Ok, as a new learner I have started by watching Learn and Master Guitar lessons, using other web tutorials, and whatever other resources I can find on the internet.
Do you believe that this way is OK for someone who wants to learn guitar? Or do I have to go to a local guitar teacher? What are the advantages of learning from a teacher, as opposed to learning on your own?
It depends on the route you want to go. Some people say a guitar teacher is necessary... I would say not. Plenty of the most well known guitar players in the world on not trained by a teacher.
Think about the music you want to play.
Almost anything in the blues/rock world can be self-taught. There is not a right way to play the blues, no matter what the elitists tell you. And rock (sometimes) is a natural extension of blues.
Now if you want to break into classical or metal, you will need to learn some classical techniques. Know your scales, chords, and how to improvise in a technical setting. There are, however, parts of the metal world where unconventional playing is welcome, and even encouraged. Such as funk metal.
My advice is this:
If you plan to go into a technical music genre, get yourself a teacher and learn to do things the "right" way, so that you can play with others freely when you get good enough.
If you want to play by yourself, or are going to stick to less classically influenced music types, just head over to youtube!
I learned guitar for about 3 years on nothing but youtube videos and a chord book. There was a particular guitar player that I admired at the time and I just watched live videos of him and imitated what I saw. Overtime, I became proficient with the guitar and started writing my own songs. I believe this is a very creative and enjoyable route if you're willing to not be taken seriously by more technical bands and guitarists.
Regardless of what you choose. Make sure you spend time learning the songs you love as early as possible. Nothing kills the learning motivation like playing stuff that does not interest you.
Like many other people here, I am self-taught (on the banjo, about to self-teach on guitar). However, I used to take piano lessons. Things to consider:
Lastly, keep in mind that you don't have to take weekly lessons. It's perfectly OK to self-teach for a month, then book a 1 hour lesson to get pointers on your technique, areas for improvement, and suggestions on exercises.
Take lessons with a teacher. End of story. You will learn so many bad habits and progress very slowly on your own. If you are serious about learning to play at all, take lessons. Once you reach a certain level (depending on age, practice, etc), you could teach yourself. But there's so much to learn in the beginning, a good teacher will really be worth your money.
The only way to get better at something is practice! Don't get discouraged if you feel as if you're not making much progress - practising every day (not necessarily for hours and hours at a time) will help you improve enormously.
The best thing I have ever done on my own is buy The Amazing Slow Downer. It lets you slow down a song you want to learn, and play along at a much slower place. I was playing along to Metallica in my first month.
I do think a local teacher is key. It gets you to the next level, because you can't even tell what mistakes you're making.
Learning by yourself is fun, and I did that for many years, but you can easily become stuck in a rut and just keep going over the same old stuff because it is comfortable for you.
I have recently approached a teacher after many years of being self taught, and it has really helped to 'push' me to the next level. A good teacher will take you out of your comfort zone and stretch you to become a better player. For example, I was always very familiar with the actual notes on the fretboard on all strings within the first 5 frets, but never bothered to become intimately familiar with the notes from the 6th to the 12th frets.
At my very first lesson, my teacher pushed me to learn those well in preparation for upcoming lessons where I will be breaking out of my pentatonic box habits and learning triads.
It certainly wasn't easy for me, but I pushed myself, and now have a much better familiarity with the fretboard than I have had in 20 years of playing. I couldn't believe that I hadn't committed myself to learning that information before.
A pretty decent video method to learn how to play guitar I've been recommended is the Metal Method
Don't let the looks of the guy or name of the method think it's all for Metal learning, it's a general, down to the basics kind of method that so far has brought a few of my friends to a pretty decent level in no time.
Study both music and the guitar at the same time.
I found playing the keyboard and a couple of youtube videos by Andrew Furmanczyk particularly helpful to learning about music theory and chords while I was learning.
To answer the question: the biggest advantage to learning by yourself is the time-freedom and independence of thought. You are the master of yourself. You set the exercises and practice. You set your own goals. You judge yourself.
This ultimately means you must be 100% critical of your practise / performance. It is not enough simply perform an exercise and complete it. You must be critical of every nuance of your physical being as well as judge with your ears to listen to your performance.
Recording yourself is a great way to develop this. Don't ask your family to judge you! You have to develop your own personal Simon Cowell critic in your brain.
Ultimately, this leads back to the BALANCE between learning by yourself and having a COACH or TEACHER. Personally, I see a big difference between the two. When I think of a TEACHER, this usually is a person who is INSTRUCTING YOU on something that you do not yet master. They are able to give you pointers as to correct execution and give you a level to strive towards in terms of execution and delivery.
A COACH can provide the same thing, but I believe that a COACH should be helping you discover more about yourself and your own limitations. This doesn't necessarily have to be an airy-fairy/fuzzy/soft subject: It can be physical/technical limitations, it can be mental/emotional limitations and any combination within. These are things that are much better dealing with someone who can coach you towards higher levels of skill as well as higher levels of self.
The beauty of this is that the best coach to begin with is yourself - if you know how. It's best to start with the premise that no one can motivate you to be better than the best coach in the world - yourself!
I'm a professional guitarist, and I've been teaching guitar for the past 41 years.
Advantages of learning on your own
Disadvantages of learning on your own
You don't know what you don't know. It's easy to do something intuitively that will hamstring you later on in terms of posture, finger position and hand placement, pick grip,etc - and bad habits can be hard to break.
Because you don't know what you don't know, you'll probably not be giving enough attention to some of the fundamentals of music.
Advantages of learning with a teacher
The teacher will (or at least should) develop a plan to get you from point A to point B. Skills will be sequenced, because they do build on each other.
A teacher will expose you to concepts and music that you might not discover on your own.
Disadvantages of learning with a teacher
In the past, utltimately virtuoso ethnic musicians learned directly from each other by ear - and more often than not couldn't read a single note. Today, their descendants short-cut this process, learning from slowed-down recordings. This is the basis of much learning amongst, for example, Irish session or Balkan dance musicians. Often, and though having a repertoire of thousands of tunes, they will be unable to tell you the name of the one they are playing.
Music notation may have it's uses, but shoves a massive cognitive load between you and your passion. Learn to distinguish between learning music and learning how to RTFM..
Instead, trust your memory. Learning by ear, your fingers will find a way of playing that simply works. You will remember how to play a piece the instant you (re)hear it.
Become active in a playing musical community (session/jam/dance), and above all, play with others. Good players will provide simple, ongoing correction. The rest will look after itself.
It depends, for me what I did was I learned guitar on my own through youtube videos, and if it is fast enough I tried to download it using Video Surgeon, it is also economical to learn on your own, guitar teachers also do like this, so might as well learn from self.
While teachers are certainly helpful for learning at first, you are the person that knows yourself the best. Learning on your own may create bad habits that can affect your playing in the long run, but teachers can correct things like that.
However, certain teachers may stifle your potential by assigning you pieces that do nothing to address the problems that you have, or by moving too quickly or slowly. But teachers may also help you to get out of your comfort zone and learn things you wouldn't have done on your own.
In the end, it really depends on how you learn as opposed to how your teacher teaches.
