How many years of lessons continuously have you taken from an Instructor

Session 5

Session 5

Ambassador of Strings & Wings
Country flag
So far three and a half I want to continue for many more. My friend has been playing for 23 yrs now and he takes lessons from one of the band members from Helix, not every week just from time to time when he's in town. One day he gave him a text and told him he wouldn't see him for a couple of weeks cause they were in Europe.
 
I took lessons twice in my life. Once for one semester in college. The second time was about ten or twelve years ago. I took lessons for maybe three or four years.

I'm at the point now where I'm casually looking for an instructor again. But, I don't need a teacher so much as I think I'd like a guitar coach.
 
I started fiddling around on guitar around 1974. I took 5 lessons in the Summer of 2002 (with Johnny Lightfoot of Fresno) for the first time in my life and I really just got lost. I couldn't grasp it.

I recently approached Chris Poland about taking a few lessons from him as I think I am more "technically absorbent" now...
 
I took lessons from an amazing jazz guitarist for around five years many, many years ago in the 60's. I quit playing guitar for 35 or so years. When I got back into it I took lessons again for about six months. This fall I took a course in jamming. The course was mostly about theory and ear training so you can identify changes and play along without the music. That course taught me a lot. I highly recommend lessons, both to learn when you are starting, brush up on stuff, and increase your knowledge of theory.
 
Kerry Brown said:
I took lessons from an amazing jazz guitarist for around five years many, many years ago in the 60's. I quit playing guitar for 35 or so years. When I got back into it I took lessons again for about six months. This fall I took a course in jamming. The course was mostly about theory and ear training so you can identify changes and play along without the music. That course taught me a lot. I highly recommend lessons, both to learn when you are starting, brush up on stuff, and increase your knowledge of theory.
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When I started playing, I would jam to records. If a solo was difficult, I would put the bean bags from a "Twister" game on the record, to slow it down, then retune and learn the solo...
 
I've been playing over 30 years now and I started off basically self-taught. I did take classical guitar classes way back in high school and found it very helpful in reading music, playing guitar well and other things. I did take some private lessons a few years later after I got my first electric guitar which was a black Strat Profile copy. I mostly play blues scales and major scales on my guitar and I improvise at playing. I find guitar playing a very relaxing thing to do and i still enjoy playing to this day.


;>)/
 
Kerry Brown said:
I took lessons from an amazing jazz guitarist for around five years many, many years ago in the 60's. I quit playing guitar for 35 or so years. When I got back into it I took lessons again for about six months. This fall I took a course in jamming. The course was mostly about theory and ear training so you can identify changes and play along without the music. That course taught me a lot. I highly recommend lessons, both to learn when you are starting, brush up on stuff, and increase your knowledge of theory.
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Dang. I seriously need lessons, but no $$.
 
Here's a good joke: I played piano for 6 years before becoming a real teenager. I did get as far as Janis, Elton John, and one Zep I love, Gordon Lightfoot, John Denver, besides Chopin, Mozart (kill). So I bought a piano, thinking it would help with guitar. I dunno, theory I guess. Oh, and Scott Joplin. I had a great old upright before the lousy but gorgeous square grand. So I got this Williams 88, being poverty strick, and all I can play is the C major scale. Period. And guitar confuses the shite outta me. Covered up the piano, and commenced to buying guitars and learning how to listen, and watch, and work on everything from theory to shredding to bending whatever I ran into on YT, without learning halfway one chord. . . someday I'll learn how to play piano, too. My brain hurts. Again.
 
I took one lesson, once....the teacher booked time to record a demo with me at the end....I wound up recording an album worth of material for him....good times.

Oh, and I wound up remixing a whole bunch of his prior stuff too...more good times.

He was/is crazy talented. I wound up learning a lot while he was paying me(not much $, it was too fun). He learned a bit from me too...fair trade.

He was the only person I’ve ever recorded, as a drummer(on an acoustic kit), that could successfully perform a multitrack drum “punch in/punch out” that was completely invisible across 12 tracks. It may sound easy, but every rattle/ring/decay, in every mic, shockingly flawless...on multiple occasions...it was impressive to me anyway...

Otherwise, I’m self taught.
 
Thatbastarddon said:
I took one lesson, once....the teacher booked time to record a demo with me at the end....I wound up recording an album worth of material for him....good times.

Oh, and I wound up remixing a whole bunch of his prior stuff too...more good times.

He was/is crazy talented. I wound up learning a lot while he was paying me(not much $, it was too fun). He learned a bit from me too...fair trade.

He was the only person I’ve ever recorded, as a drummer(on an acoustic kit), that could successfully perform a multitrack drum “punch in/punch out” that was completely invisible across 12 tracks. It may sound easy, but every rattle/ring/decay, in every mic, shockingly flawless...on multiple occasions...it was impressive to me anyway...

Otherwise, I’m self taught.
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That's incredibly tough!
 
I took lessons for a brief period of time when I very first started playing, so this is going back to about 1976. Probably only did it for a year, maybe just a little longer. I really didn't do well with the lessons, the teacher was very well respected and well known in the area I lived but I wanted to play hard rock. I really had no interest in doing any of the other styles that he though were so important and I just lost interest. Also, a bunch of the older guys in my neighborhood played guitar and a couple of them were excellent. They were teaching me much more than the instructor and at a much faster pace, plus it was stuff I actually wanted to play, so I quit taking lessons and learned from doing and from listening to records.

Never took another lesson and been playing guitar for going on 42 years now.

One thing I notice from watching interviews with well-known guitar players is that many of them have the exact same backstory: started playing, took lessons for a while, dude wouldn't teach them Aerosmith songs, quit taking lessons, learned on their own, never looked back.
 
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