It’s very tempting for beginners to either self teach or learn from online resources such as YouTube. There are so many different resources out there for people to start learning that it’s tempting not to. This information quickly becomes overwhelming leaving people with little progress to show for the vast amount of time they spend researching and playing. A lot of our students have come to us having first attempted to learn by themselves. We hope this article provides you with a few more reasons why when learning online, you may struggle to get past the beginner stages effectively.
You don’t get any feedback when you learn online
Most of the resources online do not provide opportunities for direct feedback when you are trying something new. As a beginner, every thing is going to be new for you and therefore, even if you think understand exactly what is going in that video you are watching. You can’t see yourself, and know if the technique you are using is correct. Having bad techniques forming early on and cause a lot of issues down the road for anyone’s playing. Most people when they try something new, wonder why it doesn’t sound right or doesn’t feel right, but have no instant feedback to know if it’s actually something they are doing wrong.
Are the materials you are looking at actually right for you and are they a good teacher?
When you are searching for material online, it’s very hard to know whether the material is actually relevant for you. Things may say “Beginner” on them, and then when you try it, and you find it really hard, it can be really defeating. Different people also learn differently and need to work on multiple areas of the guitar as well. When you use material online, it’s easy to leave gaps and holes in your playing.
The second thing is how do you know the person you are learning from is a good teacher? Perhaps you look at comments regarding their lessons, or the number of views they have. But remember that most people are researching similar topics of what they think they “need” to learn. Often there are many blind spots in guitarist who learn guitar online because they only look for the things they think they need. We get a lot of these students coming in, where once we actually fix their blind spots and weak spots, their playing completely transforms and they start to feel like a real musician.
There is no one keeping you accountable
When you learn guitar online as a beginner, there are often no way to keep yourself accountable to practise week to week and month to month. Having someone that you meet face to face helps to ensure that you are motivated to practise, and if you get stuck, which is when a lot of people give up. You have someone who can help you so that you are practising the right things to make progress. You have someone who will help you make your playing sound better. Often when people learn online, they don’t practise the things that they actually need because it’s not as interesting or for various other reasons and that again leaves these big blind spots which really hinders their potential to play the guitar well.
Information provided on YouTube tend to be very general
The information on most topics are very general and shallow because they are trying to appeal to as many people as possible. Even for as a beginner, your playing and the problems and challenges you will come across are specific to you. General information will get somewhere, but it may not be where you want to be. If you want fast progress that is sustainable long term, then getting specific information for your playing and your goals is important. Often at least half the things that you need specifically for you, you didn’t even realise you need to reach your goals and aims. So it’s very hard to find them under general online guitar lessons for beginners.
Having the opportunity to ask questions and get them answered
You are bind to have questions that come up as you learn the guitar, and probably even more questions when you are learning on YouTube. This is because you may be learning one thing, and then realise you don’t know a part of it that they have assumed that you already know. Or using material that is too challenging etc. And even if the material is right, questions still come up. Online, it’s hard to get your questions answered by someone who actually knows how to teach. We’ve seen a lot of people comment and answer other people’s questions with completely the wrong answer. Sometimes because they have also self taught, and they don’t have the history with that person to know what they know and what they don’t.
Another type of question that comes up is where you can’t even describe the problem, and you want to show someone your question through your playing. This is very difficult to do when you have guitar lessons and where having someone in person to see what the real question is is so valuable.
Do you want to be a bedroom guitarist?
Because online guitar lessons are very good at producing bedroom guitarists. People who struggle to play in front of others, to know the language that musicians communicate to each other with. The importance and art of counting while you play. We have seen a lot of students who come who can play one or two songs perfectly from learning it online but can’t do anything else. If you want to be able to freely express yourself and one-day play in front of someone, whether it’s your family or friends, or play with other people. It’s so useful to get that experience in person.
Now that you know the common problems of learning online, and these are problems that anyone from a beginner to an advance player have with online guitar lessons. We hope you find ways of resolving them by getting an amazing guitar teacher, to make sure you don’t experience these problems.
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Guitar Lessons in East London by Guitar Tuition East London is designed to help students progress and advance towards their guitar playing goals while having lots of fun as well.