Senior Instructor at Halifax Guitar Lessons
Learning how to play guitar is an awesome activity which will give you pleasure for many years.
You are probably already on the road to playing. You were smart too and found a guitar teacher to help you learn so things are probably going well for you.
But life is getting busy and you are thinking of taking a break for your guitar lessons. There is so much going on and this is the easiest thing to drop out of the schedule.
This is a big mistake and you should avoid it if you can.
Here are 3 reasons why you should continue to take guitar lessons when things are getting busy in your life and not take a break.
1. You Lose All Your Momentum
Momentum is a big deal. Once something is moving, it is easier to keep it moving. But once it stops, it requires extra energy to get it moving again.
This is a universal principle. It applies to material things as much as it does to our behavior and habits.
When you are in guitar lessons you are moving forward. Every class you get better at something, you learn something new and become a better guitar player. Even if you do not notice it.
Your investment in lessons in the form of time and money is also something that helps keep your momentum because it gives learning to play guitar a higher value than other things in your life.
As soon as you take a break from your lessons, even a short one, you will lose all of this momentum and it will be difficult to get going again later.
If learning to play guitar is important to you I recommend you avoid this as much as possible. I have taught some wonderful people who were progressing quickly and then they took what they thought would be a short break and years later they are still not playing.
I do not want that to happen to you.
2. You Will Practice Less Or Worse You Will Stop Altogether
When you decide to take a break, you tell yourself and your teacher that you will keep practicing.
You totally intend to do it too. But then something comes up and you skip a session, then another and so on. It is rare that people who take breaks keep practicing and if they do it is sporadic and nothing close to what they intended. Most people just stop altogether.
This happens because when you take a break from your guitar lessons the one thing that was keeping you accountable is gone. When you spend time and money on lessons you give learning guitar a higher value than other things in your life.
This all goes away when you take a break. This breaks your momentum and worse, you will go backwards and lose what you already invested. More about that in the next section.
3. Your Skills Will Go Backwards And You Will Lose Your Investment
Your playing skills are doing one of two things at any point in time. They are either getting better or they are getting worse. There is really no such thing as maintaining your skills.
So, when you take a break from guitar lessons, you start down the road in reverse gear and your skills go backwards. Even if you continue to practice like you did before the break.
That’s because you are no longer getting professional instruction. Bad habits that will creep in are no longer noticed and fixed. That starts a domino effect of events that lead you to more and more frustration during your guitar practice time and eventually you stop.
If you think about this it means that all of the time, effort and money you invested up to that point is going to waste. When your break is done you will have to review everything and get back to where you were.
For some people that can happen quickly but for many it takes a lot of time because they bring back bad habits and those take time to correct.
Do Everything You Can To Keep Your Momentum
Most people take a break from lessons because they think that they will not get their money’s worth if they do not practice between lessons.
That could not be further from the truth. Whether you practice at home or not your lessons will still be worth it because at the very least you will maintain the habit and you will learn in your lessons.
You certainly will not progress as much but you will not lose what you already gained. Your time, effort and money investment up to that point will be saved and you can even build on it.
And if you have the right teacher they will actually help you still progress.