Understand Why You Are Getting Stuck With Learning Guitar Online On YouTube Or From Books
As more and more guitar resources, apps, games are appearing, we are seeing more and more frustrated guitar players who have attempted to learn online or from books. Whether it’s through YouTube or from books. They often leave people struggling rather than succeeding at what they love to do. In this article, we look at the main issues and why you may be struggling to learn guitar online from YouTube or from books. These are very common and problems that we’ve seen from lots of students who have come to us asking for help.
No Feedback
One of the problems with YouTube or books is that you aren’t getting feedback, so even though you think you know exactly what they are doing on the videos, you can’t see certain things about yourself. And because you don’t have feedback, you aren’t sure why you aren’t sounding right and know what is actually going on and what the problems are that needs fixing.
You don’t know if the person is good or if the material is right for you
So the first problem is, is the person teaching you actually a good teacher? So for online guitar lessons, it's very easy for people to access the internet and start teaching the teacher. They may be a good player, but that doesn’t always translate into being a good teacher. So there are a lot of YouTubers and guitar teachers online. There are a lot of good teachers, I’m not saying all of them are bad. There are lots of good and also a lot of bad teachers out there.
The problem is that the material that you are watching, how do you know they are the right level for where your guitar playing is at? It’s often up to you to select which materials are right for you, so how do you know that the materials are definitely right for where you are at right now? And what the problems or areas you need more teaching in to overcome? Often our students come to us with big blind spots that they didn’t even know they had, and they are busy focusing on something else. And once we start working on the blind spots with them, that’s when the real results come.
No real accountability
There is no one to hold you accountable. When you are meeting with a teacher face to face, there is someone to encourage you to do the practise, to help you if you are struggling to practise. There is someone who if you don’t do your practise, is there to encourage you to do so and challenge you when needed. With YouTube and books, it’s very easy to let things slide, or ignore the lessons. And when you don’t understand something to abandon it, which can leave holes in your playing.
Generalised information
YouTube and books use a lot of generalised information when actually you need specialised information. For example, you and your guitar learning is like a car. So when going online, they say yes you need good tyres, and make sure your engine is running well. But actually when you and your car have problems, you need to specific manual with your engine and your tyres and your exhaust. And that is what happens online. You need specific information to help you with guitar playing. You don’t generalised information that may help general people. Generalised information will help you in a long term to a certain extent, but the real key is in specialised information that will really help you right now to make progress and continue in the long term to get you the results a lot quicker.
Getting your questions answered
Generally, you will have questions at some point about your playing, and about the guitar. And someone students even have problems that they don’t even know how to put into words and they need to show someone by playing the guitar to them. Sometimes writing down the questions may work, but sometimes you do need to show them what the issues are. With most guitar lessons online, it’s hard to be able to get those specific questions you may have answered. So getting feedback in person can definitely help a lot with that.
Online guitar lessons make you good at playing in your bedroom
However, they often lead to be less confident when playing in front of other people or playing with other people. Those are big skills that you really need to experience, to learn how to communicate musically, learning how to count and play with other people. Online lessons often make you struggle to experience these things, so then it’s easy to lack confidence and make it a struggle to play at parties or in front of other people.
What To Do Next?
We hope this guide has helped you understand a bit more about the reasons why you may be struggling online and know that these are very common problems. To resolve these problems quickly, the best way is to find a great guitar teacher.
If you are based in East London, and you are struggling with learning guitar online, we would love to hear from you. In our lessons, you can get specialised coaching and training in person. Get in contact with us by clicking the button below, we offer a free introductory guitar lesson so we can see where your playing is at, and how we can help you reach your goals. Look forward to hearing from you.