SADUDE
lunatic of god's creation
- Mar 20, 2002
- 428
- 4
- 18
SPL said:
As much as I am pained to say this I will anyways...Maybe some people just don't have the natural ability to play music. I couldn't compete in olympic track if I trained 24/7 or if I cared. I have taken lessons with at around 5 instructors. I learned more by myself. A good teacher I guess can tell you what you need to do, but only you can do it. Most teachers will happily waste your time for $20-25/ half hour. There are some many sources where you can get the same information cheaper or FREE(see the internet, you ar using it now) Maybe a few lessons. The serious musician will improve to their limits. I can say that I would be where I am had I not taken lessons. I would've save a shitload. This advice applies most definitly to metal where technique is of a higher priority than harmony or rhythm. Most everything you are going to learn from metal you will learn from just playing ir anyways. I've learned boatloads of music theory by myself and most of it metal doesn't even begin to embrace. IF you have a high motivation to learn classical or jazz lessons don't seem as wasteful. But I do classical, and I do not see the necessity. Some people like to get ripped off. Lessons are way over-priced. Besides they will probably criticize metal in a direct or indirect way and try to force their musical tastes upon you as if their tastes were superior. A lot of them think they are god because they wasted over 30k a year at berklee. Berklee trains you in being an egotistical elitist from what I've seen. If I study music further with aid it wouldn't be at a place like Berklee. Maybe a good state school. Trust me I have more than 3 years of lessons and about 4 of playing.
Took guitar in sixth grade, but the guy was a complete jazz snob, and refused to teach me any song or riff until I knew the whole chord chart. I just wanted to learn a Motley Crue song, dammit! So I dropped that after three months. The I got my bass the summer after eigth grade, and learned a Nirvana song, and then a Metallica song. After that I got tips from a guitar player who was just crazy talented, which helped me a _ton_, but I resisted learning any theory, or playing with my fingers, for the entire ten-year scope of my bass playing career. Then I hit the wall, creatively and physically - I realized I didn't have the tools I needed to compose music, and I reached the top of my game playing with a pick, at least as far as playing death and black metal cleanly. 
I spent a week in a hotel room with a guitar encyclopedia my girlfriend bought me, and just this week bit the bullet and started learning to play with my fingers. Ten years of un-learning to do, but luckily the Borknagar site has bass tabs done by Tyr himself, so that's a place to start. I plan on getting a few lessons for technique, but luckily I know a bass player who's beyond amazing, who plays with his fingers on a six-string in a million different styles, and will probably smoke me up while giving me free lessons. So that helps. 
