Learning an instrument

Pho3nix

Pho3nix

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Morning guys :)

Been learning Guitar on and off for the last couple of months and I'm still at the beginner level. Wondering how you guys learnt or if a school really is the best way to learn.

Dankie.
 
I'm self taught and there are some negatives e.g. I don't have good classical posture or technique.

Generally for guitar a tutor will just ask you what song you want to play and then ask show you how to play it. In my opinion this is what Youtube is for :whistle:

Learning techniques from a human is a good idea but a better way to do this is to get together with some other guitarists and play with them.

Other than that what it really comes down to is practice, practice, practice...
 
Self taught, me. Awful idea, yes. Not for all, just my personal experience.

I have ingrained bad habits that are almost impossible to break thereby halting my progress.

Good teacher is the best way to do it.
 
copacetic said:
Self taught, me. Awful idea, yes. Not for all, just my personal experience.

I have ingrained bad habits that are almost impossible to break thereby halting my progress.

Good teacher is the best way to do it.
Click to expand...

Well said. But as soon as it starts becoming about which song do you want to learn then you are no longer a Padawan.
 
It depends on what you want to do.

If you want to be able to strum a few basic chords - F,C,A,G,E,Em.. - you can get away with teaching yourself. If you want to play riffs on an electric guitar, you can become quite good by teaching yourself, but a good teacher would have helped you get there sooner.

If you want to play classic guitar, please get formal tuition. And not a friend who can play well - preferably someone who studied BMus who can teach you proper technique, posture and music background.

There's a major difference between someone who can strum a few chords and someone who can play a Bach concerto.
 
This ...

Tacet said:
It depends on what you want to do.

If you want to play classic guitar, please get formal tuition ...
Click to expand...
...

Otherwise wait for RockSmith 2014, releasing end November, looks to be a lot of fun.
 
Self taught too, still learning as I go along. Hang out with other guitarists too if you can. I stole with the eye and moved along.

I've never had any lessons, but I imagine it couldn't hurt.

I'm more of practical person, rather than getting stuck in with theory. Though I know basic music and guitar theory - I just don't let it phase me. Played by ear, experimenting and asking another muso.

Youtube is also a great resource.
I still don't know any scales, cos I'm no lead guitarist :p
 
Shake&Bake said:
I'm more of practical person, rather than getting stuck in with theory. Though I know basic music and guitar theory - I just don't let it phase me. Played by ear, experimenting and asking another muso.
Click to expand...

I listened to someone fooling around on the piano yesterday, trying to play the chords to a certain song (can't remember what it was). Someone else, a professional muso (guitar/drums) was listening as well. The pro was good enough to identify the current chord being played (was a C7) by ear, and to correctly suggest what the next chord should be. That was pretty impressive!

The thing with theory is that much of it is very boring, and it is difficult to actually apply the theory to your music in your everyday playing. But once you're on the level of actually doing that, it is really cool. I'm not quite there, but know a couple of people who are. They can take a song and improvise a new line onto it during performance, or figure out exactly why my D# sounds wrong, and what it should actually be (in orchestra, where composers uses very interesting chords).

TL;DR: Applied theory - very cool. Theory on its own - meh.
 
Thanks ladies ;)
Have Rock Smith already and been jamming with it . Still can't get the correct fret while I'm playing which is bumming me out. I heard the dots on the head are supposed to help but I don't get it :|
 
Practice, and lots of it. In time your fingers will know the path, all by themselves. I haven't timed myself, but I estimate that I can play some scales in less than 2s (trumpet). That's not especially fast, but it is simply a matter of my fingers knowing exactly where each note is. Have I mentioned practicing? :p
 
The only thing that I liked about having a teacher was that I was forced to practise and also forced to play things like some jazz or blues pieces which I wouldn't necessarily have chosen on my own but that were actually very nice to learn.
 
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