Which is a better way of learning guitar: teaching yourself or getting lessons?

Question

I have been always wanting to play guitar. I am finally going to be getting one, and I am thinking about starting out with an acoustic, but I can't decide if I want to teach myself or get lessons. soo if you could please help me!!

Answer 1

Depends on the type of person you are. If you are well diciplined, and have music experience, you can teach yourself. If you need a lot of help and are not fully motivated, take lessons.  

Answer 2

Get lessons.

I started out on lessons when I was 12 but didn't like my teacher or the music he was teaching me, and I didn't really take my lessons very seriously, so I didn't practice.  After a few months, that was the end of my lessons.  I eventually picked the guitar up again about a year later and started teaching myself.  Over time (say, the next 20 years) I eventually got to be a pretty good fingerpicking acoustic guitarist -- but it was only through a lot of trial and error and wasted time.

I'm convinced that if I'd stuck with my lessons -- maybe with a different, more sympathetic teacher -- I'd have advanced a lot farther a lot faster on the guitar.

At the very least I would recommend you take lessons for the first few months until you get a good grounding in the basics -- how to hold the guitar, tune it, play chords and scales and right hand strumming and picking, some basic music theory maybe.  Then you'll be in great shape to go on and teach yourself whatever kind of music you want to play on guitar.

But you need that grounding in the basics first, and its all too easy to skip over that in your enthusiasm to just learn songs right away.  Too many people come on here and advise newbies to just download some tabs off of the Internet -- but you don't really learn how to play music that way.  At best you'll turn into a well-trained tab monkey who can pick through the solos to a bunch of songs but can't play any song all the way through from start to finish, can't play anything you don't have tab for, and can't play with other people because your timing and sense of rhythm is nonexistent.

GET LESSONS!

Answer 3

Without question, lessons. Why do all of the hard work when you can have a teacher with (hopefully) many years of teaching experience and knowledge of music and the instrument do all of the hard work for you? You can get somewhere with teaching yourself, but you WILL get stuck and lost eventually. So, why not start off learning guitar on the right track?

With lessons you'll progress faster and learn a lot more than if you were to teach yourself. I take lessons so I can say this honestly. I also tried to teach myself when I didn't have a teacher (but this was because I didn't want to waste time just letting my guitar sit), I only got to figuring out the G chord when I started lessons 3 1/2 years ago.

There are just so many pros for taking lessons that it'll be tough to list all of them. But there are cons as well, one of which is that they're expensive, and guitar teachers aren't certified, so there are some bad teachers out there. All it takes is a bit of searching and a lot of drive to get the most out of your money and be happy.

And...if you take lessons it doesn't mean you need a lot of help: you're just smart to want to learn correctly and be able to play well. And motivation has nothing to do with taking lessons. Motivation comes from you, and your teacher.

Answer 4

You need to do both. The most important part about getting lessons is having someone who can point out what you're doing wrong.  Many people who are self-taught develop bad habits that are almost impossible to change later on. For example, some people won't exercise their pinky finger as much as their other fingers because it's not as coordinated.  And this will limit your playing.  There are a ton of other bad habits that are best to be caught as soon as possible.