Hey. I am a beginner guitar player and I want to learn a variety of styles. I was wondering if taking multiple lessons would be a good idea. I was thinking to take piano lessons, electric guitar lessons, finger style/classical lessons, and theory lessons. I am also a college student, and is this a good idea because I have a large , or will it lead to confusion for me as a student?
Advice on lessons
- Thread starter qvq624
- Start date
BlackMetalWhiteGuy
Manly Man!
It really depends on your experience and what you hope to get out of the courses. When I was in college, I began writing MIDI guitar tabs on my computer during my freshman year, but I didn't play guitar and had zero music knowledge. I didn't even know what the words "scale" and "key" meant, but I was able to very slowly and painstakingly compose pretty shitty tabs by ear.
I took music theory I and II during my sophomore year and it really helped me to understand music and it gave me enough of a foundation to study independently from that point on. However, if I didn't already have the year of writing and struggling to make sense of how to put notes together, and the ability to go straight home and apply what I learned into music that I was currently writing, I don't know if I would have retained anything or benefited from the classes at all.
Whether you want to learn how to play music first and come back later to understand what you are playing, try to learn theory first and learn individual instruments later, or try to learn to play and understand music both at the same time is totally up to you. I don't know your learning style or experience.
For me, I think the experience of independently struggling to understand it for a year gave me more of an incentive to retain what I learned than simply going to a class and listening to some guy talk about relative vs parallel major and minor.
I later began pursuing an interest in musicology and I experienced two additional epiphanies outside of what was addressed in my music theory classes. Absolute vs relative pitch, and pitch vs contour. After I learned about these I finally understood why I, and nearly everyone else, is terrible at singing, even when we know what a song is supposed to sound like.
I'll stop here, because this is probably already more than you wanted to know. On the other hand, if you do want me to explain something in greater detail, I will.
I took music theory I and II during my sophomore year and it really helped me to understand music and it gave me enough of a foundation to study independently from that point on. However, if I didn't already have the year of writing and struggling to make sense of how to put notes together, and the ability to go straight home and apply what I learned into music that I was currently writing, I don't know if I would have retained anything or benefited from the classes at all.
Whether you want to learn how to play music first and come back later to understand what you are playing, try to learn theory first and learn individual instruments later, or try to learn to play and understand music both at the same time is totally up to you. I don't know your learning style or experience.
For me, I think the experience of independently struggling to understand it for a year gave me more of an incentive to retain what I learned than simply going to a class and listening to some guy talk about relative vs parallel major and minor.
I later began pursuing an interest in musicology and I experienced two additional epiphanies outside of what was addressed in my music theory classes. Absolute vs relative pitch, and pitch vs contour. After I learned about these I finally understood why I, and nearly everyone else, is terrible at singing, even when we know what a song is supposed to sound like.
I'll stop here, because this is probably already more than you wanted to know. On the other hand, if you do want me to explain something in greater detail, I will.
