Taking Lessons Again

[TS808]

I decided to start taking guitar lessons again...I'm 46 y/o and decided I needed to get a little help with rhythm playing, phrasing, etc. I've pretty much just noodled around at home with the guitar for the past number of years and realized one barrier that has always been there is I never really structured practice time, etc.

When I took lessons years ago, the emphasis was always on soloing, and it was mostly learning guitar solos from whatever song I wanted to learn. I was never taught much about phrasing, technique, song structure, etc., and quite frankly, being a "hobbyist" or home player gets boring sometimes.

I found a guy who will come to the house to teach which was really cool.

My biggest fear was that I'd get some 19 year old kid teaching me

I start tonight and I'm looking forward to it.

[Robert****]

Hope it works well for ya! I am back into teaching again, this time at a local music store my buddy just opened.

[zeusse]

Don't fear the 19year old I know a 14year old that will amaze you with his playing....hope you enjoy the lessons sometimes even a different perspective is good

[TS808]

It turns out that the guy is 42 years old and went back to college to major in music. He's going to the same university for classes that I work at. He's trained mostly in jazz and classical, and it turns out our skill levels are pretty even. He's a great rhythm player and I was mostly trained in soloing and need work in rhythm playing so it worked out well.

This guy is already talking about us playing the open stage night at a local pub lol. It's pretty cool...I feel like I have more of a jamming mate than I do a teacher, but he's got me reading some music for next week, which I haven't done in quite some time.

I've missed getting together with someone to jam for quite some time, so this is looking pretty cool so far.

[aeolian]

I took guitar lessons for about a year and a half a few years ago after turning 50 years old. Actually they were more theory lessons than guitar playing lessons. The instructor has a music degree and I learned a lot more about chord theory and such. It has helped tremendously in figuring out songs. And it doesn't have to be hardcore theory stuff, just knowing how to figure out what the V chord in the scale of D and knowing how to playing inversions of the chord all over the fretboard went a long way in helping me figure out songs.

[fastfoot]

Hi TS808,

I just turned forty, and I too have hit a wall in trying to speed up the learning curve and get better technique playing my guitar. I used to take lessons when I was a young kid. I think your doing the right thing in getting lessons again. Let me know how it works out.

fastfoot

[TS808]

Hi TS808,

I just turned forty, and I too have hit a wall in trying to speed up the learning curve and get better technique playing my guitar. I used to take lessons when I was a young kid. I think your doing the right thing in getting lessons again. Let me know how it works out.

fastfoot

So far so good. One of the things that struck me the most with taking lessons so far (and it's only been two lessons so far) is how much I've limited myself by playing mainly blues.

Now I'm working on all the different modes of a scale (Dorian, Phrygian, etc.). Although I've been taught this before (many years ago) I never really applied it much, as my other teachers never really had me use the modes with music.

Although I'm by no means a jazz fan, learning the modes as well as some variations of chords (diminished, major and minor 9ths and 11ths) is really expanding my bag of tricks a bit. I've been purposely NOT playing blues lately and I'm surprised how good alot of the stuff I'm doing is coming along and how much more "colorful" it sounds.

I love blues and rock though, and don't have any aspiration to play jazz down the road, so at the very least, this will help add some more dimensions to those.