hey guys just a quick question. im curious how many of you guys are self taught. and if you are how difficult/ long was it until you considered yourself a "custom shop worthy" player. only reason im asking is because im not new to playing and im by no means good and money is a little tight and time for pro lessons is non-existent. just wondering how effective self teaching is... thanks.

Personally self-taught. Often think of lessons, but life's too busy to take on one more sceduled long-term responsibility, right now.

Ain't yet "worthy" of a Custom Shop after many centons of playing...but why should that stop any of us?

Are we "worthy" of our homes? Autos? Clothing? Being healthy and wealthy enough to play guitar?

To quote thos great American philosophers, the Nike Corp., "Just do it!"

I'm personally self-taught. How effective it is is really dependent on the person. If you are a good self-teacher you probably already know that you are. I started playing at the age of 12 after my older brother taught me a handful of chords. A year later I played my first paying gig. If you have an open mind and don't let yourself be intimidated by anything, you can teach yourself. The amount of material out there to learn from these days is staggering. There was very little when I started.

I don't know what "custom shop worthy" means, but I suspect that to you it means that you should be at a minimum level of playing before you should own a "custom shop" instrument. I don't know, I'm not a big fan of the Custom Shop so I've never thought of it that way.

I've been teaching myself for ten years now and if were to wait until i thought i was worthy of a custom shop i'd never get it. I say if you can afford it get it. It could just be what helps the learning process move along faster.

I started out being self-taught, about a year and nine months ago, but I never really got anywhere because I couldn't even make a simple open E minor chord without getting frustrated. I managed to make it, though--that AND an open A minor.

My parents got me lessons as soon as I asked about the lessons I saw in our local Y.M.C.A. programme, because they saw that I was wanting to progress my skills. Dad kept pushing for me to get lessons, too, because he said, "You shouldn't teach yourself guitar because then you'll just learn bad habits. Bad habits are easy to make, but take a very long time to break." Thankfully I didn't create any bad habits.
I couldn't be more grateful to Jeff, my first guitar instructor at the Y.M.C.A., even if I tried. Ever since then, I've been progressing to heights that just enthrall me and learning new styles and new things I never thought I'd learn.

I owe my quick progress mostly to my new instructor, Craig Graham(http://www.craiggrahammusic.com). He's the one who's taught me SO much in the time he's been teaching our family-like class. I'd never even heard of an "F#-7b5" or a "C7b9b13" before coming to him, and now I know how to make them AND play them.
He teaches us a ton of theory, and I love it to bits. It's oh-so helpful, you have no idea.

I do still self-teach myself, though, so I consider myself to to be "half self-taught". It's fun to self-teach, I think. 8D

Anyway.
In conclusion, I guess what I'm trying to say is that it all depends on the person. For me, self-teaching probably wouldn't have gotten me very far, and I would've reached a point where I wouldn't progress any longer. But for you, self-teaching might be just the right thing that you need.
It all depends.

Good luck!!!!

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"If it's planned, it's boring." - Freddie Mercury

I was self taught for the first year, before I found a really good teacher. With my teacher helping me I couldn't believe how fast I was learning. I don't regret starting self taught, because it gave me the initiative to go learn some things myself. A lot of kids just do what their teacher tells them to and don't explore on their own enough. That's probably why some people think that having a teacher will somehow stop you from creating your own style. What stops people from doing that are themselves.

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I wish I had made time to get lessons. I'm self taught and I would say that I am not a very good teacher. But I've been playing for about 30 years and have managed to get in bands with really great players and I have always learned lots of things by watching, learning songs with them. It helps that I'm a decent singer.

I'm self taught too, and I still suck, just not as much. Ok, I'll give myself another lifetime but that's it.

I started to self-teach then decided to get a teacher. One of the previous posters hit the nail on the head about bad habits (I'm a self taught golfer ... dont ask). One of the goals with my teacher is to make sure Im a fundamentally good player. There are a lot of things he's teaching me that I'm sure would take a lot longer if I self taught. I'm going to try the lessons for at least a year. Then reasses.

As for the Custom Shop. do any of us really need one? Nope. But life is to short. We all need to indulge ourselves now and then. Guitars are our hobby/passion. GASsing for a CS is a good thing. I've got a nice carbon fiber bike I ride. I'm no Lance Armstrong by any stretch of the imagination. I guess thats one of the good things about being an old fart, you can afford to indulge yourself every now and then.

Buying a Clapton CS = $x,xxx
Pretending your Eric = priceless

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2015 Epiphone Casino Goldtop
2011 Taylor 814ce
2009 EC Custom Shop Merc Blue
2008 Schecter ATX
1964 Epi Granada E444T
Fender Super Champ XD

I've been self taught my entire time playing the guitar. IN my experience and from speaking with fellow self taught guitarists how good you get depends on how badly you want it. I've put in a lot of time and effort to learning the guitar.

I wouldn't say I'm great at it but if I had free reign on the custom shop I could definately whip up the guitar of my dreams.

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I tried to think of something clever to put here but- OH! Something shiny!!!

I'm self-taught as well. I should fire the instructor.

Well I am thinking about getting lessons at this crossroads in my journey. I believe that music theory is almost essential to become an established guitarist.

I just don't want to be one of "those" guitarists, I hear people play sometimes who have been playing for years and they have a whole lot of ideas, but not much good to do with them. I play guitar for enjoyment but I also want to make use of learning an instrument.

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Fender Highway One HSS Stratocaster '09
Modified Fender Champ600
Honer Special20 Harmonica

I basicly taught myself everything I know and I atribute being told I am a good player to learning as many chords as I could when I was young and putting so much time into rhythm playing. Then as I got into lead it all just fell into place. But the most important part of getting good is playing hour after hour and determination and learning to mix minor pentatonic with dorian and blues scales to give you a nice variety of notes to choose from instead of one scale, or mixing major and minor pentatonic with chromatics over a blues. When I think of all the hours these things took to learn it is astounding. Today there are great teachers who can get you to the meat and potatos in a real short time not like when I was a kid. But the bottom line is you got to want it and if you want it bad enough there is no limits. It is one thing to noodle around and another to be a player.

i'm self taught also but at a couple of points in time i've had the opportunity to either work with musicians much more knowledgeable than me (not hard) or be in a situation where i had to learn set pieces and perform them and get graded. in each case i learned a lot. like a couple of other guys have said, it depends on what you put into it and what you want to get out of it. if i had the dough at the moment, i'd like a few lessons from someone on areas where i know a good teacher could really help me progress. the main thing is, ENJOY IT.

patrick
auckland nz