www.justinguitar.com

chris77 · 2009-12-16T20:41:42+00:00

Great site for free lessons on a wide spectrum of genres. Some better than others, but I havent watched a bad one yet. The forum should also look kinda famil...

www.justinguitar.com

PeteM

infernox wrote: So would you guys recommend I use this before getting a tutor? Just to get some basic skills as the video's I have watched are very good in terms of method and correctly doing things i.e. the way you hold your hands etc.

I reckon it would be wiser to go to a good tutor first to make sure that you get into the correct habits upfront. Once you have that, you can stay with your tutor or move on to online and DVD tutors.

A big chunk of my tutoring time is taken up trying to undo bad habits in my students and it is frustrating for them and for me.

Keira-WitherKay

PeteM wrote:
infernox wrote: So would you guys recommend I use this before getting a tutor? Just to get some basic skills as the video's I have watched are very good in terms of method and correctly doing things i.e. the way you hold your hands etc.
A big chunk of my tutoring time is taken up trying to undo bad habits in my students and it is frustrating for them and for me.

+1 to what pete says....... students/beginners who are self taught tend to miss out several important steps in regards good position/technique/use of all fingers/ even basic theory that makes understanding the later lessons easier..........

but again i'm a tutor so i would say find a tutor...... ? but it is as rene said self taught can take 40 yrs whereas a good tutor who teach's you music and the related theory and how to understand it and NOT just a new song every week can shorten that curve to a few months to play the basics and a year or two to be pretty advanced............ and on a pro standard..........

so what i'm saying is picking the right tutor is essential............ preferably one who is playing pro /semi pro or has been in past ........ knowing your tutor plays gigs is a good indication of a tutors ability to cut it in the real music world..... really would you learn to say paint from someone who has never exhibitted their work........ remember there is an expression that says." those that can do. and those that can't teach." but least when it comes to guitar find a tutor who is teaching and doing (playing gigs) cos every good tutor i know even at varsity /tech /music schools/private all do sessions or do gigs as well as teach........... seek them out they'll have something to teach you worth learning

i had the shock a while back of teaching very basic theory to a student who played guitar at below intermediate level ... but wanted to know more.... .which is admirable but later while chatting i found to my horror that this student was actually teaching about 10 students in jhb area and had been for last year or so ??? scary ..very scary......as this person couldn't even play a major scale or understand chord formula's or how keys worked.....or any of the basic theory my beginner students know and on top of that played guitar well below par even for intermediate level ...... ....... so yeah just confirm the pedigree of your tutor......... many people see teaching guitar as a way to make a quick buck.......... i found the same online......... some sites are excellent and some are clearly just trying to sell a product.

Warren

I think online videos / DVDs are most helpful when addressing specific techniques, like pinch harmonics (Justin's video on that is quite good). Or specific songs: Lick Library has some great tutorials of different songs.

Not a replacement for a teacher, but I often take a look at vids to get an idea of how other people play stuff. So I'd recommend using them as a reference, really.

Bob-Dubery

aja wrote: Be careful. Some videos show terrible techniques that you may learn and struggle to unlearn.

I found out the hard way - a good teacher/tutor teaches you what you need to play guitar, whereas the online materials are simply footnotes in most cases

Well this is a big risk for most players I think. I started playing again a few years ago after a long layoff. Because I was rusty (to say the least) and because I'd never actually had any kind of tuition I decided to go for some lessons. So I found a teacher and went for lessons and life is good and then Teacher No1 decided he was off to the UK.

So I started with Teacher No 2.

Now I don't want to cast aspersions about either of these gentlemen, but it did get interesting. EG

Teacher No 2: Who showed you that?
Me: Teacher No 1
Teacher No 2: Well don't do it like that. Do it like this.

Or (to do with with where one's thumb should be used and what it can be used for)

Me: Is that OK to do?
Teacher No 2: Why do you ask?
Me: Teacher No 1 said he NEVER wanted to see my thumb, that it was always to be in the middle of the neck.

So it's hard to know if the teacher is teaching you properly or even what "properly" is.

Renesongs

+1 Bob. I find that I spend most of my time correcting painful and useless techniques imposed by other teachers rather than "bad habits" that my students have taught themselves. Thumb positions are my favourite. The is no universally correct place to put your thumb is depends on hands size guitar neck width playing position standing or sitting and of course musical genre. Yet I have had so many students complain about crampted writs and difficulty in playing bar chords because of previous tutors puristic notion of where the thumb must be placed.

but it is as rene said self taught can take 40 yrs

I really meant it in the context that a good musician never stops learning

Renesongs

Just an after though .. I was searching the net for a list or a ratio of how many rock and jazz musicians where wholly self taught which I suspect is by my estimation probably more than half, I didn't come up with anything for modern music but this list of "classical" composers
Autodidacticism:
* BACH, J. S.
* BEACH, Amy (Mrs. H.H.A. Beach )
* BERNERS, Lord (Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson)
* BRAHMS, Johannes (Father influenced)
* BRIAN, Havergal
* CHALHOUB, Claude
* CURTIS, Matthew
* DAQUIN, Louis Claude
* ELGAR, Edward
* HUGHES, Robert
* HUGILL, Robert
* LANNER, Joseph
* LYONS, James
* LULLY, Jean Baptiste
* MOON, Beata
* MORTENSEN, Kurt
* O'CONNOR, Mark
* OZGEN, Ihsan
* SCHOENBERG, Arnold
* SCHUMANN, Robert
WGMS-"Planned career in Law"
* SHASHANK
* TELEMANN, Georg Philip

Mmm JS Bach very interesting indeed

infernox

Well I am now truely confused.

You see Im awaiting the 25th to go purchase either my Roland 15x or my Spider ( or Spyder) 6 amp and I dont really feel right getting a tutor till then as I dont have all the equipment ready to drop in and learn.

Renesongs

@infernox - as a guitar teacher I would say yes come put food on my table get a teacher, pick me. But as a self taught musician ( but not an uneducated one) I say not all musicians take well to being taught. I have one or two semi pro students that are thus far self taught feel a tad uncomfortable taking instruction from someone else. The real bottom line is try a teacher out if you feel completely wowed by the experience stick with them for as long as you can afford. If you are anything less than awestruck by a tutor move on to the next one. If you have gone through say 5 or 6 teachers and don't feel anyone has inspired you then you are either someone who needs to teach themselves or you just plain unlucky.

singemonkey

Infernox, you don't need an amp to get into playing an electric guitar. The primary purpose of an amplifier is to make your guitar louder. But an unplugged electric is ok for practising. Most are more than loud enough to start putting your chords together and learning some basic scales and fingering.

If you can't learn anything with the guitar unplugged, my guess is that you're trying to learn the wrong stuff. A teacher won't mind that you don't have an amp yet - nor will it seriously inhibit your learning. It's just that most electric guitars are (a) very quiet, and (b) not all that exciting sounding (tinny) when unamplified. But it's no reason not to dig in from the get-go, right?

infernox

Look im sitting practicing chords into my pc right now (although with a slight delay for some reason) but loving the sound!

I think its just that when it sounds right loud then it makes me feel better about what im learning.

Conrad

aja wrote:
infernox wrote: So would you guys recommend I use this before getting a tutor? Just to get some basic skills as the video's I have watched are very good in terms of method and correctly doing things i.e. the way you hold your hands etc.
Be careful. Some videos show terrible techniques that you may learn and struggle to unlearn.

I found out the hard way - a good teacher/tutor teaches you what you need to play guitar, whereas the online materials are simply footnotes in most cases

Aja what kind of stuff do you play? I'm sorry I might have asked this before..

infernox

Just an update... his finger gym exersizes are actually nice and im playing his chords from the chord page... anyone see any problems with the above as I dont wanna go into learning something stupid.

(from about 1 years experience playing bass I learn finger gym is important as my fingers are not strong at all)

Jericho

Having started down this "self teaching" road, I can say Justinguitar.com was one of the better sites online HOWEVER I always knew I preferred to get a real tutor for a couple of reasons:

1. A real tutor can show you things you can't pick up or remember from watching a video.
2. It is EASIER and FASTER to progress with a tutor than online because you are not jumping around learning different things.
3. Experience is the best teacher. You take driving lessons from an experienced driver. You should take guitar lessons from an experienced teacher. And experience can't really be fully relayed in a video. It is practical and needs physical showing.

So use it but first prize is get a real life tutor. You won't regret it.

infernox

No believe me I will get a tutor, just want to make sure I got all the equipment before I ask someone to rock up at my house as my motivation will be to hear myself get better.

ezietsman

infernox wrote: No believe me I will get a tutor, just want to make sure I got all the equipment before I rock up at their house as my motivation will be to hear myself get better.

There, fixed it for ya ?

singemonkey

infernox wrote: No believe me I will get a tutor, just want to make sure I got all the equipment before I ask someone to rock up at my house as my motivation will be to hear myself get better.

You're not going to be led astray by Justin guitar. Just follow his beginner's course through. You'll develop better that way than by picking and choosing stuff that, at this point, you won't know is important to learn or not. So go through the beginner's courses and you'll already be ahead of most people who've owned a guitar for the same period of time.

So yes, look into a teacher, but there's no downside to following the courses he's laid out.

infernox

Thanx man.

I have been following his beginners course and this week will try and finish it again and then rerun through it.