Senior Instructor at Halifax Guitar Lessons
Learning to play guitar is an incredibly popular activity that most people have either tried or thought of trying.
Guitar is at the center of most of our music and is generally considered to be a very cool instrument.
You decided to learn how to play it and get in on the fun! So, you probably did what most people do and went online to search for some lessons to help you learn the basics.
What you found was a huge list of websites to help you learn! At first you think you hit the jackpot. You learn a few things quickly and are on the road to success.
If you are like most people the honeymoon ends quickly and you start to feel like you can’t keep up and get frustrated.
What happened?
No Clear Direction
When you go online to learn guitar there are thousands of options to choose from. Just do a Google search again right now and look at how much comes up. It is staggering.
You would think that all of this information, much of it for free, would lead to better results for more people learning to play guitar. But from my experience the opposite has happened.
Most of my students have tried to learn by themselves online and they all agree it was a waste of their time an energy because it led them to frustration.
They jumped from one video or lesson to another and thought they would make progress that way but they got stuck instead.
You don’t want to go that way if you can avoid it.
You Are Not Trained To Know
Jumping from one lesson to another can be fun but it is not helping you reach your ultimate goals very quickly.
As mentioned above most people that try this method don’t get very far and then get stuck and just keep playing the same old things they know over and over again.
This gets old after a while and when you try to go to the next level you can’t seem to get there. Everything you find online is either way too hard or at your level and you stay put.
The problem is that you are not trained to know what to do next so you are constantly guessing what you should try. This is wasting your time and energy because you are not moving forward.
Sure, you could keep trying and trying and eventually hit the jackpot and find a way to move forward but why waste all your time on it? Wouldn’t it be better to know what to do right now?
It can be done but you need to find a teacher who has been trained to help you.
Find A Trained Guitar Teacher To Help You
Because anyone and everyone can post information online about guitar and because you are not trained you can never know for sure if the things you are learning are right for you.
Not only that but you have no way to know if the concepts you are learning are even being taught properly. You could be developing the wrong technique and creating bad habits without even knowing it.
I spent a lot of time trying to learn guitar from people who had no clue what they were doing. They meant well but unfortunately, I wasted many years that could have been invested in better ways and made me a better guitar player much sooner.
When I finally got frustrated enough I sought out and found a trained and certified guitar teacher and that’s when everything clicked for me. He put me on the right path to help me reach my goals and things moved quickly.
That’s what you need to do as well if you are serious about really learning how to play well.
What Does A Trained Guitar Teacher Look Like?
There are many people that offer guitar lessons but not many of them are actually trained to teach. That means the quality of lessons will be different depending on who you go to.
You may not think the quality matters but if you are going to spend your time, energy and money on learning to play guitar and make one of your dreams come true, why would you want to do it the long and hard way?
I made the mistake of trying to learn as cheap as possible when I first started. I taught myself, found cheap teachers, and I ended up frustrated.
How can you tell the difference between a trained and untrained guitar teacher? You ask them!
It sounds simple but ask them if they have been trained specifically on how to teach guitar. Many will say no and tell you they learned to teach in University or through experience. That’s not what you are looking for.
You could even go another level higher and ask them for certifications in guitar training. If they have those you have a winner!