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How do I find a teacher?


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Hey,

 

I've just bought myself a guitar the other day and I'm looking for a teacher. Trouble is, I don't really know how to go about finding a good one. Should I be looking for any particular accredited boards? What would be a reasonable rate? I'm a student, so I don't have bags of money, but I'd rather have half as many lessons with a better teacher if that made the difference...

 

Any advice would be much appreciated!

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Thats always been a tough one for me to the point where I have given up and try to teach myself with information that I find online. There are some great lessons right on the Gibson site and some good stuff on youtube. Also http://www.justinguitar.com/ has been helpfull to me. I have felt that allot of teachers have really strung me along. I advance a bit at the beginning and then the progress crawls.

I had one good guitar teacher who moved on to bigger getter things shortly after I started with him.

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Damn, that's what I was worried about. I grew up playing classical piano so I'm used to a very formal setting for learning, plus I'm not terribly confident, so I definitely get panicked at the thought of teaching myself any instrument! Thanks for the link, I'll definitely check it out.

 

I feel that if I'm going to teach myself I'll at least need a structured course. I've heard great things about Metal Method, it looks really good and it's affordable, but like basically every course I've seen it's really geared towards hard rock. That's cool and I do listen to it and want to learn how to play it, but my main influences come from 60s classic rock and late 80s/early 90s rock. It would be really nice to learn with a focus on my favourite kind of music...

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Hi R-b and welcome to the forums...

 

With a background in classical piano certain things like reading should be a doddle

 

A very good basic reading/counting etc book is 'Alfred's Basic Guitar Method'...not so rock orientated...

 

A good teacher works hard and for individual tuition will charge £20-30/hr

 

Otherwise there are sociable courses in Further Education centres for not much money...but often mediocre students hold things back somewhat...

 

Good Luck !!

 

V

 

:-({|=

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Since you have a background in classical piano, are you looking into classical guitar? A qualified teacher should have a music degree. If you're not looking at classical guitar, it would still be best to find a teacher with a degree, and not someone who is simply self taught, showing how they learned something.

 

A good teacher will show you good technique and teach you how to learn songs.

 

A poor teacher will only show you songs. You might find this one to be more enjoyable at first, but if you're only learning songs, then you'll be missing out on many basic technical and musical fundamentals of the guitar.

 

You can always check with your local college/university to see if they have graduates who are teaching in your area.

 

Best of luck!

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Thanks to both of you! Yeah, it has been strange moving from being reasonably competent at one instrument (I haven't played in several years) to being a total novice at another. It's definitely helped me in some respects as you say V, but I have just ended up confusing myself with other things! It's a constant reminder of what I can't do yet, hah.

 

I'm not really looking into classical guitar no, especially since what I bought was an Epiphone Dot :)! Basically I want to be able to write songs, and the piano has always been a performance instrument for me, not something I feel like I could write on. I only really know classical music theory. Ask me about Scriabin, fine, ask me about twelve bar blues, no idea. Like I say, I'm into my Madchester and Britpop etc (though I like all kinds of rock), so this is a far more natural choice! I wish I'd picked it up years ago, so far I'm really in love with it. I'm also looking forward to being able to play with other people, again not something I could really do before.

 

I was definitely looking for individual lessons rather than groups, thankfully £25/hour is about what I'd reckoned. Maybe I will go over the basics myself and then look for a teacher? That book looks very handy, reminds me of the old Michael Aaron piano books.

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The preferred bands mentioned are generally high on enthusiasm with less focus on theory... [biggrin]

 

Oasis et al were initially quite limited in chord use...often using C,Am,F,G...mostly purloined from the Beatles...

 

The Epi Dot is an excellent instrument with many aficionados hereon...

 

For the budding songwriter a 'capo' is probably the most important accessory...allowing easy key changes whilst retaining simple chord shapes

 

The site 'ultimate guitar.com' has most popular guitar based songs covered in chord and tablature form...

 

V

 

:-({|=

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I would try teaching yourself. At least for a start, and see where you go from there for a month or two.

Recommending that to a beginner is a terrible idea. If someone really has the determination to learn, they need to learn properly. It's one thing if money is an issue, but to intentionally neglect the use of a teacher is foolish :)

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Why don't you look at this:

http://www.learnandmaster.com/guitar/

 

Very structured and very comprehensive. I looked at all the free web stuff (including Justin Guitar) and still decided it was better to pay and get this. I'm glad that I did.

 

And if confidence is an issue the forums there are very helpful.

 

It isn't cheap but they do have a very liberal return policy. It is at least 30 days and I think more.

 

Good luck!

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  • 2 weeks later...

I can add a strong second recommendation for justinguitar.com. It's totally free, well organized, and seems to be quite thorough.

 

I've been stuck in the advanced beginner area for a long time (mostly due to lack of attention and not playing very often), and have recently been going through his courses. I feel like I'm improving quite a bit, and there is a good variety of technique and songs to learn, so it's a good balance.

 

Anyway, I've had teachers before, but for the basics like learning chord shapes, scales, etc., I think this is a good approach. Once I feel comfortable that I'm competent with the basics and much of the intermediate stuff (some of which I can already do, luckily), then I'll probably seek out a good local teacher.

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  • 6 months later...

I can go along with several others on here and recommend Justin Sandercoe, http://www.justinguitar.com/. Not only does he have a very good free to use learning structure from beginner to intermediate levels, but you can also buy the full course and song books that go along with the beginners course at very reasonable prices (if you would prefer learn that way). This is what Brian May of Queen had to say about Justin.

 

On a day when there's a temptation to go into a dark place, and only see all the bad stuff there is in the world ... greed, cruelty, exploitation, selfishness ... I get days like that pretty often .... it's great to find someone giving out, and giving out good, and operating on an honour basis ... There are so many people who can't afford Guitar lessons .... well, here's a wonderful guy who has set up a whole system of teaching guitar ... Blues, Jazz, Rock, even Songwriting, from the basics, tuning the guitar, etc ... upwards ... If you use his site, it's up to you to determine how much you can contribute ... but this is an amazing site .... he is also very aware of issues in the world which need attention ... a great channel .. Check him out. He's a giver..

 

One of the best on the Web as far as I am Concerned.

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  • 7 years later...
On 1/9/2013 at 4:55 PM, Speedyoneuk said:

I can go along with several others on here and recommend Justin Sandercoe, http://www.justinguitar.com/. Not only does he have a very good free to use learning structure from beginner to intermediate levels, but you can also buy the full course and song books that go along with the beginners course at very reasonable prices (if you would prefer learn that way). This is what Brian May of Queen had to say about Justin.

 

On a day when there's a temptation to go into a dark place, and only see all the bad stuff there is in the world ... greed, cruelty, exploitation, selfishness ... I get days like that pretty often .... it's great to find someone giving out, and giving out good, and operating on an honour basis ... There are so many people who can't afford Guitar lessons .... well, here's a wonderful guy who has set up a whole system of teaching guitar ... Blues, Jazz, Rock, even Songwriting, from the basics, tuning the guitar, etc ... upwards ... If you use his site, it's up to you to determine how much you can contribute ... but this is an amazing site .... he is also very aware of issues in the world which need attention ... a great channel .. Check him out. He's a giver..

 

One of the best on the Web as far as I am Concerned.

Your post touched my soul)

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Recently I realized that if you just take a textbook on scales and play. The result will be better than watching video tutorials from YouTube. Everything is very simple in fact. I read the book Effortless Mastery by Kenny Werner https://www.amazon.com/Effortless-Mastery-Liberating-Master-Musician/dp/156224003X is a book that will transform your playing on the instrument. I found this job on the service https://studymoose.com/ while reading an essay about music. And after reading it, I realized that it's not just a technical skill. And in the psychology of the game. About the problems with excitement during the game. Many people often confuse their psychological problems with technical ones. And for millions of years, they have been looking for a music teacher or a new lesson. And you just need to approach the game itself differently. In short, everything is described in detail in the book.

Edited by RobertSmith
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