With the abundance of excellent free learning resources available over the internet, many guitarists wonder if guitar lessons are still a worthwhile investment. In this article, I will share some key points about why having a good guitar teacher can be incredibly beneficial for beginners and experienced players alike and why you won’t regret having lessons on a regular basis.
Table of Contents
What Are The Benefits of Guitar Lessons?
Guitar lessons from an experienced teacher can help people of any skill level! Some of the main reasons lessons can be valuable and totally worth the money include:
- Structured learning and skill building
- Developing good habits and correcting bad ones
- Increased concentration and discipline
- More motivation and confidence
Anyone can benefit from these, and there’s always room for improvement!
As you continue to read, I’ll go into each of these points in depth, so you can see how they can apply to you.
Guitar Lessons Give Structure
One of the most significant perks of attending guitar lessons is giving you a sense of structure or a plan of action for what you should be working on now.
It’s super common for people to learn random things here, and a lot of individuals can relate to having a feeling of aimlessness when learning the guitar by themselves, especially since there is an overwhelming amount of info available that you can encounter all at once.
While learning to play the guitar on your own can be fun and adventurous for some people, and learning new things spontaneously as you go can be exciting, it’s not as efficient as if you and your teacher figure out some specific goals for you.
When you have a game plan, you’ll save a ton of time and improve a lot faster if you have some guidance.
To do this, a good teacher will help you target a handful of areas to focus on in your private lessons; for example, maybe you need to improve chord transitions, work on alternate picking exercises, and get familiar with the fundamentals of music theory, to name a few examples.
Once you’ve improved, you can swap them out for other things, so you’re still continuously learning and building new skills. Not only is this fun and exciting as well, but it can keep you on track and moving forward.
Guitar Lessons Reinforce Good Habits
Due to the individualistic nature of private lessons, having a good guitar teacher can give you direct feedback on how you currently play the guitar.
For example, they might notice that you’re not holding the guitar pick properly or you’re tensing up too much while you play, and this is holding you back from getting to the next level.
They may also point out that you’re trying to play too fast, and this is causing you to have sloppy playing.
To address these common problems, your teacher may suggest that you dial things back a bit and slow down, sit down with the metronome, and pay attention not only to the motions of your playing but also to your breathing and posture as well. The more relaxed you’re able to play, the more effortless it will feel for you!
Make no mistake, though, a good teacher’s job isn’t to criticize you or be harsh during your lessons. Although they are there to help you realize playing issues that can prevent you from reaching your full potential, they should also discuss the things you are doing well so that they can encourage you to keep playing.
Check out this great video by Eric Haugen that also expands on this point and gives you some other qualities you should look for when trying to find an empathetic and effective guitar teacher:
Guitar Lessons Teach Discipline & Focus
In order to get the most out of your guitar lessons with your instructor, it takes discipline and commitment to attend them each week with the mindset that you’re ready to learn and improve and also practice the lesson materials each day.
After all, if you don’t learn how to practice guitar properly with intent and focus, you won’t improve as quickly!
This doesn’t mean that you need to grind the guitar for 8 hours a day like a full-time job. In fact, you’ll get more out of your practice sessions if you dedicate just 30 minutes to an hour of pure focus to the areas you need to improve. Having an understanding of the skills you need to work on laid out by your guitar teacher definitely helps with this.
When you have too much on your plate or lack direction, it’s much easier to get distracted, too, so sometimes less is more in the grand scheme of things.
As mentioned before, you will continually grow over time as you periodically switch out things to practice, so you don’t need to worry about trying to learn everything at once.
If you happen to struggle with discipline right now, that’s okay; like everything else, this is a skill that can be learned and improved. Also, it doesn’t just benefit your guitar playing; it will carry over into other areas in your life too!
Guitar Lessons Improve Your Motivation & Confidence
Aside from simply getting better at playing the guitar, having regular guitar lessons can have notable benefits on your well-being.
With the support and guidance of a great guitar teacher, you will improve, and this will encourage you to commit to the guitar for the long term and possibly become a life-long outlet and form of self-expression for you.
You can undoubtedly learn guitar on your own, and there are plenty of famous self-taught players, but having a teacher with structured lesson plans will take a lot of guesswork out of the learning experience. This aspect alone can accelerate your progress.
When you try to learn by yourself, it can be easy to feel like you’re stuck in a rut and make it seem like you’re not improving, and this can be incredibly demotivating and frustrating and can create a sense of self-doubt.
This situation is something I can personally relate to, especially in my early years of playing, and I know that lessons can be useful in preventing this type of unhelpful mindset.
With persistence and overcoming obstacles, lessons will help give you the confidence that you can become a great guitarist and tap into your creative side, which is what music is all about.
Conclusion
Guitar lessons aren’t exactly cheap – depending on where you live, they typically average around $50 an hour, but if you can afford them, guitar lessons are absolutely worth the money!
As I briefly said earlier, even though it’s totally possible to be self-taught on the guitar, especially with all of the great resources out there, lessons will give people personalized feedback and provide other benefits that can be hard to get anywhere else.
Hopefully, from this article, you now realize some of these essential benefits of lessons that can shape you as a guitarist regardless of your age and skill level.
No matter if you like to play the electric or acoustic guitar, if you’ve been on the fence for a bit, I suggest giving them a chance because, if you find the right teacher online or in person, they can change your life and help you reach your dreams of becoming the best player you can be.