I'd like to find a guitar teacher

thing

Vibetronic said:

thing said:

@Vibetronic ;Hi matey, still secret squirell?

thankfully no. I'd had enough, so left about a year ago and now teach the guitar. 

Ah good man, welcome to poverty!

duotone

ChrisRG said:

@axisus I'm in a very similar position and have been thinking about lessons for a while.  There's almost too much choice on YT etc and I end up just noodling along to a backing track.  I've often thought that maybe having a teacher would force me to be more organised and focused as well as providing structured learning.

Great resource @Kebabkid thanks.  Time to check out teachers in the Dartford area.

I would even recommend buying a decent book Mel Bay etc. & working your way through it.

Sporky

thing said:

DLM said:

@thing Dave! Yay! Welcome back! The place[1] has not been the same without you!

[1] We're obviously in different "place" now, so I mean "group" or "community", but don't like those words for this meaning. I feel like I'd have to pronounce it "communiteh", like Cartman.

Yo bud. Doesn't seem much different to Intermusic TBH!

It doesn't break anything like as often!

Buz

jellyroll said:

I'm a perpetual beginner, aged 51. I've had 3 or 4 teachers over the years. Some random thoughts:

• I'm in central London (Camden) where you'd think there would be plenty of teachers. But many are aspiring youngsters with attitude looking to earn a bit of extra cash  with no track record and no proper teaching facility who'll drop you at the first whiff of a gig. Sort of "annoying-guitar-shop-assistant-turned-teacher."

• The main teacher I had was a nice bloke but I grew frustrated with my lack of progress after seeing him weekly for 18 months. I also got quite "stressed" about doing homework - with only a week between lessons and much of my free time taken up with work and family stuff I really couldn't find more than a few hours each week. So then by the next lesson I hadn't made much progress (which embarrassed and frustrated me). Then the lesson became either a repeat of the previous lesson or we moved onto something else and the first song got abandoned. 

• I've always struggled with the "what are your objectives?" question. Frankly, I want to play like SRV or Julian Lage or Kenny Burrell or Darrell Scott or James Taylor. Not realistic? Well, you're the teacher - you tell me what IS realistic. If playing like one of my heroes isn't going to happen, should I try to imitate them or should I find somebody less good and try to imitate them? Or is imitation a dead end? And if I'm not imitating, then I need to be creating. How do I create when I can't even play a 12 bar blues (see next point)? 

• Sometimes, I think that rather than needing a "guitar" teacher, I need a "music" teacher. I know enough chords and theory and pentatonic bits that I ought to be able to play *something*. Yet I have a repertoire of precisely nothing. I don't know how to play an unaccompanied 12 bar blues - I mean, I know the theory but I just don't have the mindset to produce something musical from that knowledge.

• Sometimes, I think that rather than a "guitar teacher" or a "music teacher", I need a "mentor" or a "coach" Somebody who helps me set objectives, long term and shorter term without meeting me on a weekly basis to test me on my homework. But that person needs to understand me (or at least "guitar me") better than I currently understand myself. 

• I've so far shied away from Skype lessons. Some of the post on this thread have made me think perhaps it's quite a practical route to take once you have gotten to know a teacher face to face (like any other business relationship - once you've met face to face, phone or video contact flows more easily). I still wouldn't do it without having established a face to face relationship over some time. 

Sorry for the stream of consciousness......

Hello All,
I would like to bump an old thread as the user above expressed exactly how I feel. I am a few years younger than him, have played a fair bit of guitar in my youth (20+years ago). Started on a rock/electrical path, then moved into jazz/fusion, then onto classical. Started conservatory studies but never graduated. Now I would like to get back at it, but focusing again on rock/blues, as this is the music I have enjoyed the most through my entire life. I have been trying for a while, but I feel like I am trying to brush up everything at the same time and I have no structure in doing it, so I feel like a headless chicken. I would therefore need a teacher, only constraint is that it would have to be via Skype/FaceTime as it would be hard for me to reconcile with family and work commitments .
Any advice or teacher recommendations that fit the need expressed by jelly roll would be much appreciated.
thanks

Modellista

@buz - I'll drop you a PM.  I'm thinking about branching out into Skype lessons and you could be my guinea pig!

SouthpawMark

I’ve just sacked my guitar tutor for being ****ing useless. Final straw was him starting my lesson 7 minutes late and finishing 3 minutes early, and also including his weekly anecdote about how he supposedly sold all of his expensive guitars and bought guitars made by “Vintage” because they sounded better than the real thing.

I've cast my net further afield now, and have met a couple of teachers who seem to actually be interested AND know what they’re talking about. After to speaking to both of them, it seems that said sacked tutor is infamous around these parts... 

Adi

SouthpawMark said:

I’ve just sacked my guitar tutor for being ****ing useless. Final straw was him starting my lesson 7 minutes late and finishing 3 minutes early, and also including his weekly anecdote about how he supposedly sold all of his expensive guitars and bought guitars made by “Vintage” because they sounded better than the real thing.

I've cast my net further afield now, and have met a couple of teachers who seem to actually be interested AND know what they’re talking about. After to speaking to both of them, it seems that said sacked tutor is infamous around these parts... 

I've only been playing for 2 years but I've had 3 teachers over that period and I have to say I'm very dissatisfied with the level of teaching I was getting from them.

I'm slowly becoming disillusioned that I could find someone who would be committed to my development as a student and really invest their time in preparing for the lessons rather than downloading tabs off the internet, while my valuable lesson time runs away... 

It seems like most of these people have no clue what teaching is all about, they're just good players looking for some extra cash. 

SouthpawMark

Adi said:

SouthpawMark said:

I’ve just sacked my guitar tutor for being ****ing useless. Final straw was him starting my lesson 7 minutes late and finishing 3 minutes early, and also including his weekly anecdote about how he supposedly sold all of his expensive guitars and bought guitars made by “Vintage” because they sounded better than the real thing.

I've cast my net further afield now, and have met a couple of teachers who seem to actually be interested AND know what they’re talking about. After to speaking to both of them, it seems that said sacked tutor is infamous around these parts... 

I've only been playing for 2 years but I've had 3 teachers over that period and I have to say I'm very dissatisfied with the level of teaching I was getting from them.

I'm slowly becoming disillusioned that I could find someone who would be committed to my development as a student and really invest their time in preparing for the lessons rather than downloading tabs off the internet, while my valuable lesson time runs away... 

It seems like most of these people have no clue what teaching is all about, they're just good players looking for some extra cash. 

Yep, that’s pretty much my problem with the original guy. I went to him for 6 weeks, and I genuinely believe he couldn’t remember my name each time I turned up, and certainly couldn’t recall what we worked on a mere 7 days prior. 

It’s disappointing. We spoke on the phone for about 30 mins before I committed to lessons with him, and I told him I wasn’t interested in learning songs, but wanted to learn the basic techniques and fundamentals of playing guitar to start with. I had my doubts when I turned up for my first lesson and he asked me which riff I wanted to learn today. I feel that I wasted my time and my money with him. I’ve got time to practice during the week, but what’s the point in practicing when he doesn’t give you anything to practice? It surely can’t be too difficult to teach with some sort of structure.

Fortunately I think I have found a couple of good ones, as I learned more in an hour than I did in 6 weeks with the other joker. 

Modellista

I put together the following plan for an occasional student.  It works through improving fretboard knowledge, chord knowledge  based around blues changes, and recommends a couple of tabs for the intermediate player.  Hopefully this is useful and I'd be happy to explain things further to anyone who's interested.

1.  Utmost confidence in knowing all the root notes on the bass strings E and A

2.  Knowledge of major, minor, 7th, 6th and 9th chords in E and A shapes

3.  2 octave pentatonic in major and minor

4.  12-bar blues framework with increasing complexity of changes

5.  Read Warren Nunes The Blues

6.  Practice a fingerstyle piece - I suggest Signe by Eric Clapton

7.  Work on a heavy rock riff - I suggest Decadence Dance by Extreme

First of all, you need to be rock solid on your knowledge of the bass strings, to help navigate around with chords and scales.

I would recommend the FretWiz app, which is a quick-fire quiz to train one's knowledge of the notes on the fretboard.  I find this useful to keep pin-sharp on my fretboard navigation.  There is an annoying bug in the app where it doesn't add up the scores properly, but once you get used to that it can still be useful.

Concentrate on the lowest E and A strings.  On the E string the dots are G, A, B, C# and E octave.  On the A string the dots are C, D, E, F# and A octave.  

There is no sharp or flat between E and F and B and C.  The other notes all have a sharp/flat between them.

Use the FretWiz app so you can immediately navigate to any requested note on both the E and A strings.

Then we need to make sure you know a number of common barre chords.  Some with root on the A string:

C        x35553
Cmaj7    x35453
Cmaj7(2) x35557
C7       x35353
C7(2)    x35556
C7(3)    x3231x
C6       x35555
C9       x32333
Cm       x35543
Cm7      x35343
Cm7(2)   x35346
Cm7(3)   x3131x
Cm6      x35345
Cm9      x31333

And some with root on the E string:

G        355433
G7       353433
G7(2)    353463
G7(3)    320001
G6       353453
G9       353435
Gm       355333
Gm7      353333
Gm7(2)   353363
Gm6      353353
Gm9      353335

You need to be confident in moving those chords up and down the neck into any root note position.  In the CAGED system there are three more positions to learn but the E and A shapes are sufficient for 90% of the time in my opinion.  Note there are three versions of the 7th chord - it's nice to be able to pick and choose which fingering to use - they all sound subtly different.

If we do another lesson I'll test you on these - you need to be confident in playing F#m6 in two positions, Bb9 in two positions, etc, at the drop of a hat.

We touched on pentatonics - you know the minor pentatonic in E shape across 2 octaves, and that can be moved up and down the neck at will.

The major pentatonic starts on the second note of the minor pentatonic, otherwise it's exactly the same.  Play Gm pentatonic but start and end on the 2nd note, the Bb, and you'll have Bb major pentatonic.

We played a bit of blues - just a reminder that the changes for the classic 12-bar blues are I-I-I-I-IV-IV-I-I-V-IV-I-V.  Eg G-G-G-G-C-C-G-G-D-C-G-D.

We can jazz that up in increasing levels of complexity.  First of all, introduce the dominant 7th - G-G-G-G-C-C-G-G-D7-C-G-D7

I quite like to play the whole thing in 7ths and make the V a 9th - G7-G7-G7-G7-C7-C7-G7-G7-D9-C7-G7-D9

And you can add some "passing changes" to make a 14-bar - G7-C7-G7-G7(2)-C7-C7(2)-G7-G7(2)-Eb9-D9-Eb9-D9-G7(2)-Eb9D9

This brings in the book I was talking about - Warren Nunes The Blues - where he takes a standard 12-bar and increasingly jazzes it up.  A great way to brush up on some jazz chords but still in a blues framework.

I suggest working on Signe by Eric Clapton as played on the Unplugged album.  This isn't too difficult a piece but introduces a lot of techniques that reward practice.  The chords aren't too complex but are harmonically interesting, and demonstrate intelligent changes and chord melodies.  Use the tab and the recording and let me know if you get stuck.  A link to the tab is here https://tommyemmanuel.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/eric-clapton-unplugged.pdf

Also it would be good to practice a rock riff.  The intro to Decadence Dance is powerful and not overly complex.  Again, follow the tab along with the record (Nuno tunes to Eb which is a slight hiccup) and see how you get on.  I've attached a copy of the first page for your reference.

Mark1960

I've just given you a wisdom fret, as i noticed you don't have any yet.

Modellista

Mark1960 said:

I've just given you a wisdom fret, as i noticed you don't have any yet.

Thanks!

Modellista

The Nunes book is hard to find.  But this video gives an example of where we're heading.  This might seem a bit complex but really if you break down the journey into bite-size chunks it starts to make sense.  Note a lot of the chords are the same as the few I've listed above.  The player is using some inversions, but root versions will do just as well for now.  So this is all based around 12-bar blues changes.

Modellista

^ just check out that first chord - a Bb major but played 1st inversion with the 3rd on the bass string - 10-x-8-10-11-x.  Unusual and not entirely necessary, but it shows the power of being able to invert chords at will, particularly when playing with a bassist who is covering the root notes.

Lestratcaster

SouthpawMark said:

Adi said:

SouthpawMark said:

I’ve just sacked my guitar tutor for being ****ing useless. Final straw was him starting my lesson 7 minutes late and finishing 3 minutes early, and also including his weekly anecdote about how he supposedly sold all of his expensive guitars and bought guitars made by “Vintage” because they sounded better than the real thing.

I've cast my net further afield now, and have met a couple of teachers who seem to actually be interested AND know what they’re talking about. After to speaking to both of them, it seems that said sacked tutor is infamous around these parts... 

I've only been playing for 2 years but I've had 3 teachers over that period and I have to say I'm very dissatisfied with the level of teaching I was getting from them.

I'm slowly becoming disillusioned that I could find someone who would be committed to my development as a student and really invest their time in preparing for the lessons rather than downloading tabs off the internet, while my valuable lesson time runs away... 

It seems like most of these people have no clue what teaching is all about, they're just good players looking for some extra cash. 

Yep, that’s pretty much my problem with the original guy. I went to him for 6 weeks, and I genuinely believe he couldn’t remember my name each time I turned up, and certainly couldn’t recall what we worked on a mere 7 days prior. 

It’s disappointing. We spoke on the phone for about 30 mins before I committed to lessons with him, and I told him I wasn’t interested in learning songs, but wanted to learn the basic techniques and fundamentals of playing guitar to start with. I had my doubts when I turned up for my first lesson and he asked me which riff I wanted to learn today. I feel that I wasted my time and my money with him. I’ve got time to practice during the week, but what’s the point in practicing when he doesn’t give you anything to practice? It surely can’t be too difficult to teach with some sort of structure.

Fortunately I think I have found a couple of good ones, as I learned more in an hour than I did in 6 weeks with the other joker. 

Good tutors won't make up lessons on the spot and not spend any time planning/researching material to structure lessons to suit your taste/playing ability. I never ever wing lessons and always make sure I plan accordingly. And I will check up on exercises/songs/techniques the following week with a view to building from there. Hopping around endlessly with nothing mastered is worse than jamming your favourite riffs!

csantost

jellyroll said:

I'm a perpetual beginner, aged 51. I've had 3 or 4 teachers over the years. Some random thoughts:

• I'm in central London (Camden) where you'd think there would be plenty of teachers. But many are aspiring youngsters with attitude looking to earn a bit of extra cash  with no track record and no proper teaching facility who'll drop you at the first whiff of a gig. Sort of "annoying-guitar-shop-assistant-turned-teacher."

• The main teacher I had was a nice bloke but I grew frustrated with my lack of progress after seeing him weekly for 18 months. I also got quite "stressed" about doing homework - with only a week between lessons and much of my free time taken up with work and family stuff I really couldn't find more than a few hours each week. So then by the next lesson I hadn't made much progress (which embarrassed and frustrated me). Then the lesson became either a repeat of the previous lesson or we moved onto something else and the first song got abandoned. 

• I've always struggled with the "what are your objectives?" question. Frankly, I want to play like SRV or Julian Lage or Kenny Burrell or Darrell Scott or James Taylor. Not realistic? Well, you're the teacher - you tell me what IS realistic. If playing like one of my heroes isn't going to happen, should I try to imitate them or should I find somebody less good and try to imitate them? Or is imitation a dead end? And if I'm not imitating, then I need to be creating. How do I create when I can't even play a 12 bar blues (see next point)? 

• Sometimes, I think that rather than needing a "guitar" teacher, I need a "music" teacher. I know enough chords and theory and pentatonic bits that I ought to be able to play *something*. Yet I have a repertoire of precisely nothing. I don't know how to play an unaccompanied 12 bar blues - I mean, I know the theory but I just don't have the mindset to produce something musical from that knowledge.

• Sometimes, I think that rather than a "guitar teacher" or a "music teacher", I need a "mentor" or a "coach" Somebody who helps me set objectives, long term and shorter term without meeting me on a weekly basis to test me on my homework. But that person needs to understand me (or at least "guitar me") better than I currently understand myself. 

• I've so far shied away from Skype lessons. Some of the post on this thread have made me think perhaps it's quite a practical route to take once you have gotten to know a teacher face to face (like any other business relationship - once you've met face to face, phone or video contact flows more easily). I still wouldn't do it without having established a face to face relationship over some time. 

Sorry for the stream of consciousness......

Just reviving this old thread to say thank you for these words. It resonates so much with how I feel, that it could be me saying them, except I don't think I would be able to express half of it.

Any luck with finding a mentor? (That is what I'm searching for atm)

guitarjack66

Surely people use Whatsapp now and not Skype? I did during covid. Just a live video telephone call through the internet and you are in real time.

Lestratcaster

Alot of teachers will be using Zoom but its crap for music lessons. Too much latency and the audio processing is really bad.

I use Rock Out Loud Live which runs in Google Chrome Browser. Alot better audio quality and less latency. Been teaching with that for 4 years.

RevMatt

This is such an encouraging thread - I thought I was the only one who (after 35 years of playing) was still pretty pants on the guitar!

Axe_meister

Like you I'm mid 50s. I'm taking lessons at the Guitar institute in London, every week. They do one to one, either online or face to face.
I started off after 30 years of boring pentatonic noodling and a small number of songs.
In 8 Months I'm now attempting Razer-X Technical difficulties.
It's been mainly learning how to learn, also getting some new techniques down (3 note per string scales), a lot of Frank Gamble finger exercises and most importantly, metronome training.
But now I feel I can tackle most things. 
But the teachers will adapt to what you want to do. You just have to define what you want.