Five Reasons To Take Music Lessons

Here are Five Good Reasons Why You Should Take 

Five Reasons To Take Music Lessons

In this day and age, short cuts abound and people are constantly looking for the quick way to learn a song. I'm not going to enumerate the various ways that people try this, hoping to bypass any music lessons, because I'm sure you seen or even gotten involved with some.
I've had many people, at their first lesson, tell me that they have tried learning this or that on the internet or some video course and just gotten very mixed up and frustrated. So here are five reasons to take lessons;
1. There are a few separate skills involved with playing music correctly, such as Rhythm, note reading and music theory.
2. A skill such as Rhythm is easiest to learn by having it explained and then demonstrated.
3. Having a teacher right there means you can get instant feedback as to whether or not you are doing it right.
4. A good teacher will make a careful assessment of your level and make sure you learn the appropriate level well before going to the next.
5. A good teacher will keep you out of any of the many pitfalls that students can fall into.

How a Good Teacher Can Help You to Reach Your Goals in Music

There are many pitfalls that students will get into on their own such as playing with no definite beat, trying to get into something that is over their level and memorizing all the short pieces they play in the first level. A good music teacher will watch out for these so that the student will make steady progress in his music lessons. Any of these pitfalls will essentially stop you in your tracks and leave you very frustrated. Short-cut methods may get you a certain ways but, when you decide you want to try something harder or a bit different, you will be faced with going back to get your basics in and few people have the will to take that on. Most musical genres have the same basics involved, so the shortest way is to take lessons.

The Case For Music Basics

The Case For Music Basics

Why Learn Music Basics?

You've probably seen this sign in a mechanics garage or something, that says; "Why is there always enough time to do it over, but never enough time to do it right in the first place?"
This applies to many things in life and it certainly applies to music study. This country has been all through a craze of looking for short-cut methods; everything from trying to follow finger numbers, putting the letters on the piano keys, making the keys different colors and learning by rote (just mimicking someone else's hand and finger motions.) This whole approach has been compounded by the idea the media has always presented that famous rock artists never practiced or ever did practice a day in their lives; something that is categorically, factually untrue.

The Only Shortcut

In my experience as a music instructor, I have invariably found that music students who have tried to learn from some short-cut method are so mixed up that they can't play at all or, if they have gotten somewhat along, they have come up to the realization that they want to play some particular advanced technique or get to another level.

And guess what? To do that, they need the theory or music basics to do it, which pretty much amounts to going back and starting over. Most people don't have it in them to do this.
This is why the shortest way is to just do it right from the start.
Get The Book Of Music Basics

What Do You Need To Learn To Play Guitar

How Long Does It Take To Learn To Play Guitar?

They once asked Eric Clapton if he practiced much and he said no, he just opened the case and threw in some meat once in awhile. The man was lying, of course, he has obviously spent a lot of time on the Blues Scale. The Gurus of Music don't promise you that you will learn to play the guitar overnight but, an experienced music instructor can certainly shorten your journey by guiding you past any pitfalls you might be apt to fall into. In really answering this question of how long, you should give some careful thought to the style of guitar that you would like to learn. Classical style guitar, for example, requires quite a bit of independent finger picking with the right hand. It is a bit more of a complicated style, you might say. Pop styles tend to have their own schools of technique and are heavier on scales, chords and other movable patterns.

Should You Use Tablature Or Written Notes To Learn To Play Guitar? 

Pop styles of guitar playing tend to use tablature to read music, which many regard as a favored shortcut and think that it is easier than reading notes on a staff.   Whether it is truly easier or not is matter open for debate but it can have a drawback since sometimes it doesn't show the rhythm and this can lead inexperienced players to play without a definite beat which will severely compromise their efforts to make music. The other thing to take into consideration is that musical styles are seldom clear-cut; they contain many elements from other styles. If you listen to very good guitar players in pop groups you will often hear them employing some very sophisticated right hand fingering techniques as if they had been schooled in some classical techniques. As we say, in the Gurus of Music, nothing beats the basics as a short cut to learn how to play the guitar.

Is It Hard To Learn Music?

Is It Hard To Learn Music?

Many people have gotten the idea that it is difficult to learn music. So often, after hearing a great performance, you hear someone remark that the person playing was 'lucky' because they had been born with talent. You hear people say that they could never do that because they have no talent. Society holds up the picture of the child prodigy who plays, presumably without ever having lessons. Musical groups are represented as a bunch of friends who just got together and became an overnight sensation.The truth is, everyone learned somewhere; the people in these musical groups had lessons and rehearsed and even Mozart took lessons from his dad. One thing that has made it seem hard to learn music to the average person is the 'snob nomenclature' that develops in activities such as music. Nomenclature is simply what things are called and 'snob nomenclature' occurs when people within a given study start using or making-up really technical sounding terms for basically simple stuff. They do this to make themselves feel more important; like they are 'in the know' and to impress others and give them the feeling that what is going on is simply too complex for them to comprehend. It is interesting that when musicians get really good, they start to use slang for these terms because they have seen through the false importance of terminology in general.A few bucks will buy you a good musical dictionary and then problem solved. Also why there is a glossary on this website.

The other thing that is taught in Europe and generally missing from music lessons in this country is something called Sight Singing and Ear Training. Sounds a little complicated but it's just a collection of simple melodies that one sings or hums and some rhythmic  drills that one taps out on a desk or their knee. There are many good Sight Singing and Ear Training books available and, using this practice in conjunction with learning music brings immediate results in the form of being able to learn music. Leaving this out brings very haphazard results that often leave the student very frustrated.
Get The Book Of Music Basics