Originally posted by iiholly
THere's nothing wrong with using books at all. But some of the books out there are really crappy, and the purpose of having an instructor is so they can instruct you not give you a book that instructs you and just sort of shove you along. Looks like your of to a good start.
The reason why I'm so against book learning is because I pissed away 2 years in one book without a teacher. I mean it's really is a sad story.
There's nothing wrong with tabs either. But it is impossible to learn a song with out hearing it.

I've always felt the music teacher was there to help you get onto the right books as well. I've done a lot of book learning and my teacher always said to me 'this book can teach you a lot, if you used (gives me several other titles and authors) then they dont explain this so well, they dont cover that as early as it really needs to be covered etc. Perhaps you used the wrong book for two years because you didnt have a teacher to recommend you a better one.

Impossible to learn a song before you've heard it??? No No No!!! Its true that I've learned a lot of songs from listening to the recordings and going throught it with the tab or score, but one of the beauties of music is developing your own interpretation, if you play a song after you've heard it you will always be influenced by that recording but if you learn before you've heard it you work out how YOU think it should be played, and then later you can hear other peoples versions, adjust your own and correct mistakes (thats another field where the teacher is very valuable.) I tend to apply that approach to classical music, but who's to say you couldnt learn any song that way?