Guitar teacher?

[dogrocketp]

The biggest thing with a teacher is finding one who can teach you what you want, and need, to learn. In college, I had a teacher named Mark French. There could not have been a better teacher. After three years and a lot of hard work, he had taught me a lot of music, the basics of problem solving at every level, and how to conduct myself as a person. I’ll always be grateful for his tutelage, and I promised myself I’d take lessons again when I finished learning everything he taught me. 44 years later, and I’m still absorbing his lessons. Only another person can do that for you, and there is a lot of luck involved in finding that person. By all means, look for the teacher who can teach you how to learn. You will reward yourself every time you touch the instrument, and beyond.

 

[Tim Meyers]

I was recently listening to a podcast where the host suggested creating a practice schedule. On the schedule on a daily basis choose less topics to practice so you can spend more time on them. Over the span of a week you'll spend the same amount of time on the topic, just more time at one sitting. I've been trying to do this for a few weeks, it seems to be helping me stay focused, and at least for now I seem to be able to keep things under fingers better.

 

[Alnus Rubra]

Now I’m playing music with others, I find I’m learning things I never thought I would and expanding my abilities that way.

 

[veinbuster]

Now I’m playing music with others, I find I’m learning things I never thought I would and expanding my abilities that way.

I probably learned the most just sitting in and playing with other people.

 

[IKnowALittle]

no.
you don't need personal guitar lessons.
you can take them, but you don't "need" them.
there are so many lessons available that the choice is enormous and confusing.
here's the dirty little secret ... they are all the same ... teach the same material.
buy a dvd from lick library for your level of skill and for $20 u can watch it over and over as many times as u please, with no extra cost.

 

[DougUSMC]

The biggest thing with a teacher is finding one who can teach you what you want, and need, to learn. In college, I had a teacher named Mark French. There could not have been a better teacher. After three years and a lot of hard work, he had taught me a lot of music, the basics of problem solving at every level, and how to conduct myself as a person. I’ll always be grateful for his tutelage, and I promised myself I’d take lessons again when I finished learning everything he taught me. 44 years later, and I’m still absorbing his lessons. Only another person can do that for you, and there is a lot of luck involved in finding that person. By all means, look for the teacher who can teach you how to learn. You will reward yourself every time you touch the instrument, and beyond.

I love this post, b/c I think it's the real meat behind the solution.

If I can paraphrase w/o ruining your original intent: Find the teacher that teaches what and how you learn. I've done a lot of things in life, sometimes as the student, sometimes as the teacher, sometimes as the student that later teaches. From this I know different ways for how students learn, and I know how I personally learn the best. I can usually tell pretty quickly if I'll sync w/a teacher based on my "ah ha moments". Things either do or do not click in my head, and the more a teacher can help me understand things the way it clicks for me tells me if they're going to be someone I can be successful with.

 

[timtheshredder]

A lot of people think that they need to find a really good personal teacher in order to learn guitar. That might be helpful if you are an advanced player and you are working on a lot of improve or things like that, but if you are just starting out, there's no real reason why you need to take in person lessons.

Don't get me wrong, private lessons are great, but they aren't for everyone. Some times there aren't good teachers in your immediate area and some times you can't drive hours to take lessons every week. That's why I like online lessons so much. It's not 1999 anymore. The online teaching resources are way better now than they were in the past.

I'd recommend checking out some of the online guitar teaching sites before you get too worried about finding a private teacher. The most popular ones have already been mentioned in this thread, but I've used GuitarTricks, Jamplay, and Truefire with great results.

They all have a slightly different teaching style and cover different styles of playing. Check out each one and see which one has the style of music that you are interested in playing and sign up for it. I think most of these have some type of free trial that you can test drive their lessons for a week or so.

Then if you feel like you need some more attention, you can seek out a private teacher. I've used both a private teacher and lesson websites at the same time to broaden my style and playing. If you have the budget, this is definitely the way to go. Otherwise, just start with some online lessons to get your feet wet. Hope that helps.