Guitar lessons vs. teaching yourself

So, you’ve decided you’re going to learn to play the guitar. You’ve gone out and bought a beautiful new guitar, music stand, and other pieces you think you may need. You get back home, take the guitar out of the box and then it dawns on you. How do you play this thing?

Now you must decide if you take guitar lessons or try to teach yourself. This article is going to discuss the pros and cons of both. Taking guitar lessons is the most formal route and will ultimately give you an edge from trying to learn on your own. However, everyone is different, and you deserve to know your options before deciding.

Teaching yourself

This is easily the most accessible method, as you don’t need to find a teacher before you can start. Anybody can set out to teach themselves, but it takes a certain type of person to succeed. Here are some pros and cons to teaching yourself.

Pros:

Free (or costs very little)
Study whenever you want
Study the same lesson as often as you like
Lots of choice – input from different teachers

Cons:

No feedback on your playing
No help when you get stuck
Your only source of motivation comes from within
Higher risk of learning incorrect information (lots of bad information floating around online)

Guitar Lessons

Taking guitar lessons are the traditional method of learning to play the guitar. Some benefits of taking lessons include:

Motivation

Guitar lessons are a great tool for keeping you motivated, something teaching yourself just can’t do. Taking lessons keeps you motivated because your teacher will be constantly encouraging you and driving you to improve.

Feedback

This is the crucial difference between guitar lessons and teaching yourself. It is the one single difference that takes out most of the guess work when things aren’t working. A video lesson can only show you how to do something, a guitar teacher can show you what to do when things don’t work. Your teacher will be able to notice the subtle difference between what you are doing, and you need to do to make it work.

Structured lesson plan

If you take lessons, your teacher will know exactly what you need to work on next. They will have a wealth of suitable repertoire and be able to pick the most appropriate songs or pieces of music for your ability level. This will keep you engage and motivated, while still making improvements to your playing.