online lessons vs. the real thing? thots?

hello everyone, i'm a 6 yr guitar player loosing my mind and i can't take it anymore! i can't play something as simple as crazy train without shatting even the simple parts... in trueth.. i know all the scale positions and parterns of minor, major, and penatonic and practice at a minimum of 3 hours daily! now that i'm laid off i practice over 7 hours a day EVERY SINGLE DAY.., i feel and hear no improvement and i've even thot of suicide after a long practices. i hardly enjoy even listening to music anymore especially the things i want to learn to play. i practice the scales endlessly and cannot tie them together for ****. what i'm trying to say is, i'm taking online lessons from 3 dif sites, have played through and practice from several dvds, my favorite being Metal Method... such a rut i'm in i don't know anymore if i'm cut out for guitar, any thots? advise? know instructors that could help me break threw this wall? because i'm really tired of finding 13 year olds on youtube that can blow me away. thx guys

Hi hidden_picture,

Here's some recent posts on that exact subject from GT members that might answer your questions best:

http://www.guitartricks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=29123&highlight=plateau

http://www.guitartricks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=29077&highlight=lessons+online

been playing since in was 13 i am now 48 i can play a little of every thing but none of it well want to learn some newer stuff but with all the new tunning drop d ect i cannot figure out the sound i play by ear cannot read music or tabs but know my cords and some licks i will be paying for some of your lessons as soon as i can your instructors have been impressive (the free lessons ) i play old stuff like ted nugent ,boston,eagles need some newer stuff i think i have picked up some bad habits from just learning from friends wrong fingering ect and need to relearn the right way to do things

oh god i practiced for 11 ... that is not a mistype ... 11 hours today.. i think its my longest yet. look i'm sorry for cryin all over you guys yesterday but i am very depressed .. lost my job blah blah ... i'm not the only one i know. but after practicing today i went back and tried riffraff(acdc) again ... before i just, guh, could not get my fingers around that main lick, and i tried alot of tabs and i'm not going to jerk yall one bit. out of 5 tabs and 1 vid lesson that covered the riff, only the vid lesson had it rite and the others were quite off. i could hear the open a repeatedly but nobody had it tabbed in .. this made it frustrating and i gave up.. had a couple beers hit it again at about 2:am and had it licked in like 5 minutes .. thats when i went back to ultimate-guitar and checked those tabs again .. yea..
its in our nature to question and i think alot of us aren't doing that enough. so i bid you, in my rut do what i did.. i went and got a "lesson" from a drum shop down the road that has a part time guitar teacher. this was about an hour after i posted this thread. i was able to point out not only he was sloppy but i know without any doubt this guy was hack.. he new it too and ya know what he told me after he seen what i could play? you don't need lessons you need to perfect your technique(did i spell that rite?) and he wouldn't take my money.. in truth i do know all the modes, all the penatonic positions and ya wanna know how i learned em on my own? with scotch tape and a black magic marker lol. so i'm going to learn some more licks because knowing scales is not everything when you don't know how to use them .. and that is what i've learned from this.. farewell friends, and i apologize again for coming on like a complete ass.

Been playing for about 18 years now, wasted the first 8 playing scale runs over and over and trying to play as fast as possible - sounded terrible and never improved. Took a break for about 5 years when I was abroad, then started playing again about 5 years ago and am better now than I ever was. I deliberately avoid theory now at all costs and never ever practice scales or stock runs. The only practice I do is in trying to work out the solos that are in my head. I decided to forget trying to understand the fretboard and focus on developing my ear and to start creating music - I never went anywhere trying to play someone elses music. If all else fails then give this method a try for a month - I think you will notice playing guitar becomes a lot more enjoyable and you will start playing much more interesting music. Take away the rules and let your imagination take over - work out what's in your head and practice playing that. Give it a go, the worst that can happen is you will have tried somthing new and taken a break from scales for a while.

...and that's key, to summarize what I think Superhuman is saying, is to let it flow. I think that knowing scales and theory is very important because you do need the roadmap to know where you're going but the reality is, you still have to do something with it. Guitar playing is not at all about knowing information. It's about getting out what you feel. Communicating, even if to only yourself, what you feel musically inside. Scales and theory helps you get there but it is a means to an end.

I think to hidden's issue, it's almost a case of trying too hard. Like the 'had a coupla beers and perfected it' part. Got just a little loose and it came. I don't advocate drinking and playing (a 'PUI'?) but it does point out that music is a flow you run with and not fight against.

...this is peculiar. i never understood how things of this nature can be so difficult for some people and so easy for others. of course we've all had our "hitting the wall" moments and those moments where frustration rules over everything else, but if you've been playing this long and this hard and not getting the rhythm and feel or the technique down yet, maybe you're wasting your practice time. i'm curious as to know what you practice and whatnot.

i disagree with superhuman about "forgetting" theory or whatever; it's a blanket statement and we all utilize musical theory when we play, no matter how basic. i just can't imagine someone actually saying "nah, i'd rather NOT know what notes are in this chord so i can be limited to box shapes and stock licks". i know that's not what you meant, superhuman, because you're obviously a well-versed musician. but having a refined ear is the counterpart to KNOWING why you like what you hear. sure, if you break things down mathematically some people don't dig that train of thought. but you tell me how to play "giant steps" or coletrane changes without looking at music from a mathematical point of view-because our ears would have a hell of a hard time making that chordal connection without knowing what's going on. our ears can suppliment the theory most times, and often override it...but why abandon that entire aspect of musical understanding?

i agree with most of what every bodys saying i can play all kinds of music
but dont read notes or tabs i can hear what it is supose to sound like but with out knowing how to finger some of the more diffuclt sounds it's really hard to get it to sound right that's where the need to know some tecnical stuff comes in the video lessons work for me because i can see what to do not just read it thats how i need to learn by actually having some one show me the way to play it i know the fingering for cords how to pick most of & the tricks( muting,pull offs ect ) but to read it on a piece of paper just wont work for me that's why i like the idea of the video lessons i can see whats going on also whats with all this tunning drop d ect man try to figure that out by ear

That's what I want to achieve. :) I started playing guitar when I was 17. Wanting nothing more than to be able to accompany myself singing other peoples stuff. Well, what happened? I got stuck in some standard chord progressions and finally I got fed up after 3 years of playing and hardly touched the guitar since. Not until now. 25 years later.

Not that I haven't tried to start again from time to time. Buying instruction books and trying to read them and understand what they were trying to teach me. It just didn't cut it. Somehow the step from the abstract words and figures on paper to the real world of playing became to big. I just got frustrated and gave it up again.

I guess I the playing have been there always, dormant in the back of my head. Something that I never got around to finish. In the mean time I studied computing and worked as a computer professional. I learned myself to write on the keyboard without looking at the keys. Which means letting your thoughts run out through your fingers and into the computer.

As time went by it dawned on me that if I wanted to really take up the guitar again, and really get somewhere, I would have to get to know the fretboard as well as I know the keypad. Know it so that I can just think or feel a particular note and it will ring almost by itself. That's how I write and that's how I want to play. That's my goal now. Just making myself able to express my own thoughts and feelings via the guitar, by combining sounds into something that will (hopefully ;) ) sound as music of sorts.

It still took a while to get started from that conclusion. I can't afford a private teacher. I have to pay for song lessons for my daughter. Even if I could afford it my life is not such that I can commit myself to follow regular scheduled lessons with a teacher. My work makes me travel a lot.

So I started looking around for some kind of software that may help me learn and rehearse guitar playing at my own pace. Then I discovered DVD lessons and on line lessons and started investigating deeper into those. Finally I found so many recommendations for this site that I decided I'd give it a try.

-And by golly, it works! This is what I have been looking for for 25 years. Someone who can show me how to do things instead of books trying to tell me. And finally I am learning not only to use the fretboard, but also the theory on how and why some things work together and some doesn't, and I love it. There is so much to learn, so much to dig into. There will always be something new to learn. The guitar has become fun again.

Luckily I never had the heart to sell neither the old Takamine acoustic from '82 nor the Tokai "1964" strat. I love those guitars. I love the sound of them, the feel of playing them. The Takamine has the sweetest sound. It got pretty beaten up back in the eighties and I sold it to get a new acoustig without battle scars. Ended up trading the new one for the old one. I haven't found anything that sounds like it so far. The old Tokai is a perfect replica of a vintage Strat, it's become set up correctly for me by a pro luthier and the vintage replica has now become a vintage guitar in it's own right.

They've both been with me all this time, waiting patiently for me to come out and play again. Now their wait is over. It's time to play! :)

regards
-hjv

First thing; practicing is only useful if you practice effectively. That means working towards something. Not just scales and chord progressions, but the scope and purpose a genre of music.

The other thing to deal with is your approach to music. I borrow a page from the jazzer's book on this: Learn everything you can about how music works (the theoretical stuff), and 'forget' about it when its time to play. You don't actually forget the theory, but its not what you focus on. Theory is not a road map. Sorry Jeff, gotta disagree there. Its much more like a vocabulary, and the rules of grammar. It won't lay out your destination for you, but it will help you to say what you need to say.

Which brings me to the final thing. Musicians don't play just because we want to. We play because we have to. Like the visual artists that sketch on scraps of paper, we have stuff inside that has to be expressed. Find some music that gives a voice to what you're feeling, and then play the hell out of it.

Which brings us back to the first thing...

On the topic of Online vs. Real Thing, I much prefer online. I have not taken real guitar lessons, but I did drum lessons way back when. The main thing I can say as a positive of real vs. online is that there is an expectation from somebody you have to face in person. Thus, a motivation to meet that expectation for whatever reason.

For myself, I am not focusing as much on theory as I should be. I know I need to be doing that, but I'm having so much fun learning licks an practicing putting them together, making variations, etc. I am learning a lot and getting better, but there's the rub: There is nobody I have to meet each week and demonstrate my progress to! So, the less fun parts are getting neglected. :rolleyes:

That said, it is also one of the great strengths of online lessons. For someone like myself, who has no particular goal other than to play and to learn, I could never get that flexibility with personal instructor and a timeline of expected results. I just need to make sure I keep some discipline about it all and not neglect those bits I'm not so enthusiastic about.

Lot of other reasons, such as time flexibility, costs, etc, are also a factor. I can say, that if online lessons were not available to me, I almost certainly would [u]not[/u] be taking any personal lessons. That's just the way life gets. No time, no money. lol!

And if there was ever anything I agreed with, it is this!

Musicians don't play just because we want to. We play because we have to.

Originally Posted by: quickfingers...this is peculiar. i never understood how things of this nature can be so difficult for some people and so easy for others. of course we've all had our "hitting the wall" moments and those moments where frustration rules over everything else, but if you've been playing this long and this hard and not getting the rhythm and feel or the technique down yet, maybe you're wasting your practice time. i'm curious as to know what you practice and whatnot.

i disagree with superhuman about "forgetting" theory or whatever; it's a blanket statement and we all utilize musical theory when we play, no matter how basic. i just can't imagine someone actually saying "nah, i'd rather NOT know what notes are in this chord so i can be limited to box shapes and stock licks". i know that's not what you meant, superhuman, because you're obviously a well-versed musician. but having a refined ear is the counterpart to KNOWING why you like what you hear. sure, if you break things down mathematically some people don't dig that train of thought. but you tell me how to play "giant steps" or coletrane changes without looking at music from a mathematical point of view-because our ears would have a hell of a hard time making that chordal connection without knowing what's going on. our ears can suppliment the theory most times, and often override it...but why abandon that entire aspect of musical understanding?

All good points, I always say that it comes down to how your brain in wired. At the end of the day I understand theory in my own way - ie I know by my ear what sounds right and how to create harmonies and scales etc from looking at the fretboard. This took a long time to achieve though and was done pretty first by practicing scales and shapes then by relying on my ear and working out what was in my head. I just hit a major plateau that I couldnt go beyond when I stuck with the scales approach. I only truely started to 'understand' music when I started concentrating on composing for myself without worrying about what it supposed to comes because of rigid theory. I comes back to how your mind works, some people work best off feel and imagination whereas other have more analytical minds that work best from an understanding of rules and concepts. Others again work from a combination of the two. Not advocating throwing theory out the window, just saying to try a new approach for a while if you hit a plateau. You may discover something new about your ability and playing might improve and even if you don't a break in routine can often help to kick start improvement.