Was it a good idea?

Just starting guitar but I play several other instruments all self taught but one... and that one was esier to learn thanks to instruction.
I will be getting guitar lessons its the best way to go.

Well, i havnt had professional lessons, but have had pointers and tips from friends who play guitar, and i am in a band now which is making me improve rapidly. The style my band focuses on is Punk and Acid. And i am fairly compotent at those. I have, by myself, started developing my acoustic skills, you know, chords and scales and stuff, and that is coming across quite nicely, and my song writing is improving every time i try to write, i feel happy with my progress in playing guitar, just that people with lessons professionaly seem to be getting to the skill stage that i am at in half the time, but lack a decent technique, i have to admit, a lot of my time practacing has been used to develop my technique, and at the moment it is far from perfect, but it is decent enough, compared to the people who have had professional lessons.

Im really looking for other peoples experiences, thankyou for your input :D

Since I started playing guitar nearly 2 years ago i have been teaching myself, whic i thought was the best way as paying for lessons as a student is not really feasible. But some of my friends have had lessons and have been playing for about half the time i have and are at the stage i am, the only difference is i have developed my own techniques and am slightly ahead in the song writing area than them. Was that a good idea, or are lessons an investment?

I started to play 1 year and a half ago, learning by myself for about 1 year. I started to take lesson 6 months ago and I improve a lot more in 6 months than I did in a whole year.

A teacher will be able to show you new things that you didn't know and teach you some theory (if you want) that can be very helpful to understand how the guitar works

Thanks, from what is posted here i might try and squeeze some money out of tight student budget to pay for lessons, but i think the worship leader at my church has offered me lessons for free :P so if i can find time for them then i am sorted, but college work takes up a lot of time.

I've been doing my thing (whatever it ends up being) for around (gasp) seven years now. I've just been picking up tips from others as I go. This means that I've gotta be around others who play, which I'm not always, so I definitely haven't been making the progress I could be in the last while.

My first year of owning a guitar was pretty much wasted trying to play Hendrix by ear and throwing out any and all chords, scales, anything. This was a slow year, to say the least.

Overall, lessons probably would be helpful in some ways, but I'm fairly happy with where I'm at.

I you can't afford a regular teacher there are tons of lessons on you tube free--also dvds you can buy or download on mininova.org(not that i have ever done that) :wink:
when ever you get stuck it would be good to get a lesson from someone to move forward.
thats the way i have done it--but i suck :D

"Lessons aren't feasible due to funds", is the case for me as well. But I have spent money on books and a dvd or two. The books help alot, and as mentioned before Youtube is helpful for free tutorials and just watching your favorite artist jam. Right now I'm going through the Berkley Guitar Method and Total acoustic Guitar. I'm really enjoying these.

Based on your responses you may also be interested in the Paul Baloche dvd's. I have the acoustic guitar one and really enjoy it. If you buy his cd's they are Enhanced with chord charts and quicktime videos showing how to play his songs. Very cool.

Again, thanks guys. This is giving me loads of help. As for playing with people, nearly every time i play im playing with people, either in my band or just jammin with friends. I have like 400 worsip songs sheet music on my computer aswell with the chord diagrams and stuff on, and they are helping me learn more chords, and my friend just gave me a book with a load of sheet music and chord diagrams in, so this should help me a lot too. My main focus is punk and hard rock, but i have started teaching myself other styles, including acoustic and easy finger picking, and this has helped me a lot to round my skills and techniques.

I might try some of the youtube lessons, they have been getting a great press from everyone so they must be worth a gander.

Thanks again for your help guys, ROCK ON!

PS: I might invest in some paul baloche cds then, i love his song 'crucified' and would love the chords and music for it.

I've been playing for well over 30 years, & took lessons for a while in 2006. It was a great investment for me, being that even though I've played music nearly my whole life, I knew NOTHING about modes & scales & stuff. I learned a LOT in 6 months of lessons, & have been giving lessons myself for about a year now. I am (& have been forever) a church player, bass, sax, rythym, & for the last 2 years, lead guitar (although I've been working on it for about 20 years). Once I started playing on stage as the lead player, I really had to develop, both my style & confidence, and had to be able to play Baloche, Brewster, Casting Crowns, etc. Experience is a great teacher, but it always helps to know the basics (or not-so-basics) if you have someone to teach you. I have some friends who I would definately pay to sit with me for a one hour session to show me some tips & tricks. Likewise, I have students who just need an every now-and-then clinic on stuff that I know, that they would love to figure out. DVDs & YouTube are great assets. There are some cool dudes out there with real teaching and playing skills, plus you can see everyone you want, playing just about everything. Heck, look up a little Yngwie or Albert Lee to get you fired up.
Good Luck!!

Well here is a link to a cool site you might like http://www.christianguitar.com/
It has all most evry christian song I'd bet

Well here is a link to a cool site you might like http://www.christianguitar.com/
It has all most evry christian song I'd bet

I use that quite alot anyway, its got some great relient K tabs and anberlin tabs, and ive learnt some songs of there slowly! Thanks for the pointer anyway :D

Sometimes, it can boil down to a question of priorities.......

Do I spend that tenner (and more!) I've saved on a guitar lesson or a couple of sets of strings?

Is it worth asking a REALLY good guitarist for a few tips - even though it's going to cost me money, and said guitar teacher may not even know, let alone be into, the genre of music I'm into?

or should I do it the hard way, look up some tabs on the net, and struggle to put something together myself?

I went the hard way - I couldn't afford lessons, so I looked for guitar sites - found guitarnoise. I did try ONE other site before - a site called guitarnotes. There's a lot of good tabs on there, and quite a few not-so-accurate tabs - but what convinced me to throw my lot in with GN was the free lessons, the Easy Song Database (I'd replied to a couple of threads, and all of a sudden a certain Mr Inman was asking me to tab out "Rumble" by Link Wray......

I honestly think 90% (at least) of all the good advice you could ever want can be found on these pages.....if you want to take the next step up, and become a GREAT guitarist, well, there's quite a few hanging around here.....for instance, check Steinar Gregertsson's profile, and listen to some of his slide/lap steel music. You'd have to go a LONG way to hear better playing - for me, the guy's a musical genius, and yet he still finds the time to come on here and offer advice.....

There are others....David Hodge has a great gift for melody, and try listening to some of the MP3's people have posted in the Sunday Songwriter's Group. It's been great over the last few years or so to hear people like Celt, Pbee, Katreich etc post their own songs - and even better to see how they've developed, both as songwriters and musicians, over the last few years. Look at BarnabusRox - he couldn't play two chords when he started in the SSG, could hardly string a sentence together - now he writes decent songs, he's got goals, and more importantly, he knows what he's got to do to achieve those goals.

Make yourself a plan - decide what YOU want to do with guitar. Rhythm, lead, whatever.....then work out what you've got to do to make your plans come true. If you need a teacher, so be it - beg, steal or borrow (New Seekers, 1972 - I bet a few of the older Brits won't aadmit to knowing that one!) the money.

I wish you all the best.....but always remember, there's no substitute for practise!

:D :D :D

Vic

Vic is 100% right what you need to deside is what do you want to do and then get good at what you what to do.