An important question arises when you have bought or received your first guitar: should you take guitar lessons or should you try it alone? This article is designed to help you make the right decision for you. First of all, let’s examine the options that are open to you.
You could try to cope on your own After all, there is the Internet and the accumulated knowledge of the world is at our feet. It is true that there is an incredible amount of information on the internet. But that is precisely where the difficulty lies. How do you know if the information is correct? How can you be sure that this or that piece of information will get you to your goal faster? How do you know the order in which to acquire the knowledge? What do you do when an exercise is too difficult for you?
Of course there are answers to all of these questions and with enough time and energy you can answer these questions. However, it can take years or decades to achieve this. That’s the price you pay for free information. In doing so, I completely left out the emotional level. Because with all these questions, there is also uncertainty as to whether you are doing it right and whether you will ever achieve your goal.
Time with a good guitar teacher is better invested. Because he has invested years or decades for you so that you don’t have to ask yourself the questions from above. He knows what information is correct and relevant, the order in which to absorb it, and how to adjust the exercises if they are too easy or difficult for you. With this you can also be reassured that you are on the right path and can put your released energy into practicing. A good teacher will also support you with motivation problems and help you find a routine that suits your life.
In summary, it is a trade-off between your priorities. Is it more important to you to save a few hundred dollars or is it more important to you to be sure that you are taking the shortest and easiest route to your goals? There are of course many factors that influence this decision and not all of them can be covered in this article, so I recommend that you have several conversations with guitar teachers and also listen to their information.
Good luck!
About the author:
Rene Kerkdyk is a guitarist living in Hildesheim Germany. Making people great on guitar in the shortest amount of time possible is his mission. He teaches guitar lessons in Hildesheim.