Anyone in here never take guitar lessons from a teacher?

I've never had lessons from a teacher, but that does not mean I haven't had lessons. I would buy good guitar instruction books and study those.
I spent a lot of time copying records. I would also watch good guitar players and copy what they were doing on guitar.

Probably the greatest advantage of being self-taught is that you develop a very good ear. I can learn most songs by just listening to a recording in a few minutes.

The downside is that I do not have a very good understanding of theory, and I do not sight read very well.

I think you can improve quicker by having lessons and have a better understanding of music. So if you can afford lessons, take them.

But if not, just play. You'll get it.

I have never taken a guitar lesson in my life, though I have and did use books to learn I still didnt have a teacher. In lessons you have a teacher showing your how to do thing when you got a book you mainly have to figure out your on way. Now I am taking a Music Theory Class at my high school but it doesnt teach guitar nor is it really lessons because im not paying for it and its a class not just one teacher and one student.

I never had a teacher throughout my guitar journey. I started three years ago reading websites, (especially this one :mrgreen: ) and started from scatch.

Being in band for a few years helped me with some basic things.
I used to sing alot with my friends. So that really helped me with tone recognition and harmonizing.

I been playing for less than a year, and I never took any lessons. I been getting bettter, but I it takes time. Being 19 if I live long, 20 years from now I should be ok. I just play for fun, I'm not in a band or anything and I don't plan on it. I just wondered is someone that takes lessons, better than a person that learns from books and cds. :roll:

Seven Years and counting. . .

Joe Gattusso is my hero.

Kido

I have but i would hardly call them lessons. I only took them a few times. One of the guys taught me nothing (literally) and the other taught me next to nothing.

I've never had lessons. The only sort of "instruction" i had was when i bought a book with like 2000 chord formations. I can't read music, have no idea what a scale is (other than pentatonic box scales), I never know what key i'm playing in and i don't know the names to 60% of the chords I know. I've never really had a desire to learn any of that either, because I can do everything I've wanted to do on the guitar anyways. If I want to learn a song, I listen to it repeatledy, find the chords used online, then i figure out how they fit and where.

I have taken some lessons, and I think they are pretty usefull but very expensive and the time seems to fly. I learned travis picking without knowing what it was called and proper hand/finger position for the strings which helps me a lot. Even though I liked the lessons I think this site is a much better way to learn, you have the benefit of unlimited time rather than practicing from sheets of paper that don't contain mp3 or midi files.

This site rocks!

I've played guitar for about 7 years now, but I only started taking lessons about 3 years ago, about a year ago I bought myself a classical guitar so I started learning how to play classical guitar and rock guitar. I think taking lessons are really good if you plan on progressing with guitar. That's not to say if you don't have a guitar teacher then you suck, that's not it at all, even if you know a friend who plays guitar and you two exchange riffs and techniques maybe a couple times a month... that WILL improve your playing, not to mention inspire you to keep playing. Even learning from sites like this and soaking in all the information will help you to a degree (unfortunatly, there aren't too many great guitar sites like this one) I think that's what guitar lessons do (good ones anyways): they will keep improving your playing (whether it's technique, songwriter, etc.) and it will inspire you to keep playing and wanting to improve your playing.

I took lessons way back in the 70s - completely put me off the guitar. I think the teacher was a music teacher and just used what he did in school - three blind mice and all.

Then had a lesson last year - but the teacher wasn't good for me - persuaded me to change from left to right handed - didn't work but he wouldn't teach me otherwise - I have gone back to being a lefty.

One other teacher turned up only twice.

Now I understand there are some very good teachers out there - but if you do take one make sure it is exactly what you need.... Bad teachers are worse than no teacher. Like many others I now use books, especially the ones with a CD...

Lessons? Lessons? We Don't need no stinking lessons!!!!
Sorry-couldn't resist.
I find that most people, and I say MOST people that never
had lessons or SOME sort of instruction like books or tapes or
whatever. did two things.
A: they never were able to do more than cover tunes.
and they were the run of the mill same ol same ol ones
B: Pawned the thing or gave it away and got on with their
life.

I had three years of lessons from a very good teacher
Everything in the lessons was geared towards session playing
If I really wanted to, maybe even now(yeah, right) I could land a studio gig, playing crap I hated for someone I like even less...
LOL Nashville and deal with Red Necks, NewYork and deal with unions
or L.A. and deal with flakes.

I'm glad I took the lessons even though I don't play anywhere but in my
den anymore.

Lessons will do anyone good IF they devote the time and discipline that is required.

One lesson was 30 minutes in length. the exercises that accompianed
the lesson was to be practiced as part of a two hour a day session
Then there was that really NASTY green book full of Mel Bay finger exercises - Great, now my fingers are hurting.

Oh and if there was a song I wanted to learn This guy was a whiz at figuring things out quickly. not only would I learn the song, but he'd figure out how to make that song compatible with the current lesson plan.

No you don't NEED lessons to play the guitar, but if you have the $$$
which really ain't too bad usually and more importantly you have the time and the determination to follow thru with it and some one around to teach that's worth a flip, they will definatly improve your playing ability.

Now how LONG do you need to take lessons?... that's a whole nother
can a worms.

I'm guessing that depends on the individual, I mean you can become some sort a commited (LOL ought to be commited) student of guitar,
travelling from one school of music to another, atttending seminar after
seminar but I dunno I took lessons til I was satisfied with my ability
and I knew that if I wanted to study further than what I was, I'd have to
pretty much do the above.

After about an eight year hiatus, I'm back to the routine of two hours a day and have been so for about a year and a month :D

I'm a fan of lessons, and not just because I teach. I've taken lessons on guitar, piano, theory, percussion, composition, and improvisation over the years, and they've helped a lot.

I think I might have just gotten lucky with some of my teachers, up until I started seriously studying piano about 6 years ago. My first piano teacher (through a local music store) lasted all of one lesson... then he 'fessed up to the fact that he was really a jazz trombone player who made a couple extra bucks teaching piano to kids. My second one had credentials - a degree in piano performance and education, but she was fairly useless as a teacher, and I only took about 6 lessons from her. The third (and last) teacher was a retired concert pianist, and my playing just took off - I was extremely pleased.

I started to wonder about the differences in the teachers I had, and I came to the conclusion that there's a sort of historical lineage: the piano was the instrument of choice about 100 years ago, sort of like the guitar in the 1960s/70s. A lot of pianists were self taught, and a lot of them then went on to teach others. Bad habits might have become a part of the curriculum, somehow. My third teacher could trace an unbroken line of piano instruction back to master pianists of the 1800s (Liszt, Chopin), so what worked for them and their students got handed down. Perhaps it's like martial arts - a lot of the knowledge you need can't really be written down.

At any rate, there are lots of guitarists, perhaps even the majority, who are self taught. Many of them now teach others, so perhaps there's the same sort of lineage to bad teaching. However, if you look at those guitarists with truly brilliant technical abilities, virtually all of them took lessons.

I guess the real question is: how good do you want to be? If you want to be in the top echelons of guitarists, you'll spend the time to find a good teacher, and spend the money and effort to make the best use of the instruction. If you'll be satisfied with less, act according to your inlcination and budget.

been playing for 10years exactly... no lessons.

just about to get some though - i'm thinking about getting a qualification so as to be able to teach people myself.

i learned guitar from records.. i mean CD's - so my reading is pretty poor.

I've been playing about 10 months and haven't taken lessons. I've found the internet and this website in particular very helpful in expanding my understanding of music. Right now I'm concentrating on learning scales and have been addicted to playing blues licks up and down the neck using pentatonic major. I'm starting to work on pentatonic minor now. I spent most of yesterday experimenting with drop D tuning and even made up a song that popped into my head from nowhere. It's the second song I've written, the other being this middle-eastern/spanish guitar type of peice.

In the future I would like to take some lessons, mainly to refocus my playing and to see where I stand and how I've been progressing as a player. Sorta like measuring up to a musical yard stick.

I really think it depends on what your goals are as a guitarist and the ammount of patientce you have. Me? I'm incredibly patient, I've spent most of my time learning technique (bends, vibrato, scales, chord changes, picking, ect). Once I get pentatonic minor down I think I'm going to start learning more songs. I'm not looking to join a band or anything, I just like to play so I'm not going to worry about lessons.