Last update 5/2/2024
One of the great things about learning how to play the guitar is that it is a never-ending quest. Whether you are a beginner just starting or a seasoned pro with a ton of experience under your belt, there is always something new to learn – and that’s a good thing!
Guitar Lesson Tips
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In our opinion, one of the best options you can do to enhance your guitar playing skills is to take one-on-one formal guitar lessons with a well-qualified guitar teacher. That being said, we’re sure you are wondering why I would take classes when I can do it for me.
Formal guitar lessons
Great question – and it’s certainly worth asking, especially when you look at all the great resources to learn guitar online.
So why would taking lessons be better for your development? That’s what we are going to discuss today in this article.
Formal lessons should be customized to suit the student’s requirements.
While taking formal lessons isn’t a perfect solution (with some downsides), the benefits outweigh the negatives. Let’s take a look!
Pro: You’re ignorant
OK – let’s step back for a minute. No, we aren’t trying to imply that you aren’t intelligent – not at all! To get our point, let’s look at the definition of the word ‘ignorant’: it can be defined as “destitute of knowledge or education” (Merriam-Webster).
Simply put, it means you don’t know what you don’t know. That’s not a bad thing! This is particularly true when you are just learning how to play.
Not to scare any beginners off, but the bare fact is this – learning how to play the guitar isn’t something that people can typically ‘pick up and go’ (if it was that easy, anyone could do it, right?).
Think about all you have to learn at the start:
- What the parts of a guitar are
- How to hold one
- Figuring out how to strum
- Figuring out how to pick individual notes
And that’s just working on the instrument’s mechanics and physical part. Throw on even basic music theory (which is essentially the language of music), and you can easily see where a beginner may not know where to turn or what to do.
“Enthusiasm is everything. It must be taut and vibrating like a guitar string.” Pele
A good guitar teacher will give you a roadmap to follow as you learn. They have been there themselves, so they will know how best to guide you along:
- What topics to learn?
- When to learn them.
- When it’s time to start focusing on something new to explore.
Pro: Holding you accountable
Why do some people hire personal trainers when trying to lose weight or have better health? Working out can be a royal pain because – as anyone will tell you. It’s so easy to be all fired up initially and lose interest over time.
While a personal trainer can tell you what exercises to do, they also keep you motivated and always striving to do more (and do it better).
The keyword here is accountability. Accountability ranges from young children to guitarists of any age. And it can be vital to have when the ‘going gets rough’ when, as a player, you start to hit some roadblocks and speed bumps in your progress.
One of our staff writers has an excellent story about this very topic. When he was younger, he had stars in his eyes, thinking he would be the next major guitar hero. So his parents invested their money in a decent guitar and even more money with a local guitar teacher with an excellent reputation.
Over time, it became apparent that our friend, in his young mind, was losing the urge to be successful. He didn’t practice what the teacher presented, which was blatantly obvious. So what did the teacher do?
The outcome
He could have just said, ‘Whatever – I’m getting paid no matter what this kid decides to do or not to do.’ But he didn’t. One day, after another situation where our friend didn’t deliver, the teacher told him to put his guitar away. For the next several minutes, he proceeded to teach him a lesson more important than any guitar topic could be.
“Someone told me the smile on my face gets bigger when I play the guitar.” Niall Horan
He pointed out that he (our friend) wasted his (the teacher’s time). He was also wasting his parent’s time – and their money.
And, maybe most importantly, he pointed out that our friend was destroying his own time.
It was one thing to not care about anyone else’s time, but not respecting himself enough to learn was simply inexcusable.
He held our friend accountable for his actions. And it hit home – it was a life lesson that, to this day, is burned into his mind.
Here’s the story’s moral: Guitar teachers (well, any music teacher, really) are the music world’s trainers.
Con: It can be expensive
Formal guitar lessons held in a one-on-one environment can be expensive. There’s no denying that, and it is fair to say that it’s likely to be more costly than any paid (and self-guided) online lesson program you may encounter.
But that cost needs to be taken into perspective. If your car broke down, do you know how to fix it yourself? Would you know what to do, when to do it? Would you have the right tools? Most likely, the answer is no – you wouldn’t.
A great guitar teacher should be considered (to use an analogy) one of the best mechanics you could take your car to get it repaired. You are paying for the knowledge and experience that this person has and that they will teach you to enable you to succeed.
Conclusion
One point to make here – as we alluded to in our introduction for this article, guitarists of all skill levels will pretty much always have something new to learn. So, while some of our points about taking formal guitar lessons may seem to be directed at beginners, the same things are valid for those around the block a bit.
They still may be ignorant (remember, that’s not a bad word in the proper context) about specific guitar-focused topics, and they most certainly can get just as uninspired as any beginner does. And that’s where a great guitar teacher can make a world of difference.
In the end, we feel our recommendation to take formal guitar lessons (at least at some point when you are learning how to play) can be a priceless experience, and it may far outweigh any monetary cost that you may have at the time.
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Guitar For Dummies Paperback – Amazon
