I've been playing bass and guitar off and on since I was a kid. I decided to start playing it seriously a year ago this past January and think I did a pretty good job on my own. But my aspirations are much bigger now and I want to be "hirable". So I decided to see if I could find a suitable local teacher. I finagled a "complimentary" lesson and planned to do that with a couple of other instructors, but think, at least for now, found the guy for me. He was a young dude, 25 and based on his age and demeanor working for a guitar shop I wondered what he'd be able to teach me.
In our discussion leading up to the lesson, I set some guidelines. I told him that I expected a teacher who would be coaching me on an ongoing basis needed to be prepared ahead of time from week to week and that he should know what the lesson is going to be before I walk in the door and have the proper materials ready. I also told him that I don't like clock-watchers and that I never do that when giving trumpet lessons and routinely go overtime (those from Lousiana will understand lanyap). This guy did not disappoint me.
He had prepared some initial music for me to read to test my ability and almost instantly found some holes in my playing, my left hand technique/approach and a bit on my right hand, but thought my right hand was generally good. However, he noticed that middle and index sounded a bit different. I think part of that issue was that I tend to play with short nails and my middle nail was a little long. I would file them way back if I didn't want a bit of nail for fingerstyle acoustic guitar. I'll just have to do daily manicures when I can't easily play evenly.
The first thing he noticed was my notes weren't always clean. Sometimes a little buzzy, almost unnoticeable, but he noticed. And said that when I go fast I sometimes get a bit flat fingered. He told me to work on playing more with my fingertips and getting closer to the fret. Also, he said my left thumb "floated" rather than pivoted and suggested that my left hand pivot around the thumb rather than have the thumb move laterally on the back of the fingerboards as electric shredders often do. He noticed that I had worked on my alternating fingers, alternating when ascending and raking when appropriate while descending. He thought I should practice pure alternating too when descending. I think that will be the most difficult.
Also, he is having me work on discovering the fingerboard in what I consider a most unusual way. He asked to play arpeggios of major and minor chords ascending, but using an open string to give me time to switch to a higher position to continue the arpeggio. THAT was the most difficult thing for me, and when it came to doing that in inversions, my brain just went into overload.
We really didn't have time to get into tunes, but I think once this stuff seeps into my DNA my reading will improve, but more importantly, I'll have a technique that folks will want to listen to. So I think I owe it to this young man to continue for at least several lessons to see where it takes me.
I thought I'd share my experience because we see so many threads about how to learn off the internet. I would have spent years figuring out what I didn't know when all of it was put in front of me in 45 minutes. Thanks for taking the time to read it.
In our discussion leading up to the lesson, I set some guidelines. I told him that I expected a teacher who would be coaching me on an ongoing basis needed to be prepared ahead of time from week to week and that he should know what the lesson is going to be before I walk in the door and have the proper materials ready. I also told him that I don't like clock-watchers and that I never do that when giving trumpet lessons and routinely go overtime (those from Lousiana will understand lanyap). This guy did not disappoint me.
He had prepared some initial music for me to read to test my ability and almost instantly found some holes in my playing, my left hand technique/approach and a bit on my right hand, but thought my right hand was generally good. However, he noticed that middle and index sounded a bit different. I think part of that issue was that I tend to play with short nails and my middle nail was a little long. I would file them way back if I didn't want a bit of nail for fingerstyle acoustic guitar. I'll just have to do daily manicures when I can't easily play evenly.
The first thing he noticed was my notes weren't always clean. Sometimes a little buzzy, almost unnoticeable, but he noticed. And said that when I go fast I sometimes get a bit flat fingered. He told me to work on playing more with my fingertips and getting closer to the fret. Also, he said my left thumb "floated" rather than pivoted and suggested that my left hand pivot around the thumb rather than have the thumb move laterally on the back of the fingerboards as electric shredders often do. He noticed that I had worked on my alternating fingers, alternating when ascending and raking when appropriate while descending. He thought I should practice pure alternating too when descending. I think that will be the most difficult.
Also, he is having me work on discovering the fingerboard in what I consider a most unusual way. He asked to play arpeggios of major and minor chords ascending, but using an open string to give me time to switch to a higher position to continue the arpeggio. THAT was the most difficult thing for me, and when it came to doing that in inversions, my brain just went into overload.
We really didn't have time to get into tunes, but I think once this stuff seeps into my DNA my reading will improve, but more importantly, I'll have a technique that folks will want to listen to. So I think I owe it to this young man to continue for at least several lessons to see where it takes me.
I thought I'd share my experience because we see so many threads about how to learn off the internet. I would have spent years figuring out what I didn't know when all of it was put in front of me in 45 minutes. Thanks for taking the time to read it.
