Lesson Update

[G McBride]

Any of you guys stick with your lessons thru the summer. I started last September and have every week all but maybe six that we took off for one reason or another.

 

I took in a CD of Tab Benoit a week ago and said "this is the kind of music I want to play". My instructor listened to it and ask which song I wanted to work on first and I gave him two choices, he picked the title song of the CD entitled MEDICINE. He told me that he knew Blues was the beginning of all rock but he just didn't get into it much. I told him to listen to the CD and if he didn't want to play along there was something wrong with him.

 

I am still learning and still going, how about the rest of you?

[Lammas Day]

if i had my time again, i'm not sure if i'd want lessons or not?

 

I'm self taught been playing since 92 when I was a nipper, for a long time I was glad I didn't have lessons, mainly because I saw it as the source of all disinterest. I was proved right as all my richer school friends started leaving it behind bored to death by scales and repetition, where I was thrashing along to "touch me I'm sick" by Mudhoney.

 

obviousley having lessons doesn't instantly mean you'll quit, but a bad teacher has the power to turn off a student who like me, left to their own devices, would stick the course.

 

these days though I feel there's definitely a chasm of "understanding" missing from my playing, I do feel there's a certain creativity and quick thinking that I lack because I never had the meat and bones of scales.

 

but, pah, you take your path and you stick to it. I'm purposely learning more blues and scales these days just for some remedial work

 

play it a little, play it a lot, just play bubba! Wooooo!

[G McBride]

I have been playing since 1966 and am self taught also. I decided it was time to take some formal lessons. I am at the age now where if the lesson plan gets boring I just play something else and tell my instructor I didn't like the lesson plan he gave me but I did play all week and this is what I played mostly.

 

I know chords and played rhythm most of the times when i played out. I am learning more of how to play lead, what works and why. I can flat pick on my acoustic but am not into any type of classical for very long. I guess the great thing about being an adult that knows the basics and I am paying the bill so I can pretty much do what i like. The instructed has told me that he knows I can play and I know chords well. He told me that I have a better ear for tone and notes than he does.

 

He decided that we need to work on knowing where to pick up a lead regardless of what chord they are playing. Plus he doesn't want me to just do it by ear any more.

 

Starting to get the urge to play out again. I have a buddy that I jam with once in a while so I may just try to sit in with his band occasionally to satisfy that urge.

[Lammas Day]

I have been playing since 1966 and am self taught also. I decided it was time to take some formal lessons. I am at the age now where if the lesson plan gets boring I just play something else and tell my instructor I didn't like the lesson plan he gave me...

 

Hahaa - people who complain about getting old who fixate on retreating hairlines and increasing waist lines forgot there are some good things to it to. You can't imagine a 14 year old telling an instructor that can you? - BUT IT'S YOUR MONEY, GOOD FOR YOU MAN. It's like me when I was learning to drive, I was 30 when I eventually got around to getting lessons, I can tell you it was a whole different situation then when my friends learnt at 17.

[Bowdiddley]

Still taking and learning much more than I was doing it myself.

 

Currently learning the solo portions of the Allman Brothers cover of Stormy Monday. Having a ball!