Thursday, April 7, 2011

How Should You Learn to Play Acoustic Guitar? With a Personal Teacher, Online, or Through Self-Teaching?

By Scott Forrester


If you decide you want to learn how to play the acoustic guitar, you have some choices to make. The Internet has made a lot of things very easy to access, including online resources to teach yourself guitar. However, a personal instructor has advantages as well. You can also theoretically teach yourself. Let's look at the pros and cons of each method so that you can decide for yourself just what is best for you.

The Internet has a lot of methods by which you can learn to play the guitar as a student. Most of these tutorials online are put together by professionals who know what they're doing. Some of these tutorials offer written lessons, some have video lessons included, and others offer both, in combination. In my opinion, the combination method is best, for several reasons.

One of the first reasons is that you can get the text lesson and learn from it, but you're not going to know if you're learning correctly, because this method doesn't give you any feedback or demonstration. A simple text lesson plan is the least effective method when it comes to learning how to play guitar. At the end of the lesson, there'll usually be a piece of music or little song that will encapsulate the lesson material. However, it's not likely that you're going to know how that should sound or whether you're reproducing it correctly.

It's more effective to learn from just a video, but that doesn't offer you the benefit of seeing it on paper, too. You can see the guitar played by the guy in the video, and you can hear how it's supposed to sound, but you won't be able to see what it's supposed to look like on sheet music. That means that this isn't the best situation, either.

That's why a combination of video backed up by sheet music is probably the most powerful and effective way to learn acoustic guitar. With this method, you can both see the music in print and you can hear how it should sound. And, of course, you have the visual reinforcement of seeing it played properly so that you can copy proper form. Finally, you can also repeat the lesson as many times as you need to until you have mastered it.

The use of a personal instructor is another good way to learn guitar. A good instructor can show you the proper way to do everything. They can show you how to do it, listen as you play the material and point out areas that need work. He/she can also tell you what you are doing well and direct you that way. The only thing is if you don't practice, you may spend two or three lessons on the same material.

Self-teaching is actually a good way to go and may be underrated in some things. You can get a book and teach yourself the lessons, but if you just do that, will you have the ability to play guitar? Will you have become fluid or agile on the guitar? You're basically in the same situation as the person who chose to do text lessons online.

What that means is that really, none of these methods is going to have a positive effect on your development of the ability to play guitar unless you practice. Practice, in fact, is key to becoming what you want to become as a guitarist. Take each lesson and practice it until you can do it backwards, forwards, in your sleep, and so on. In other words, practice is what's going to make perfect. Practice, practice, practice, practice and then practice some more.

Whatever way you choose to learn acoustic guitar, the practice is the gravy on the potatoes, baby. Whether you go online or go to a teacher and pay for hourly lessons, practice makes all the difference.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment