Online lessons, or from an instructor?

I would be fine doing it by Zoom. I’ve had three formal instructors in my life. Two of them sucked.
I learned more from my high school peers back in the day.

 

I find it’s easy to ignore an app, but once you have an appointment it’s much more motivating to make it.

 

My 3 kids were doing live, in-person lessons until mid-March 2020. Then it was virtual with their brick and mortar school. They opened back up in-person in the summer/fall, but we did not yet feel comfortable (NYC burbs), so we stayed virtual. But the school didn’t seem committed to supporting the virtual students and one of their teachers started showing up to the zoom meets late and leaving early.

A month ago we switched to an instructor from a site called lessonface. He’s been fantastic. He’s teaching the kids guitar, bass and drums (while he’s not a drum teacher, my drumming kid learns most of the songs on her own). The benefit of one teacher is that they like to do covers together and they do a group session each week with him.

In short, I think it depends on (1) how well you can learn virtually vs in person and (2) the teacher. If you can learn virtually you are not limited to how far you are willing to drive for lessons. I’m lucky in that the 3 kids seem to do fine virtually.

An added benefit was that their brick and mortar school was 20 minutes away, and with all of the driving back and forth added up to 2.5 hrs per week.

Lastly, I needed to commit to virtual lessons too, by learning how to route their mixer through an interface, fiddle with zoom to make the audio quality adequate, and by investing in a larger monitor so the kids could see the instructor from their rehearsal space.

 

I personally improved faster when I practiced more, and I was more motivated to practice with a personal instructor who could supervise, guide, and test my progress. But anything that causes you to spend time on the instrument is worthwhile.

 

It just depends on how you learn really, everyone is different in that way. Me, I can't learn squat off a video, it just doesn't click no matter how much I slow it down. In person, I absorb everything like a sponge.

I think the benefit of in-person instruction is that your instructor (if any good) will spot things that need correction that no online resource will ever do. I played for about 4 years before hiring a formal instructor. I thought I progressed well, but the instructor spotted 6 things that I was doing wrong which was slowing my transitions down. After that first lesson alone, my playing ability jumped ahead by a mile. The key though is that they have to be good, sadly, I have had instructors that were just about getting a check and really didn't pay any attention to my playing.

 

I have learned more songs on-line than in person. But I have learned more theory in person. That’s because you can ask a teacher, “Why?”

 

Depends on what style you're looking to learn. For classical guitar, in person is essential as there are so many elements from nail shaping, to right/left hand technique, to the actual music. Also, it's pretty difficult to find a very good classical instructor outside of college towns that have music programs. For jazz finger-style, in person is better. For everything else, online is fine.

 

In person lessons did not work very well for me as a rank beginner. I would always lose track of a couple subtle details (usually rhythmically) and end up practicing them incorrectly. I got discouraged unlearning things I should have already moved on from. Being able to rewatch relevent parts of videos allowed me to progress much faster and stay motivated.

As I progress, I imagine I will eventually want individual guidance from a good instructor but, in the meantime, I am still making much more headway than I ever did taking lessons. I have a memory processing issue that usually makes my learning process backward compared to most people so I would expect to be in the minority on this issue.

 

On line and in person "lessons" serve two different purposes. A great instructor can give you live feedback and show you what you're doing wrong or show you another way to do something. You can't get that from YouTube. YouTube seems to be more about pointers than actual closed loop instruction. I've watched short "lessons" on YouTube and learned from them. I've learned techniques. I learned how to hear a mode I wanted to use. I 've watched musicians demonstrate how to play a particular guitar part and it made learning the riff easier.

I learned a lot of theory just by playing and knowing what I was playing. I learned a fair bit of theory here at TDPRI. I learned more by reading. A college classroom is probably the beat way to learn the core concepts of theory and basic applications. Taking what you've learned and applying it to what you play brings you to a level where you no longer have to think about it, at least for some aspects of theory.

When I retired from engineering, the field I retired from wasn't yet a recognized discipline at the time I finished my masters degree. I learned a lot in school, but I learned engineering by actually doing it. I don't see music as much different from that. To go beyond noodling and strumming campfire songs and begin playing music, you have to acquire a core of knowledge and technical ability and learn to be a musician by playing and hopefully creating music. Formal education, good instructors, jamming and playing with others, online resources, books, and listening to music are all part of learning to be a musician. I'm not sure one part is more important than the rest but leaving too many of them out, you'll struggle to reach your musical goals.

 

I learn regardless of source. I had one face-to-face instructor who was excellent...and I learned a lot, but I got all I could and moved on when he simply became a source for new tunes.

The other FTF guitar instructors I've tried were just there for the money. Great players, lousy instructors. When I went for Viola, WOW, the instruction level went up like a skyrocket. Classical instructors are totally different.

Online instruction is pretty good these days. My problem online is that I flit from one to the next, never really remembering what I've learned. Motivation is low.

If I could find a FTF that I clicked with, I'd do it every time. Online FTF might be an option...