Welcome to The G aka Gool’s Guitar Gossip – blogging about anything music related
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10 (or more?) red hot benefits why learning with a tutor is better than learning alone
We’ve all at some point asked : “Should I learn music alone & save money (or at least that’s what who decide to learn alone think) OR should I contact someone more experienced to show me the shortcuts? Certainly, it’s a dilemma between the stairway to heaven or the highway to hell? Or was it a highway to heaven & a stairway to hell (as explained in the video)?
#1 – Saves you time
We all know the story of the tortoise and the hare! So let’s say you want to build a room in your backgarden? Unless you know how to build it yourself, would you get an expert or spend time to learn building it?
#2 – Saves you money
Paying someone else saves you money! As much as an oxymoron that may sound, in the long-term it saves you dosh from your piggy bank!
Let’s say you know how to build a room in your back garden already, but it’s not your main job. So to build it, it will eat the time from you making money for your own living.
Similarly if you are going to learn music, if you choose to do everything by trial and error vs guided by the shortcuts an expert in the field shares with you, in the long run either it eats into other factors of your life/ you do not accomplish enough.
#3 & #4 – Live interaction – you can probe the tutor & the tutor can correct you on the spot
While there are many good videos online, you cannot just ask the presenter on the spot, but you have to email/ leave a comment and wait for their reply. You surely do not want to be kept hanging, when that quick answer can trigger your imagination to ask further about the subject. Make hay while the sun shines!
Similarly, if the tutor notices that you misunderstood something or needs to correct a posture in your playing, nothing beats the here and now, supported by the why and its benefits. More about posture in the video.
#5 – You learn within the reach of your ability
Lo & behold! The main benefit of taking lessons with a pro is that lesson material is presented to you within the reach of your ability, your progress is constantly being monitored within that ability, and challenges presented to you are the next level up.
What happens when we seek to learn anything is that we seek to learn what interests us, which as natural as that seems, we do not know how easy/hard something may be. Yes we want to be as good as our idols sooner without knowing the work they put into it, but take it easy tiger, Rome wasn’t built in one day.
I compare this with a video game. One starts with level 1 progressing gradually level by level. However if one goes on random YouTube videos, one does not know if that video is level 1 or 5, and if e.g. one lands on level 5 they might find the guitar daunting. Whereas it’s just that one would not have gone through the 4 previous levels that build the skills progressively up.
So yes you choose what to learn, and lessons are catered around your objective (no one is asking you to play a different video game than the one you want to), however the tutor is there to break it down to you in the simplest way possible keeping in mind your interests (eg a metal guitarist is more likely to want to learn tapping than fingerstyle, yet it would be advisable for him to first learn different shapes of the same vertical scale & to view the horizontal lines connecting them, as if one goes steadfast into tapping, time would have to be spent backtracking to learn those scales shapes & building that technique).
#6 – Better focus = more value for money
You pay x amount of money to get x amount of tuition time. Surely you do not want to be distracted – eg an appealing thumbnail on YouTube’s sidebar/ a friend calling you, which is generally what happens when one does it alone.
Naturally, a lesson will always drift towards both parties (student & tutor) pushing towards achieving the most value for money out of the lesson time.
For lessons with me, I put my mobile on silent and out of my reach, and suggest the same from you!
#7 – You build a rapport with a friend whose interest is your progress
Learning with someone else earns you a new music buddy. Besides being in a tutor’s interest to show their students the simplest way to play their instrument, over time we become friends and it’s not the 1st time that I have got discounted gig tickets for my students, etc etc.
#8 – Organic dynamic nature of lessons + live advice re sound
As much as technology advances, it never replaces that on-the-spot feel about sound. How e.g. a certain sound can be developed close to a sound of another guitarist you like. From time to time, I help students to determine what’s necessary to achieve their dream sound by adding a bit of delay or removing some noise gate on their current set up, or suggesting better gear if it calls for it.
#9 – Doing it right in the first place to not have to fix it later.
Learning how to play things right from the get-go, the probability of building bad habits that hinder your technique is less, which in turn opens up your fingers to quickly respond to the music in your head.
This brings back the story of the tortoise and the hare. More in the video!
#10 – Nothing worth paying for is free!
This is what it says on the tin.
Am sure some relative/friend of yours has at some point taught you this life lesson! There is modesty to be learnt with each step of any wonderful learning journey (including yours), as the only one way to eat an elephant is a bite at a time. I welcome you to your 1st bite at this link!
Two BONUS benefits
#11 – You quickly find tunes in your head/understand theory under your fingers
Let’s now talk about being efficient musicians.
The way our head functions to produce music is that we get an idea, our eyes ensure that idea is being played by the fingers, that in turn produce a sound that’s confirmed by the ear before the mind accepts it back as the idea it originally was. Seems complex doesn’t it? But isn’t that what you do when you talk (in which case your mouth replaces your eyes), or even simpler, isn’t that what you do when you write? Music is a language, hence it uses senses, and is hence easy when you learn it right!
At the video, you can watch how this happens when learning a new chord or scale comparing it to one you already know. Learning with a tutor facilitates how soon you make that mind-eyes-fingers-sound-ears-mind connection.
#12 – You learn how to get the most out of your practice to be creative
The best tutors always want the extract the best from you! A good tutor will always explain to you what you can achieve by doing any exercise, and is always there a step ahead of your journey, ready to challenge you to the next level. Remember your video game? But this time you have a guide so you do not unintentionally skip levels.
Besides helping you understand why you practise something, you’ll in turn learn when it’s time to stop/reduce an exercise to make way for something more challenging. Like a tortoise not a hare, you do less but achieve more! Quality over quantity of practice.
I hold a once-only training session about this called “Improve Faster – Become Amazing Sooner”. Read more about it at my group lesson page (Module 17), which can be learnt online/in-person, and is also open for non-current students.
For more vidz accompanying similar articles, please subscribe to Cool Gool’s Youtube
For lessons, please book at this link.)
www.malcolmcallus.com
Modern approaches to guitar, bass, ukulele & music theory tuition
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Enough burgers! You need a fit body to let healthy music flow out of you!
What is it with some players who despite their solid understanding of music’s “right” notes, they still get tired (or even feel pain) when playing for a long stretch of time?
The answer is simply that musical performance is an athletic discipline like any other sport, and that effortless playing depends on the body’s fitness.
Getting the best result for the least effort is indeed the most elegant way of doing anything, but is it practice that makes perfect? I would rather say repeating nonsense achieves fluent nonsense. As the reknown Alexander Technique mentions “prevention is better than cure and hence one is to focus on how to carry out actions to build GOOD habits.” So consult, stop to listen to others with less/ no physical shortcomings, and then re-approach one’s methods afresh. Sometimes dropping the stubbornness that something is good only because it has worked for many years is the key to open a new door.
So here follow some guidelines I’ve over the years shared on how to play comfortably, and why everything IS possible! As you may note, these are split into physical and mental exercises – the physical is first as it’s the actual practical task you try; however you’ll sure instantly notice a change in application (maybe easier) when you re-try the practical tasks after reading the mental part.
All following physical examples are for a right-handed guitar player:
1. Simply rest the right hand on guitar. The weight of arm keeps guitar in place, so do not try to push the guitar inwards from the right as this effects the posture.
2. Strap to be fitted so that guitar is same angle whether sitting/standing.
3. Thumb should not curl around fingerboard but rather act as a pivot midway behind the fretboard in line with the 2nd finger from the front. If not, the palm of the hand is narrowed, restricting playing of notes on adjacent frets.
4. A good posture depends on your body staying balanced and erect, avoiding undue twisting, with your head, elbows and neck able to move freely, your back standing/ sitting up firm & no twisting of shoulders to side.
5. The left shoulder isn’t to lean sideways towards the guitar. The hand and elbows are free as to pull the guitar inwards to the left of the body, if at all necessary.
6. Avoid picking too loud with right hand as this in turn demands left hand to apply more fretting pressure.
7. Despite a tutor’s guides, the best way to improve is to experience things first hand. A good way is for you to play a piece focusing on new posture without much attention to the piece, then playing the piece again with the old posture. This will reveal how the new posture differs from the old, and how easier it is.
Mental suggestions:
1. There’s no way but the best way. It’s the easiest to master, so make a habit of that. This is known as the cycle of conscious incompetence > conscious competence > unconscious competence i.e. first you’re aware of your shortcomings, then you practice enough to garner skill & the knowledge that you know what you’re doing, then your knowledge becomes so innate that you don’t even think about it, and it flows out of you when you perform.
2. Mental rehearse what needs to be done, and focus on it before actually playing it. This way the muscles will probably react more positively, as research has proven that the muscles react when thinking about something as they would when one actually does it.
3. Practice with awareness of your goals vs too much unfocused practice repeating same mistakes. I.e. playing flamenco differs from playing metal so new postures for each might have to be learnt, as what works for one style might not necessarily work for another.
4. Listen to the music to produce a tone befitting the style being played vs just focusing on getting a better tone. Decreasing your physical efforts makes you more sensitive to producing tone colours, in turn enjoying music more.
5. Instruct yourself with positives not negatives (DOs not DONTs).
So you might still argue that the old way works better? Well try the new way, see how it functions for you, think about how it differs from your previous methods, and only then reject it.
A Chinese idiom goes: “I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand.”
And I bet you that if you understand the easiest way, it will become your new habit and you will not reject it. Just as many professional guitar players before you have not.
For vidz accompanying similar articles, please subscribe to Cool Gool’s Youtube
For lessons, please book at this link.)
www.malcolmcallus.com
Modern approaches to guitar, bass, ukulele & music theory tuition
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 when playing for a long stretch of time? The answer is ... )
The discourse of musicology and timbre
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How was it possible for Beethoven to create music well after he turned deaf?
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What was the very fact that made the rumble of bass-guitar-voice-drums that was The Sex Pistols appeal so highly to music researchers from a scientific point of view?
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What makes an experienced journalist write about music without being a musician the same way you and I recognize the contrasting tastes of 2 different chocolate cakes without having the culinary expertise of a pâtissier?
Creativity always having been the crux of what makes an artist, innovations to one’s music allow its listeners more anchor points to experience it differently out of “the musician’s box”.
Hence, the above, similar and others, are some of the many Q&As I approach through this blog, as to convey a sense of looking at music not only from a chords’ & scales’ point of view, but further!
For vidz accompanying similar articles, please subscribe to Cool Gool’s Youtube
For lessons, please book at this link.)
www.malcolmcallus.com
Modern approaches to guitar, bass, ukulele & music theory tuition
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