Senior Instructor at Halifax Guitar Lessons/center>
Guitar is one of the most affordable musical instruments available. Because of that many people buy one and decide to teach themselves.
Maybe you are one of them. It sounds reasonable enough right? You pay a few hundred dollars for a guitar, you go to the internet and voila! You find hundreds of websites and resources all waiting for you to learn and most of them for free.
If you have tried this way of learning you may have already found out that it is not as simple as you originally thought. You would not be alone as most of the people that I see on a daily basis have had the same experience.
Here are 3 reasons why learning to play the guitar on your own is not as effective and can waste a lot of your time.
1. No Interaction
This is one of the biggest drawbacks when trying to learn to play the guitar on your own.
Learning to play the guitar is not the easiest thing to do. There are a lot of things to learn and coordinate all at the same time and because of this you can very easily learn things the wrong way.
This will usually lead you to poor habits, bad technique and problems that cause frustration and could cause you to quit learning to play the guitar.
Having someone that knows what they are doing watch you as you learn and then help you correct major mistakes alone is worth a lot and would help you improve much faster by itself.
But this will only get you so far. If you do not know the best way to learn things you will still run into a lot of problems.
2. No Consistency
Most people who try to learn the guitar on their own jump around from one thing to another.
You start on this cool thing and then you see another cool thing, lesson or video so go there and so on. You never quite get good at any one thing.
This is great to keep your interest levels up and makes you feel like you are making progress but what tends to happen is that you go to things you find easy or comfortable, that you can handle and do. If it is too hard, you move on and avoid it.
The long-term results of learning this way is usually frustration because you do not progress past a certain level and then you feel stuck and not sure how to move beyond it.
I’ve been there myself and many of my students have too. It’s not fun but it can be avoided.
3. No Roadmap
As mentioned above, learning how to play the guitar tends to be difficult for most people who try to teach themselves. And the facts are that most people who try this method quit.
Sure, there are some people who do manage to learn this way and they have to put in a lot of time and effort to overcome all of the challenges because they figure it out through trial and error.
What makes it difficult and what takes so long, even for those who figure it out, is they have no roadmap, they do not know what to learn or when the best time to learn it is.
Trying to reach a destination without a plan or roadmap makes it difficult and less likely you are going to reach the place you want to go. You may think that there are roadmaps are in a book or online. These are not usually complete and many do not lead you to the destination.
Where do you find this roadmap then?
A Better And Faster Way To Learn To Play The Guitar
Learning how to play the guitar on your own can be daunting and most people who try it are not successful and quit.
I was one of them. I started off trying to teach myself to play. There was no internet back then so I used books mostly. When the internet appeared I then tried that too.
All of it left me frustrated and almost believing I could not really learn to play. Fortunately, I was determined and stubborn so I did not quit.
You do not want to be that person. You do not want to waste years of your life being frustrated learning to play the guitar. You started down this road to have fun not to add stress to your life.
The solution I found was to get a trained, professional and proven teacher to guide you every step of the way. Sure, you have to invest money for this and it is well worth it when you get the results you are looking for.
If I were going to start all over again I would not waste a second trying to teach myself. I would find someone to teach me and show me the right things, the right way at the right time!