Guitar tutor rant

[Sporky_McGuffin]

I had a dreadful guitar teacher. Well, actually, that was probably a bit unfair. He was a classical teacher (at my school) but advertised as teaching electric too. He'd spend the first five or ten minutes of each lesson slagging off my guitar and taste in music and the rest trying to get me to learn to play 50s rock n roll. I'd told him I wanted to learn yer basic playing technique and a bit of theory (already had Grade 6 from piano lessons but wasn't too hot on applying it to guitar).

I s'pose I should try finding someone a bit more useful but I've been totally put off lessons.

[Nik Harrison]

There is always a bigger picture when it comes to students and ability. A tutors ability to teach is not always reflected in their students. I've had highly motivated students who could tune guitars, knew every basic chord, play very technically accomplished "rock", and maintained their practice discipline and enthusiasm after 18 months! I've had other students who couldn't do any of that, knew maybe one or two chords, and could only play very simple melodic ideas after 3 to 4 years. Idealistically, I know who I would rather have admit that I taught them, but the reality of these situations is always different. I've had plenty of students who never practiced and who thought it was up to me to "make them good". Should I have stopped taking their money? I don't think so. I have said to students before now that I don't feel they were making the progress that they were capable of/ not really listening to what I said to them/ not really interested etc, but tutoring is my job. The students are technically my employer!

I'm not going to inappropriately defend whoever this tutor is to the end here, but that he's taking a kid's money for a guitar lesson doesn't mean he's a "twat". The tutor should have probably agreed some long and short term goals to shoot for over an agreed timeframe (which I doubt happened, and he probably just went along the dictatorial, "easy tab exam" route which I'm not going to endorse for a minute) but if the student wasn't happy with what he had achieved over any given timeframe at all, then he should have gone for lessons somewhere else.

[REDSTRAT]

Geez With All The Stuff On The Net Why Pay For Lessons.and As Far As Not Knowing How To Tune-buy A Tuner.

[sfocata]

Originally Posted by REDSTRAT

Geez With All The Stuff On The Net Why Pay For Lessons.and As Far As Not Knowing How To Tune-buy A Tuner.

wHY aRE yOU cAPITALISING eVERY wORD?

And please explain how a beginner is expected to sort through all the utterly shite guitar tuition on the internet and find the good stuff. Oh, and how a tuner will help you learn to tune a guitar...


adrian

[boogie man]

Originally Posted by REDSTRAT

Geez With All The Stuff On The Net Why Pay For Lessons.and As Far As Not Knowing How To Tune-buy A Tuner.

He had a tuner..but he didnt know how to use it. Which is why he'd broken two strings and asked if I had any spares in the first place.

A beginner learning to play guitar from lessons via the net? Ok, then in that case, why bother with driving lessons.....you could easily learn how from the web. Piece of piss really.

[Guitar_Slinger]

Originally Posted by REDSTRAT

Geez With All The Stuff On The Net Why Pay For Lessons.and As Far As Not Knowing How To Tune-buy A Tuner.

Are they David Mead's next 2 books?

I agree with what Nik says above and have (maybe twice) gone for a lesson even though I've not touched the guitar since the last lesson because I gave priority to other stuff. I realised quickly this was a waste of mine and my tutor's time and would rather re-schedule a lesson than do it again.

I went to a weekly guitar class a couple of years ago which I really loved, but some of the others saw it as a weekly an escape from the missus or 'cool accessory' (as in "Hey... I have a guitar") and would sit chatting rather than playing what the tutor was trying to teach us. It was obvious which ones never touched the guitar in-between classes.

My opinion may not be relevant to the young d00d who's the subject of this thread... more an observation that some people think merely turning up for a lesson (guitar/finance/computers or whatever) will magically give them the power to do whatever it is, without having to put any effort in.

[martynq]

I'm more gonna comment towards Mr RedStrat rather than the original poster.

Despite being reasonably internat-savvy, I do not agree that it is that easy to learn just from stuff on the net. I am seriously considering taking lessons to try to get myself out of the rut that my playing seems to be constrained to.

[Sporky_McGuffin]

Originally Posted by REDSTRAT

As Far As Not Knowing How To Tune-buy A Tuner.

To be honest, though, that's like saying "You don't know how to build furniture? Buy a nailgun!".

[evilmags]

If you can't restring after three years playing, then it is highly probable that you could have spent those 3 years doing something else.

[Treznor]

Originally Posted by evilmags

If you can't restring after three years playing, then it is highly probable that you could have spent those 3 years doing something else.

If you can't re-string after 3 years, chances are you HAVE been doing something else