I got my first guitar in about 95 and have been totally self taught. I stagnated massively for around 15 years in the middle when I infrequently played then got frustrated all I could do was some Nirvana power chords.
Started playing again around 5 years ago and had my guitar professionally setup - what a world of difference that made! I’ve made decent progress since but it’s still all just the odd riff or solo here and there and there’s a lot I can do a lot better. Using YouTube videos is only getting me so far and some 1 on 1 I hope will do the trick.
My wife started taking piano lessons and it inspired me to do the same for guitar. I’m sure it will be helpful even if they’re going to rip my technique up and start again.
Have you had lessons or are you self taught? What helped the most for your playing?
I don’t play anymore, but did for about 10 years.
I started with 1-1 lesson, but I think I only kept that up for a year or so.
I think the biggest things you’ll benefit from through 1-1 lessons are:
1 - getting some solid musical theory behind you (a bit of a bore, but useful when you’re trying to self-teach later on, and ultimately foundational to pretty much everything else).
2 - Having someone there who can see, hear, and correct your actual playing technique. Poor technique absolutely ruins you as a musician when it comes to progression and trying to play anything a bit more advanced, because it becomes part of your muscle memory. That’s why it’s so important to slow things right down and play them correctly, with the right technique, and then gradually speed up, rather than jump into playing things at the correct speed, but doing it sloppily. Having an instructor who can observe and correct you in real time will do wonders.
Poor technique absolutely ruins you as a musician when it comes to progression
Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. If you practice like crap, you’ll continue to play like crap.
The best technique I’ve learned is to just slow down. Reduce the tempo until you can play it perfectly, then play it perfectly, over and over. Gradually you can increase the tempo, so long as you maintain that perfect composure, then before long you’ll be playing at normal tempo just right.
However, like you say, getting an outside perspective is always important, even if only from time to time.
Recording. An audio interface can be found for dirt cheap, and you can learn the basics of a DAW in a day or so.
Then find a drum base online, and play on top of it. You make mistakes, you delete your take and do it again. Forces you to practice, to put on the table all the techniques you know, and also to think about the overall structure of a whole song.
I’m self taught since COVID so 3 years now. I can defo see the benefits to in person lessons, because I’ve sat with mates and picked things up off them in a drinking scenario, so sitting sober with a pro would be exponentially better.
But I’m self taught at most things and see it as one of my superpowers or something, so I’m quite happy with my progression.
What I’ve found that’s helped improve me though, is listening to other genres of music. I specifically taught myself acoustic fingerstyle because I’m a metal head. Learning a completely different genre to what I listen to usually has opened up music for me. That, and learning some theory.
One of the things i like to do for practice is trying to play along to music videos. My wife controls the TV remote and I just try and work out the song while it’s being played, then forget it and try and play the next song.
Hello fellow COVID player! My experience is much like yours. The most difficult part of guitar for me is music theory. I just haven’t been able to wrap my head around it properly. But I’m getting there slowly.
I’m a beginner and currently self-learning through justinguitar and really enjoying it. I did think about taking lessons, but decided to wait until I’m more advanced after watching this video by Kevin Nickens which I think brings up some good points
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=zM1krfJBqik
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
I just had my first lesson with a guitar teacher and I can already tell it’s going to be a massive help to me. Within the first five minutes he helped me understand that my picking technique was not quite right and helped me see that I was placing my thumb wrong on the back of my neck. I’ve spent the last seven days trying to focus on just fixing those things and I’ve already noticed an improvement.
My biggest struggle now is slowing down the songs I’m trying to learn into small chunks and learning to play those perfectly. Like, I know in my head what the song is supposed to sound like and I am having a hard time stopping my brain from telling my fingers and my hand to pick/strum it at the speed my ears hear it at…it feels so slow to learn it with a metronome and it is really discouraging me.
Randy Rhoads took lessons in every town he toured in. He was always looking to learn something new. Never, ever be embarrassed to take lessons, no matter how good or bad you think you are. It’s not a competition, it’s a journey.
