Guitar Lessons

It's difficult to imagine Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, or Django Reinhardt as children suffering through guitar lessons with some stuffy old scale-obsessed instructor. Granted, there are a rare few autodidacts who take to the fret board as naturally as they breathe air, but for most beginners it's a real struggle. Just forcing your fingers into voicings that produce anything less than sheer discord can seem like a monumental task.

That's where guitar lessons come in. With the proper instruction, not only will you learn the most important techniques for picking, strumming, fretting, muting, and slapping, you'll do so before bad habits start to form. If you have a "peeping" thumb, a good instructor will slap it down into place. If your barre chord formation is unorthodox, you can get it straightened out before it hampers you or does anatomical damage to your fingers.

More Benefits of Guitar Lessons

One of the greatest advantages guitar lessons can give you is a good ear, which is far more preferable to learning by rote. You could learn every mode of the major, minor, and pentatonic scales, memorize the formation of fifths, sevenths, and ninths, or study the position of roots, or you could work on developing a sharp ear instead. Once you've improved your pitch, you won't have to waste valuable dollars (not to mention hours) memorizing. You'll just intuitively know where to go next.

Guitar lessons may be expensive, but they're nothing compared to the cost of making fundamental mistakes, especially if you're eyeing several possible careers in music. Time can be your greatest ally, which is why it's worth the initial investment to get your skills tight before venturing out on the road as a wandering troubadour or session player. If you've taken guitar lessons your whole life and feel as though you're at a plateau, you may even want to consider applying to a few guitar schools to help you make the creative and technical breakthroughs you need for success.