Are you taking guitar lessons?

Session 5

Session 5

Ambassador of Strings & Wings
Country flag
Since my retirement four and three quarter years ago, I started taking lessons. And as of now continue to go once per week through the winter months. through the Summer every 2nd week. My first Instructor taught me some good things though we butted heads and called it quits. My new Instructor is my age and is a well known guitar player in my area. He makes it fun and he teaches me what I want him to teach me. He loves classic rock and so do I. We have a lot of things in common and we get along great. Fun to jam along together. He has taught me a lot of good things that have helped smooth out my playing and are making me a much better player. He is encouraging , but he has a gift of getting more out of you in a way that is progressive, with a gentle manner. Like they say some are good guitar players, but can't teach it. This guy is a very good player and teacher. I am fortunate to learn from his skills.
 
I’m not taking lessons. I wish I had done so when I first started playing, and I wish I had the time to do so now... And good guitar teachers are so effing expensive I can’t really afford it at the moment.
 
It's hard to find a teacher with both. I started playing when I was 8. The teacher bored me to death. It was horrible. I quit until I was 13. My teacher now is Youtube.
 
I don't take lessons on a schedule but I do attend a monthly session by a great guitar player/teacher. It is sort of a group lesson, jam, open mic, discussion. It is very free form but each month is devoted to one topic. Last month was modes. The previous month was songwriting. There are usually from six to twelve people there. It is the cheapest "lesson" I've ever taken at $25 but it is by far the best. I come away every month full of excitement and new ideas. I also have a friend who is a professional musician. When I'm struggling with something I take a couple of half hour lessons with him. You're never too old to learn. Lessons with the right person can stimulate your playing and/or help you get over a hump.
 
I had my first guitar lesson in 2003. I found it just so difficult to grasp anything that I did the 4 lesson package and never went back.

I was offered the opportunity to take personal instruction from (former) Megadeth guitarists Chris Poland, but schedule and work, family & kids hasn't made that work out in the long term anyways...
 
I did lessons with a really great player about 20 years ago for about 6 months. I basically had him teach me songs. I then switched to a local music learning center (for lack of a better description) to start to learn theory. But work and other things got in the way and that only lasted a few months.

Fast forward 20 years and I'm now back in the interested-to-learn mode (hence being here). YouTube is my friend ! For the last 2 months I've been practicing/learning to play the A major scale all over the neck. It's quite enjoying to feel (and hear) the learning. I find myself just jamming in A major doing all kinds of silly crap.
 
I took guitar lessons for a awhile from a really, really good player who had a great grasp of theory and sight-reading sheet music, but he also had a phenomenal ear. He not only could hear a note and tell you what it was, but he could hear a chord (even altered jazz chords) and tell you what it was with pretty good accuracy. He also had great timing. If you told him a song was, say, 110 bpm, he could tap it out and be really close. He simultaneously advocated sight-reading AND playing by ear. He saw the value in both and didn't try to make one more important than the other. He wanted his students to read and hear music.

He was strong in Jazz, rock, blues, even some classical...whatever. He moved out of state a few years back. I miss him. Sometimes, we'd spend lessons not really working on anything, but talking about music and playing tunes together. It felt less like a "lesson" and more like just jamming with a friend...with homework assignments!

Unfortunately, I never achieved his skills. But, I learned a lot, nonetheless. Almost every time I pick up a guitar I think about him.
 
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smitty_p said:
I took guitar lessons for a awhile from a really, really good player who had a great grasp of theory and sight-reading sheet music, but he also had a phenomenal ear. He not only could hear a note and tell you what it was, but he could hear a chord (even altered jazz chords) and tell you what it was with pretty good accuracy. He also had great timing. If you told him a song was, say, 110 bpm, he could tap it out and be really close. He simultaneously advocated sight-reading AND playing by ear. He saw the value in both and didn't try to make one more important than the other. He wanted his students to read and hear music.

He was strong in Jazz, rock, blues, even some classical...whatever. He moved a few years back. I miss him. Sometimes, we'd spend lessons not really working on anything, but talking about music and playing tunes together. It felt less like a "lesson" and more like just jamming with a friend...with homework assignments!

Unfortunately, I never achieved his skills.
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That was like my first friend/teacher. He could play by ear amazingly well. I'd be like "do you know song XYZ?". He'd go "not really, but give me a minute". He'd start on the signature riff in a few seconds (playing it in his head first), then he'd start strumming some chords, change it up a bit and then he's teaching me the song in a few minutes. I would just stand there amazed that someone could hear the song in their mind and convert it onto the fret board in a matter of minutes. I was definitely not born with those genes...
 
Don O said:
Iwould just stand there amazed that someone could hear the song in their mind and convert it onto the fret board in a matter of minutes. I was definitely not born with those genes...
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The house band for my weekly jam is like that. Someone will ask them if they know a song. The bass and guitar player will huddle together for a couple of minutes. Next thing they are teaching us the song. In five minutes they figure out a song, show the rest of us, and we are playing it. I don’t have a hope of doing that.
 
My instructor has played for years, he can play anything, if he needs a brush up, he goes to the song on his laptop, plays it through a Bose speaker on his table for just a very small portion of the song and he has it down. He's meticulous in the notes and chords. I wanted him to teach me more guitar theory, I'm not big on reading music so he said that's not an issue. More on chords , power chords and Barre chords. I also use the internet as well for the odd lesson, I use it as an aid, but I prefer that one on one lesson. He knows where I am at, and he can help you with the things you don't see that are not correct . The internet can't see you or tell you if you are doing something wrong or right. I believe finding the right Instructor for you can help you in many ways, the internet can't.
 
I don't take lessons now, but have in the past and I've been thru so many books that anymore I honestly try to remember what I learned in the past and hone in on something different. Which, for the last few years has been playing around chord shapes really and more melodic stuff. I'm all for learning more (reading/writing music, scales, theory, etc), but I really don't care if someone plays by ear, is classically trained, or somewhere in between - to each their own type thing...
 
who needs lesson when you have a MESA!!!!!

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