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Post subject: Your Opinion on Guitar Teachers?
Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2009 10:10 am
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i recently read a post on guitar teachers, and that got me thinking. I am self taught now, after quitting my last teacher who was just like "okay what song you wanna learn next?" the thing is, i don't want to learn songs just to impress people. I prefer to write. (though i do learn a song i like every now and then...)

I believe that you can only be as good as your teacher. That's why all the greats were self-taught. They didn't learn some guy's style, or the "standard" way to play guitar. they broke away and got their own style, which is why people liked them.

That's just my opinion. What do you think?


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Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2009 10:15 am
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Depends on what you want to learn, and how good the teacher fits that. Not every single teach in the world is under law to teach only requested songs :)

I would evalute each student, see where they were at, what they wanted to to, and made a plan to get them there. Some included learning, then ripping apart certain songs, and how music theory applied to that song, and how to use that for writing. I'd teach about equipment, quality tone, gigging, sound checks, recordings, stage presence, how to learn a lot of songs fast for gigs, and other things that would help a good player get much better.

You can find all this out on you own if you have no teacher that fit that bill. Not all people, or guitar players, or teachers are the same though :)


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Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2009 10:24 am
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yeah that's true. i'm not saying that all guitar teachers are that way. i had a great one a couple of years ago who really helped me. he inspired me and encouraged me a lot. he did teach me about the "band experience" so to speak. his main instrument was the drums, and toward the end of a lesson he would get on the drums and add a beat to anything i played. it was pretty cool. and fun.


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Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2009 12:27 pm
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I'd like to point out a contradiction in you post-
You wrote-
Quote:
I believe that you can only be as good as your teacher. That's why all the greats were self-taught.


Well, if you're self taught, then you are your own teacher--and you can only be as good as you were when you started. I know that's not what you meant, but it doesn't follow.

Nobody is truly self taught only. We learn from a variety of sources--even if you take formal lessons from a teacher you are still learning from other sources. When I taught I encouraged my students to learn from other sources as well.

I would also disagree that you can only be as good as you teacher. I had some students who surpassed me. Also I didn't teach students to play like me. One of the most important things when I taught was to help each student find their own style. We had music festivals with other music schools, and many times students from the other schools played well technically, but sounded like clones of each other. There were exceptions.

My students sounded like themselves, not like me and not like each other.

So a big part of it is to find a good teacher for what you want to learn. Also part of it is to have reasonable expectations of what you'll get from a teacher. And part of it is your responsibility to keep learning from a variety of sources.

Developing your own style is your responsibility--a teacher can encorage and assist this though.

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Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2009 1:11 pm
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I love these topics -

http://www.fender.com/community/forums/ ... ht=lessons :wink:

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Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2009 1:51 pm
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When I was self taught I listened to and watched other guitar players to learn, so technically there is no such thing as self taught. I learned allot without a teacher. I even got a fairly good vibrato going since I was watching the guitar player in my Dad's band play and I noticed how he would grab a note and shake the whole neck. After about a year with no teacher I finally found a good one and started taking lessons. You learn allot faster when someone is showing you what to do. I had a teacher for a few weeks back when I was 11, and she'd just play chords, make me sing (which I hated) and that was it. My teacher now teaches me to play songs, but he uses the songs to teach me music theory and different techniques on the guitar so it's not just "hey, play this". He also teaches me about music history and stuff like that. I wouldn't even be close to the level I'm playing at right now if it weren't for him.
And I still continue to learn things in addition to what he teaches. So you can have the best teacher in the world and still learn nothing unless you try to learn things on your own too. So I guess the summary of what I'm trying to say is that to me, the best way to learn is both to have a good teacher, listen to music, watch people play and do some learning on your own too.

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Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2009 3:04 pm
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A Guitar Teacher will teach you how to make the guitar sound like your favorite song. A Music teacher will teach you what your favorite Guitarist is doing. For example, all I can do is offer my early experience.

As a teen Guitar was the most popular instrument in the school. Most of the kids went to the same Guitar Teacher who would teach you any song you wanted to learn for $20 a lesson. When I decided to take the guitar seriously, I went to that guitar teacher to discuss a possible schedule.
When I told him, "I'm not exactly a beginner, I've played trumpet for nearly 3 years, and I'm 2nd seat in the High School Band."
He Said, "I don't teach you notes, I teach you songs so you can get to playing your guitar."
I said, "No Thanks," and went looking for someone else.

That summer I was working for a cleaning bussiness, and one of the clients was a fantastic Rock and Jazz player. He had a Beautiful Gibson Birdland. I approached him with my dilema, told him I knew my chords but I hit a wall when it comes to playing leads, and he said, "I'm not a very good teacher, I won't show you how to play your favorite song. I can only show you how to Play in key and what scales to use." After a little prodding I got him to agree to a couple lessons.
After I showed him what I knew so far he looked at me and said, "You like Clapton, right?" and he played the intro to Layla.
"Now" he said, "I'm NOT going to show you how to play it, I'm going to show you what Clapton is doing."
That lesson he showed me a Pentatonic Scale, it's Diatonic partner, how to bend a note a Half Step, a Whole Step, and a Step and a Half, and how to match bent notes to adjacent fretted notes. Then he played the Intro to Layla again, but this time I could see what was going on. It was just the Pentatonic scale being masterfully manipulated. After my third lesson, I knew about positions, minor and major diatonic scales, and how to find what Key a song was. By our fourth lesson we were just jamming blues and having fun. Afterward he told me, "Unless you want to start learning about Jazz, there's nothing else I can show you."

Meanwhile all the guitarist that were going to the popular Guitar Teacher could play every Metallica song from Master of Puppets, but they didn't know what Kirk Hammet was doing, just where his fingers were landing.

Cliff Notes Version -
While I was dicouraged by a Guitar Teacher that only wanted to teach songs, the Guitar Teacher who showed me how to teach myself was discouraged by kids that only wanted to learn how to play Songs.

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Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 8:06 am
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I think that everyone needs a teacher. You may outgrow that teacher in a very short time and move on alone, but you will have benefitted from time spent.

I also view every musician I've ever played with as one of my teachers. I've learned something from each one of them (even if it was only how NOT to do something).

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Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 8:19 am
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I began teaching myself in the beginning too. But sooner or later you'll end up having questions about almost everything, that you really need or want to know the answer to! at those times, a teacher can be of a great help.
I have had some teachers over the 2 years that I've been playing now, and I think it's really important to learn from different sources, like zontar said.
I have a teacher teaching me mostly just songs now, but if I have a question, I can ask it to him. I just practice the songs he gives me, and then I try to use the stuff from the songs I learnt in my own way, with my own sound.
I think there's a great difference between being inspired and copying, and there should be. That's the one thing you should always keep at the back of your mind.

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Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 9:47 am
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how does $65 per hour session sound? reasonable?

friend of a friend offered to give me some instruction and he's jackson guitars endorsed.. and he can shred...

he offered to just show me the ropes and personalize the learning experience to what i want. just an idea.

thoughts??

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Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 10:37 am
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I'm in this dilemma again, first time was when I was 12-15 and now at 37. I've been taking lessons again and it seemed to start well. I'm practicing every day, but getting lost a lot due to this teacher's very vague instruction. I've tried to stick with it but we've had to back track a lot. Then he took off out of the country for xmas and I missed 5 lessons. Now I feel like I have to start all over.

I was initially really happy that he was teaching theory, progressions (I IV V stuff), scales, etc. So I too could learn more about what people are playing instead of just songs. But my last lesson was him acting more like he was trying to prove that I wasn't practicing, as opposed to the fact that he isn't really teaching me anything. He's inaccessible inbetween lessons too.

I too want to focus more on song structure and craft to write, I do not want to learn to play the newest hottest heavy lead songs but more singer songwriter. This guy is the college instructor type and kinda looks down on pop or singer/songwriter type music in lieu of Jazz and progressive.

So I'm moving on after this next lesson to someone else. I'll keep moving on every month until I find someone I feel I can work with.

When I was a kid, I thought it was me, I didn't know I could choose who I worked with. Now it's my money and time. If was getting my hair cut by someone doing a bad job, I wouldn't keep going back, why it never occurred to me it would be the same with lessons...???

Good luck to all! I do believe in instruction by qualified people, but just coz someone can play does not make them a good teacher and vice versa!


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Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 1:15 pm
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SleepingLionheart wrote:
how does $65 per hour session sound? reasonable?

friend of a friend offered to give me some instruction and he's jackson guitars endorsed.. and he can shred...

he offered to just show me the ropes and personalize the learning experience to what i want. just an idea.

thoughts??


dude, that's like... 48 euro's!!! and that's now that the dollar is low!
I pay like... 15 per hour ($20) for real professional guitar lessons with a music-school!

pretty darn expensive... but mind you I'm not the expert :roll:

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Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 1:22 pm
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I pay $25 half hour once a week. I kinda thought i'd get an hour for that price. Seems to be the going rate around here with the established places tho.


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Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 1:41 pm
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SleepingLionheart wrote:
how does $65 per hour session sound? reasonable?

friend of a friend offered to give me some instruction and he's jackson guitars endorsed.. and he can shred...

he offered to just show me the ropes and personalize the learning experience to what i want. just an idea.

thoughts??


I'm paying $25 for 40 minutes for my sons lessons. The Instructor has a Masters Degree in Music and is a phenomenal classical guitarist. At my sons request, he's teaching him Jazz theory at the moment and it's really made my son's rock playing better.

So I think $65 an hour for a guy who isn't a teacher is a bit high. I don't doubt his ability, but there is a big difference between being able to do something and being able to teach someone else how to do it.

Try negotitating the price down a bit

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Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2009 1:50 pm
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Music school teachers average around the 25$ a half hour here.

By me I think structured Music classes (which include exams) for learning theory.
Makes you cram and memorize to get a pass :)

Individual one-one instrument lessons, even if just to teach you correct method and positions.

Both can be done on your own from various sources.
But are a lot easier if you have someone to show you the correct method/position, watch you do it and correct you until you get it right.

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