Live vs. Web lessons

Hi, I'm new to the forum but have been taking lessons on the site for a few weeks and they have been great.

My question is whether or how to supplement the online lessons with a personal teacher? I feel like I'm making good progress with the web lessons but also wonder if by using a teacher I could do better still. Are there some aspects of learning that really can't be well conveyed over the www?

I'm 53 and have only been playing for a few months now. Any recommendations are welcome.

Hi Bruce,

Welcome to Guitar Tricks, that's a valid question and I'm not sure how to answer it myself but I would recommend going to 'Full Access Subscriber Forums' under 'Ask _________' and pick out an instructor or 2 that you feel comfortable with and ask them directly, I'm sure they'd be more than happy to give you their insight. :)
I will pass this on to one of our instructors in the meantime.

Hey Bruce,
I think the web lessons are better, for one you don't have to worry about a schedule. You can learn at your own pace, and if there is something you want to go back to it's much easier to just click on it.

Most guitar teachers that give personal lessons, are quite expensive. I'm not saying all of them, but some can be dishonest with their teaching. I'm not sure how it is now, but a guitar lesson used to last 30 minutes. The price range for this was between 25-45 dollars, depending who the teacher was. I never felt that you could learn, and retain something in such a short period. I always give at least a 1 hour lesson, and cover the basics first.

They also used to teach you a song a week, but not let you know how you could apply it to other songs. I tried to teach lessons out of a music store once, but they wanted me to slow down the process. They wanted it to take a student longer to learn to play, and slowly show them how it all goes together. I'd say the average weekly student stayed at the beginner level for close to a year, and my method had them playing rhythm in 6 months. I tried that for a week, and then quit because I felt the students should be learning more.

It's really up to you, but I would prefer this to a teacher that wants to charge alot, and teach a little. If you go with the live teacher, make sure you ask them how long the lessons are, and what you'll be learning. Ask them for a lesson plan, and make sure they plan to teach what you hope to learn.

I'm probably a bit biased because of the way that things turned out at the store where I tried to teach, but I'll cast my vote for the GT lessons. Once again I'm not saying that all teachers will do the same thing they wanted me to do, but I'm sure there are some that would take advantage of someone who wants to learn to play, and keep them coming back for as long as they can. The choice is yours, but make sure you get what you pay for.

JD

hi bruce here's my take on this and i'm still a newbie
i got started playing from a freind of mine and we hook up usually once a week or whenever theres a friendly get together
of course i'm also on here ALOT
my buddy goes over my head sometimes and i'm only able to pick up bits and pieces but here i can just go over and over the lessons i checked into lessons from a pro but like neal said half hour lesson =35$ my suggestion is DO NOT give up on lessons from here but also try to find someone you can jam with and maybe pick stuff up from them too

i hope i made sense and hope i helped


dennis

Hi Bruce, here's what a member had to say about that same issue today, though you might like to read:



#1 Today, 07:45 AM
tmoore55
Full Access Join Date: Feb 2009
Posts: 1

Just wanna say that I love this place...

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Seriously. I'm 2 months in and rounding the corner on completing my Guitar Fundamentals 2 course. I look back to when I was 14 and my parents bought me a shiny new guitar and guitar lessons, and I laugh at the fact that I know 10x more now after only 2 months than I did after about a year of lessons back then.

I'm 30 now so attention and patience are definitely a greater factor working for me, but these lessons are so clear and well explained that it all just makes sense. Plus, if I have a question I can just replay the video or post it up in here.

I'm glad I found GuitarTricks.com. Next step... the purchase of a better guitar!

I would say that with a personal instructor you have a better chance of correcting bad habits, etc. Other than that, I find the lessons here much more worthwhile.

I had some work done on my old guitar yesterday and the shop offers lessons. They were asking $19 per half hour lesson, once a week. Not for nothing, but if I forget what was gone over during the week, I don't have the luxury of playing back a lesson for the umpteenth time like I do here.

I can even move ahead at my own pace here instead of waiting a week to maybe cover a new topic. How much time of that paid lesson is actually spent on playing the previous week's work? Doing the math, I would be out $80 before I, maybe, get through part of fundamentals one.

Dennis has a much better idea, jamming with somebody would probably help you more. The letter from tmoore55, just proves what I wrote.

Hey Dennis, did you ask him what he was going to teach you?

That was exactly what I was talking about, it's sad but true. That's an outrageous price too, some guys out here charge a buck a minute. I do less than half of that for a full hour. I can also tell a student what they will learn, and that with practice, they will get better at it. I don't pressure them to come back either, I tell them to call when they're ready for the next lesson. I wonder what some of these guys are teaching for that kind of money.

I still like the other idea better, it's a nice way to spend an afternoon.

JD

I agree with all being said
this is much cheaper and offers so much....if you have the time and patience to look through it all and follow along the right paths...
guitar tricks offers everything you need to know and if they dont know it im sure they would find it out for you...

I do strongly agree about a live teacher being beneficial in correcting your errors and bad habbits....thats one thing this site cant do..also if you want to learn a specific song...this site doesnt have the means to teach you songs due to legal stuff...but youtube is great for that!

I also agree that playing with others is very beneficial...but some of us just dont have the means to get together with others and jam

As someone with an eductional background, I think it depends on the learning style of the student...
some people really need the hands on but there is a price to pay for it

I myslef need a lot of repetition...so paying 25 for 30 min every week is stupid when I ask a lot of the same questions etc.
This site is affordable and the knowledge base is great.
Thank you to all the great teachers here

I took lessons for a couple of years, there's pros and cons of live lessons. The best thing about live lessons is that a teacher will be able to actually watch you play and give you live feedback. The best thing about the site is that lessons are self paced and the curriculum is very structured. A lot of the times I felt like my teacher was just winging it, our lessons sort of veered all over the map and often focused on subjects that I wasn't too interested in. I feel like I'm learning a lot more on my own, but I'm glad I took the two years of lessons when I was starting out.

Thanks for all the replies. I guess they confirmed what I was thinking: an instructor can spot flaws and provide personal correction, but the time is very limited compared to what I can do on the web.

I don't really have a practical way to jam with friends, but have had a lot of fun using various backing tracks on the web and jam station here. The sound is crappy because it's just over my small computer speakers, and that's not great. I could do some CD tracks but my big stereo is in the other room from my amp, etc. Guess I'll have to get that sorted out so I've got everything together.

Originally Posted by: sixpickerDennis has a much better idea, jamming with somebody would probably help you more. The letter from tmoore55, just proves what I wrote.

Hey Dennis, did you ask him what he was going to teach you?

That was exactly what I was talking about, it's sad but true. That's an outrageous price too, some guys out here charge a buck a minute. I do less than half of that for a full hour. I can also tell a student what they will learn, and that with practice, they will get better at it. I don't pressure them to come back either, I tell them to call when they're ready for the next lesson. I wonder what some of these guys are teaching for that kind of money.

I still like the other idea better, it's a nice way to spend an afternoon.

JD

well you know how freinds are he just teaches me whatever i need to learn its no set format sometimes songs some times notes like i said its free so its cool with me :D
and we do get some cold ones down to boot ! lol


dennis

I agree with what has been said here. The only real instance I find that an instructor would be helpful for is if you have physical challenges that can't seem to be overcome with practice. Sometimes have someone look and go 'Oh, maybe if you position the guitar this way, it will be easier'. A video can't look back at you and say to you 'I see your problem'.

If you are gaining lots from Guitar Tricks, you may not need someone but it's worth keeping that option open in your mind.

In the main, the two parts of doing anything new are: "what & how to do it"; and then "do it". Web lessons seem far superior to me with respect to "What & how to do it". To name a few, my reasons are:
1. gives the student the ability to replay the lesson over and over again
2. gives the student unlimited flexibility to schedule their lessons to fit any schedule
3. high quality instructors at a much lower cost

With respect to the "do it" portion of learning, it will greatly depend on the student's ability to stay focused and their use of self-discipline to succeed with web lessons. Some students need the live interaction with another person to help keep them focused & stay on track. Web lessons allow the student to skip through difficult drills and move on before they are ready, perhaps. A live instructor will not allow the student to do that.

What's the best? It just depends on the individual student IMHO.

Hi, I'm new on here and the reason is I'm not happy with the progress I am making with my personal tutor so I am thinking of giving internet lessons a go. I am currently paying £20 (UK) per lesson and after 3 months I just don't seem to be going anywhere. I'm really interested in acoustic style finger picking and although my tutor is well into this style herself, she just never seems to come in with ideas on how I should be effectively learning this. It's basically, no theory, learn some patterns, here's a bit of tab for you to work on, that'll be twenty quid please, thank you very much, see you next week!

So this will be a new venture for me and I'm hoping I will see it as a success.

I'll report back.

You don't need theory to learn fingerstyle though, travis picking and stuff like that is basically a skill to be learned by repetition like riding a bike. Your teacher can't put the time in for you, it sounds like she's just pointing you to the fastest path towards the ultimate goal of being able to play fingerstyle. The good thing bout fingerstyle is that, one day it just clicks and you can just do it, and your 'feel' can be applied to an infinite number of different patterns.

Mick, I've found both GF 1 & 2 and Lisa Mc's Acoustic/Fingerpicking tutorials to be invaluable. There is enough theory thrown in and plenty of exercises to get you to where you want to be. It will take practice, but I can't imagine paying the money you have been handing out each week, for the depth of knowledge and lessons available here.

I don't know how they do it, but the instructors manage to answer just about any question posed to them.

In the past month, I took a month's worth of live one-on-one 30 minute lessons (once a week) to try and learn fingerstyle.

I had allowed my membership, here, to elapse, while trying to find a better way at progress.

You see, I'm an impatient sort of guy, and when I'm left to my own devises (translated as: studying at my own pace), I tend to skip stuff that I don't find relevant, and music theory wasn't what I wanted to devote time to when I signed up at GT. I wanted to learn how to play the newest song I just learned, and I didn't want to spend time on stuff I found unrealted to my goal. I got impatient with Lisa's fingerpicking lessons. Being the uninitiated soul that I am, it seemed too slow to me; I wasn't learning the songs that I wanted to learn, and with all the legal restrictions, well, it was simply frustrating to me.

But, back to the subject.

My teacher was very good at this (about 60 years old and playing all his life) style, and had planned out his lessons for me in advance. Lots of homework on picking patterns, and thumb independence patterns. I think he's a good teacher, as far as knowing what he's teaching.

However, the downside is that he's not agreeable to practice sessions (spending more than 30 minutes) with me. Perhaps his schedule won't permit it, but it's a real downside, in my opinion.

Thirty-minute lessons are (for me, anyway) absolutely not enough. By the time I got in there, got setup, tuned, reviewed the past week's lesson, etc., 10 minutes had elapse. There was no time for warming up, getting relaxed, etc. The new stuff would be presented, and as one who is, for the first time recently, learning a new picking-style, the lessons, and the practice left very little time. Anxiety-driven frustration would set in, and I'd find that, once back home and practicing, I'd forgotten a few tips that were offered.

So, my experience is that, while I agree that a personal teacher/coach jam session is invaluable (exactly what I wanted), if you can't find someone who's willing and able to put in at the very least, 60-minutes, your money, and your time, can be wasted. Don't settle for the 30-minute lessons. Many times, they can be detrimental to one's learning, as a result of frustration.

I've just come back to GT with a new appreciation of the lessons and services available here. The instructors are great, both in the lessons they produce, and the time in which they spend answering our questions and concerns in the forums. They are very knowledgeable in what they teach, and have just all-around great personalities.

I like this, and have pledged to make this time here more productive as to quality vs. quantity. Of course, both is offered, but what I mean is that I'm going to take the time to study as much as is presented here as is, for me, possible.

Thanks to all the instructors, and the newbies (who, whether or not they know it, advance alot of great ideas through their possibly self-seeming "silly questions"; they aren't !!), here at GT.

AND TO LISA: I didn't mean to disparage your efforts; you are a great singer/player and teacher! My problem was with ME, not YOU :)

It's good to be back.



Terry

swright00 os right.
Real teacher (not online) can fix your bad habits such as not correct way of picking chords, holding a guitar, picking notes - and these things really do matter if you want to play good.

I suggest taking a teacher for a month or two - and after that continue with your own surfing.

There's one more important factor that takes place when training with a (good) teacher.
Remember how many exercises can you do alone? And how many when your teacher screams: "Come on! You, little %^&*%! Do more!" :) :) :)
I'm kidding, but there is a bit of truth here.