Post by Paul on Apr 19, 2016 13:52:12 GMT -5
In this day and age I often see the following statement.. “With Youtube and the internet, why should I take guitar lessons?” That in itself is a rather good question. However the answer shouldn’t come at any surprise.
Accountability:
Accountability is by far the biggest reason to take guitar lessons. When any person has a driving force behind them they generally get more results, whether it is with a coach, a teacher, or master teaching an apprentice. Guitar is no different. It is shocking to look at the statistics of gym memberships and how eerily similar they are to guitar.
Take a look at a few points from this article:
www.creditdonkey.com/gym-membership-statistics.html
1. Most people don't make it past the five-month mark
When you consider that gyms are inundated in January year after year, this is a truly amazing stat: 80 percent who joined a gym in January 2012 quit within five months.
This is also VERY true with guitar students.
#2 and 3 are not applicable
4. Only about half of the members go on a regular basis
For those who do stick with their memberships, they may not get to the gym as often as they like — or should. In 2011, only about half of the existing members visited the gym 100 times or more during the year.
This is the statistic that justifies my point. When a person joins a gym and spending money only half of them will go. Why is that? It is because there isn’t any accountability. In the world of fitness people become accountable by hiring a personal trainer. In the guitar world, a person trainer is your teacher.
Structure:
It is wonderful that there is a plethora of information on youtube with a lot of nice people giving their time to upload content. However what good is it going to do you if you decide that you want to learn sweep picking? You will go find a lot of videos, some of them are better than others, and you will learn this great Am sweep pattern. What happens when you have a question? You gleefully post a message in the person’s video and wait for a response. And wait. Then that magical day happens when you get a notification that ‘someone’ has replied to your comment. You rush to your computer or smart phone to finally get the answer you have been waiting for. When you get there the reply is “Dude, you suck.” Or you need to practice it more. From my own personal experience the one that uploaded the video rarely if ever replies to your comments, even more so with the more popular channels. What happens when after a few months you realize you can’t get it right? Chances are you either quit or move on to something else. You can lie to yourself all you wish, but the truth is that THIS HAS HAPPENED! You realize that if you had a teacher he would have told you that you are just holding your pick wrong or some other mundane thing that is holding back your sweep picking? Even more so do you know what you can now do with this Am sweep picking pattern? Have you learned to apply it to your solos and playing? Again, stop lying to yourself.
Practice:
Practice goes hand in hand with anything and ties in with structure if you have the right teacher. I’m often asked, why am I learning this? Because once you learn this technique you can learn another which ties into this and that. I know a rather generic answer, but it is the truth. Let us put that into a sports comparison. I am a big fan of hockey and the playoffs just started. In order to be good at playing hockey you must learn to skate, handle a stick, shoot, etc. So why in the world of guitar do people expect to know how to play after just a short time? You have to put in the time to get your playing and understanding of guitar to improve. A decent teacher will keep you honest about what to practice and how it all relates to everything else. A youtube video will show you show you a technique but rarely shows you how to apply the technique to playing and practicing.
I am not saying that youtube videos are a bad thing. That isn’t what this article is about. I’m saying that youtube DOES NOT take the place of a great teacher.
Accountability:
Accountability is by far the biggest reason to take guitar lessons. When any person has a driving force behind them they generally get more results, whether it is with a coach, a teacher, or master teaching an apprentice. Guitar is no different. It is shocking to look at the statistics of gym memberships and how eerily similar they are to guitar.
Take a look at a few points from this article:
www.creditdonkey.com/gym-membership-statistics.html
1. Most people don't make it past the five-month mark
When you consider that gyms are inundated in January year after year, this is a truly amazing stat: 80 percent who joined a gym in January 2012 quit within five months.
This is also VERY true with guitar students.
#2 and 3 are not applicable
4. Only about half of the members go on a regular basis
For those who do stick with their memberships, they may not get to the gym as often as they like — or should. In 2011, only about half of the existing members visited the gym 100 times or more during the year.
This is the statistic that justifies my point. When a person joins a gym and spending money only half of them will go. Why is that? It is because there isn’t any accountability. In the world of fitness people become accountable by hiring a personal trainer. In the guitar world, a person trainer is your teacher.
Structure:
It is wonderful that there is a plethora of information on youtube with a lot of nice people giving their time to upload content. However what good is it going to do you if you decide that you want to learn sweep picking? You will go find a lot of videos, some of them are better than others, and you will learn this great Am sweep pattern. What happens when you have a question? You gleefully post a message in the person’s video and wait for a response. And wait. Then that magical day happens when you get a notification that ‘someone’ has replied to your comment. You rush to your computer or smart phone to finally get the answer you have been waiting for. When you get there the reply is “Dude, you suck.” Or you need to practice it more. From my own personal experience the one that uploaded the video rarely if ever replies to your comments, even more so with the more popular channels. What happens when after a few months you realize you can’t get it right? Chances are you either quit or move on to something else. You can lie to yourself all you wish, but the truth is that THIS HAS HAPPENED! You realize that if you had a teacher he would have told you that you are just holding your pick wrong or some other mundane thing that is holding back your sweep picking? Even more so do you know what you can now do with this Am sweep picking pattern? Have you learned to apply it to your solos and playing? Again, stop lying to yourself.
Practice:
Practice goes hand in hand with anything and ties in with structure if you have the right teacher. I’m often asked, why am I learning this? Because once you learn this technique you can learn another which ties into this and that. I know a rather generic answer, but it is the truth. Let us put that into a sports comparison. I am a big fan of hockey and the playoffs just started. In order to be good at playing hockey you must learn to skate, handle a stick, shoot, etc. So why in the world of guitar do people expect to know how to play after just a short time? You have to put in the time to get your playing and understanding of guitar to improve. A decent teacher will keep you honest about what to practice and how it all relates to everything else. A youtube video will show you show you a technique but rarely shows you how to apply the technique to playing and practicing.
I am not saying that youtube videos are a bad thing. That isn’t what this article is about. I’m saying that youtube DOES NOT take the place of a great teacher.