had a term or two of lessons from a very experienced teacher who got me on my way. For various reasons I had to stop for a while, but it was actually quite a relief. I was starting to feel pressured by it all.

I now have lessons again, but I've told the teacher that at any time I might need to just stop and go it alone for a while. I've also told him that I don't actually want prepared lessons from him. I told him that I'd like to just turn up each week with a list of questions and get his answers and/or his help. He accepted that.

So now we work on whatever I'm stuck on. Sometimes he'll give me one of his standard printouts about something, and usually he'll write some notes in my book. But mostly we talk and then he shows me how to do what I've asked.

This works well, I can set my own pace and I'm not paying to hear some things that I already know. But the huge "bonus" benefit is that he can spot things that I didn't even know that I should ask about. :D

For instance, last week we were working on a song I'm learning and he noticed that my left hand fingerwork was wrong (I had gone to ask about some details with the other hand). I was going well on the first few frets, but as I went up the neck it was getting all random and messy. His advice (which took only a few seconds) saved me wasting a huge amount of time playing badly and entrenching a habit that could have taken months to fix up later down the track.

Little things like that can be worth all the time and money. 8)

Cheers, Chris.

A good teacher won't care if you think you know a better way, they've all had plenty of students who did . . . occassionally (though not often) one was even right about it :)

But what the good teacher will do is save you a ton of time learning things wrong because you lack the experience to understand some nuanced point.

They'll also make sure that you don't ignore important techniques and that you don't miss material you aren't even aware of needing.

There are exceptions, as with any generality, but for the most part self-taught guitarists neither make progress as quickly as those who are led by a good teacher, nor do they have as complete a skill set.

On the flip side, a bad teacher (including self-taught) can do enough damage to a student's skill set that sometimes it becomes too much for a good teacher to fix in any reasonable amount of time. Habits are hard to break.

Having a teacher has its advantages but its drawbacks as well. While they know how the guitar better than me, they don't know me better than me.

I don't really care too much about having a complete skill set. All I care about is playing the music I like but more importantly, playing the music I like with attitude. Which doesn't require a large bag of tricks to do.

I've been doing the teaching myself thing for the past eight or nine months. It's going ok, I suppose. I still feel like I am learning. I have a musical background, so that helped a lot, I would imagine. I didn't have to learn rhythms, staffs, keys, what scales are, any of that stuff. I just had to apply it to this instrument.

But I have gotten a teacher. I start this coming Monday. I really felt like I needed someone to guide me. Sure, I was working on chord changes, scales, etc. Stagnation was looming head; I could feel it creeping up on me. I was soon approaching a point that I didn't know which direction to go. That's the reason I found a teacher.

Plus, the guy is really in to bluegrass. I believe his views are really going to stretch me, musically, which is very important to me. The whole reason I am doing this is to have fun! Variety is the spice of life!

Good luck on your up coming lessons Banre. My teacher is a jazz guitarist and when I first started going to him I was like "I dont wanna know no stinking Jazz" and really I still dont.. Atleast not yet. But this guy has such differing view on music because of his jazz background that we get into REALLY cool stuff. He makes me think out side of my little box when it comes to music and that has been terrific.

Geoo

I'm like that too onewingedangel...I don't know, someone mentions 'Takeing lessons' and I practically cringe at the suggestion...I just think that I'd be better off learning on my own, there are no expectations besides my own, and I guess right now they are enormous, but it's better than...I don't know I guess I'm just a jibbering idiot and now I am going to go read through the lessons!!!

Hopefully I will learned somthing by tommorow so I can come on here and thank you all for the good input! :) :-)

LMAO (at myself) :) :) :)

I don't learn well by someone telling me how to do something. I learn best through trial and error. Just yesterday I learned how NOT to bring the head up near your head while playing it.

Plus guitar teachers don't teach the essential skills, like head banging while playing, how to play while sliding on your knees across the stage and the ever necessary: jamming through commercial breaks.

I am going to drop a bomshell on all self taught guitarist (i only had lessons for a couple of months so I include myself) Every time you practice from a book, off the internet or ask a question here, You are being taught by someone else. You actually have numerous teachers, it just isn't face to face in a classroom setting.

I am going to drop a bomshell on all self taught guitarist (i only had lessons for a couple of months so I include myself) Every time you practice from a book, off the internet or ask a question here, You are being taught by someone else. You actually have numerous teachers, it just isn't face to face in a classroom setting.

Or expensive since everyone is so willing to share.

The place is great!

I am going to drop a bomshell on all self taught guitarist (i only had lessons for a couple of months so I include myself) Every time you practice from a book, off the internet or ask a question here, You are being taught by someone else. You actually have numerous teachers, it just isn't face to face in a classroom setting.

Or expensive since everyone is so willing to share.

The place is great!
I second that emotion. :D

That is true, to a certain extent anyway. I think the difference lies in you don't have anyone to show you the technique so you sort of have to mess around and fiddle around with it. It depends how you learn too. Sometimes pictures, or the right descriptions, are enough so you don't have to tinker around. For me, reading words on how to do it doesn't help me much, unless I need to know something really simple. Pictures are better, depending on what I'm trying to do.

Though for an interesting counter-point. It could be said that everyone is self-taught. Because even if a teacher shows you something, you take the technique and make it your own. This happens even if you are trying to copy it. It often happened in my art class. The teacher would show us a technique then end up with 20 versions of the technique from the class.