Did/does anyone find the "self-taught"/online route more productive than private lessons?

ms21

Sorry in advance for the long post but:

The reason I ask is that whilst conventional wisdom states that private lessons are always superior, I’ve gone from online courses and just had my 2nd private lesson and find the whole thing rather frustrating. Now, I am most certainly gonna give the guy a chance, he seems really nice and I know full well that 2x1 hour sessions is nowhere near enough to really get into it. 

But here’s the thing, I’ve been playing for about 2 years now. Solidly at an intermediate stage in certain aspects but still a beginner with lead work and theory. The only reason I didn’t take private lessons to begin with was due to financial reasons. The problem I have encountered though, unsurprisingly, with learning online, is a lack of structure and direction. I aim to practice for around 4 hours a day and I’m there or thereabouts, but it can get very frustrating not knowing if the routine is getting you anywhere, and whether or not you’re doing things properly, or taking longer than you need to be learning a certain technique. 

So recently I bit the bullet and took my first lesson. The guy seems really nice and prior to our first meeting, I explained to him why I needed a teacher. Feedback & practice structure, in a nutshell. But, up until this point he’s provided me with next to nothing practical to take home with me, besides one lick to loosely practice here and there. He’s also not been technique orientated whatsoever and has instead just given me 2 lessons on foundational theory. The lessons have been cool and everything, but it just feels like we’re doing a course he gives all of his students and nothing that isn’t available online for 100% cheaper. 

Also, whilst he isn’t stupid enough to overtly insult bands and musicians I love, he has made a few underhanded comments about them, which I’ve found quite off putting and frustrating. 

Whilst it’s only been 2 lessons, I feel like I was actually making a lot more progress in weeks gone by purely with online courses and it hasn’t felt like his lessons are catered to me at all. 

As I said, I will definitely give him a chance for a few more weeks. But I’d love any advise about this. Is it just normal for the initial lessons to be like this? Is the problem simply the teacher? Did anyone actually just favour and do better with online courses as opposed to private lessons?

Sporky

He does not sound like the right teacher for you. 

joeW

Jog him on.  Might be a great teacher but doesn’t seem right for you.  I usually come away with so much useful work to do it takes me ages to get it together.  

ms21

Sporky said:

He does not sound like the right teacher for you. 

joeW said:

Jog him on.  Might be a great teacher but doesn’t seem right for you.  I usually come away with so much useful work to do it takes me ages to get it together.  

Thanks for the direct and honest replies. Do you think it’s definitely not too early to ascertain this or would it be obvious even after only 2 lessons? 

Barnezy

I personally think you need to accept your progress will get slower now. It’s all about incremental improvements now. 

I’ve had a few teachers. One was a Spanish guitarist who was very pedantic on technique, the other was a well known YouTuber who just wanted to jam the whole lesson the last was a Jazzer who was absolutely amazing at building my understanding of theory. The moral is you will want to work with lots of teachers now and each will have their own advantages. 

However if I were you, you should go and play with others. If you’ve been playing in your bedroom for 2 years your timing is probably poor and timing is 90% of being a good player. Look to see if there is a RockProject Encore near you and go and get involved. Playing with others is the fastest and best way to improve. 

https://www.therockproject.com/encore

BluesLover

You have told him what you want/need from lessons, and he's not listening. It's your time and money, find another teacher, sooner rather than later.

ms21

Barnezy said:

I personally think you need to accept your progress will get slower now. It’s all about incremental improvements now. 

I’ve had a few teachers. One was a Spanish guitarist who was very pedantic on technique, the other was a well known YouTuber who just wanted to jam the whole lesson the last was a Jazzer who was absolutely amazing at building my understanding of theory. The moral is you will want to work with lots of teachers now and each will have their own advantages. 

However if I were you, you should go and play with others. If you’ve been playing in your bedroom for 2 years your timing is probably poor and timing is 90% of being a good player. Look to see if there is a RockProject Encore near you and go and get involved. Playing with others is the fastest and best way to improve. 

https://www.therockproject.com/encore

Thanks for the resource. Will check it out. 

kelpbeds

I'm a teacher and my first question is always, 'What do you want/hope to achieve in your guitar playing' then I design a bespoke curriculum for them around that. And I always keep checking ever so often that they are happy with the direction we are taking and make adjustments if necessary. 

ms21

kelpbeds said:

I'm a teacher and my first question is always, 'What do you want/hope to achieve in your guitar playing' then I design a bespoke curriculum for them around that. And I always keep checking ever so often that they are happy with the direction we are taking and make adjustments if necessary. 

So… whereabouts are you based then  

Barnezy

ms21 said:

Barnezy said:

I personally think you need to accept your progress will get slower now. It’s all about incremental improvements now. 

I’ve had a few teachers. One was a Spanish guitarist who was very pedantic on technique, the other was a well known YouTuber who just wanted to jam the whole lesson the last was a Jazzer who was absolutely amazing at building my understanding of theory. The moral is you will want to work with lots of teachers now and each will have their own advantages. 

However if I were you, you should go and play with others. If you’ve been playing in your bedroom for 2 years your timing is probably poor and timing is 90% of being a good player. Look to see if there is a RockProject Encore near you and go and get involved. Playing with others is the fastest and best way to improve. 

https://www.therockproject.com/encore

Thanks for the resource. Will check it out. But think the timing thing may be a bit presumptive. My teacher said it was very strong in all fairness 

Well you’re doing better than me in that department then. I took a similar route to learning as you. I thought I had good timing when playing on my own to perfectly tempo’s backing tracks, that was until I was in a room with 4 other musicians all trying to keep time with one another. That’s when the penny dropped, for me at least. 

kelpbeds

ms21 said:

kelpbeds said:

I'm a teacher and my first question is always, 'What do you want/hope to achieve in your guitar playing' then I design a bespoke curriculum for them around that. And I always keep checking ever so often that they are happy with the direction we are taking and make adjustments if necessary. 

So… whereabouts are you based then  

I'm in Shropshire, just PMed you. 

Tannin

Does anyone find the "self-taught"/online route more productive than private lessons?

Of course. It is much more time efficient and covers exactly the ground you want to cover. You can follow up on things which appeal to you and change direction any time you see a new and promising technique or style. 

Naturally, this has drawbacks too. The sheer variety on offer of different things to learn is overwhelming. It is easy to take a small bite from 20 different plates and not really learn anything much about any of them. You have to learn to be selective and you have to develop some self-discipline. 

Finally, only an in-person teacher can watch you play and point out flaws in your technique or things - sometimes quite small things - which are holding you back. Note that this doesn't have to be a professional teacher, it could be the other guitarist in your band or the chap over the road you sometimes jam with. It just needs to be someone who isn't you and who can play a bit. But a good teacher is usually better at it. 

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Now,. as to your current teacher. He doesn't seem like a good match for you, but you are wise to stick with it for a few more weeks. Everyone is different and there will be things about this chap's teaching which will be useful and valuable to you. Look for those things before you move on.

ms21

Just to follow up with this. If anyone has any recommendations for teachers in the London area, that would be much appreciated. A vote of confidence from this site is something I’ll always take seriously. The people on here directed me to Rich Rendall for guitar finishing and that turned out pretty amazingly. 

Cheers

sev112

I think a healthy balance between what you think you want and some things that make you better for  3rd person’s viewpoint can be perfect.

I’ve had 2 sets of about 8 lessons each in the past 10 years.  The first I didn’t know what I wanted, but just wanted to be better and learn some new things, maybe rhythm guitar related.  I’m not sure any one lesson did all or any of it, but by the end I really had improved my rhythm styles and grooves, timing, theory, songs, different types of music 

the second was something similar but completely different player as teacher , but with same sort of generic “make me better” scope.  We did scales, arpeggios, timing, and one song/ solo.  Seems boring, bland and limited when read like that but blimey did all that make me a much much better player in all aspects.  

I’d give it a few more, tell him/her how you are currently feeling and see how it goes.  Hope it works out for you

Sporky

The thing about a good teacher is that you'll say "I want to be able to...", and they'll be able to work out what you need to do first, and all the things off to the side that might help or hinder. 

Grampa

I've tried 2 different teachers on a 1 to 1 basis, given them both up as find the unlimited online resources available, especially YouTube, far more productive. I can pause, go back, retry as many times as I need to get the hang of whatever as well as finding multiple ways of doing something and having the ability to adopt the method that works best for me.

Lestratcaster

I was self taught for about 6 years. But knew next to nothing. Could play a few chords and string a tune together or the odd riff but that was it. I wanted to improve and really understand what I was playing. 

First thing that I noticed was my ear for music and timing. Also theory and knowledge of the fretboard. I spent 4 years at ACM in Guildford and a host of top teachers. Really improved and I'm now a private tutor myself. I've seen many learners who come to me who've tried the YouTube method but they say it doesn't work for them. Having the regular weekly lesson with me forces them to play out of their comfort zone slightly and it does improve them.

So I'd go with what's said above and say its the teacher that's the problem. Maybe another one will see things different and actually know what to do to ensure you make progress.

roberty

Took me four goes to find the right tutor for me. Went online in the end, Skype lessons. For me personally it really mattered to have a tutor whose playing I genuinely admired

ms21

roberty said:

Took me four goes to find the right tutor for me. Went online in the end, Skype lessons. For me personally it really mattered to have a tutor whose playing I genuinely admired

Yeah I think this may be a big thing for me too. I’ve had a look on the website Fiverr and found some awesome players. But of course it’s all remote. How did you find not being able to jam over Zoom, though? As I guess there’d be latency issues? Or did you have a workaround? 

ms21

Just to update this thread, following the last (my second) lesson, I showed the teacher that I was learning the notes on the fretboard. The way I did this was to simply go through each individual string and then play all the notes from that string up until the 12th fret. So for example open E and then every other E, so 12th fret low E string, 7th fret A string, 2nd fret D string etc etc. For notes EADGB(E), before also adding C and F. 

He told me to scrap this and use his method of a pattern which is as follows, pick a note, ie the G note on the 3rd fret low E string. Then to go 2 across 2 down, 3 across 2 down, and 2 across 3 up to locate all the other G strings on the fretboard. This seems to work to an extent, but the problem I’m having with this is that let’s say I start on the 7th fret low E string with a B note, and follow this pattern to locate all the other Bs, the pattern works from the 7th fret until the end of the board and back up to the 7th fret, but then if I want to locate the Bs prior to the 7th fret, all of a sudden the pattern doesn’t work anymore. If that makes any sense at all!? 

I’ve sent him a message asking him about this but does the above sound right? 

guitarjack66

I suggest you start trying to play songs and ask him if he would do this with you. This is how I've learned over the last three years and I find it's been both fun and practical. Don't get bogged down in too much theory as that will open up with practice. I don't like remote learning myself as you miss out on so much from being alongside an experienced musician.