[Bill Hicks]

Evening all.

Maybe a long shot.

I've been having electric guitar lessons now for a few months and as good as they are I believe that one of the best ways of learning is by getting together with other learners and having the occasional jam sessions!

So if anyone out there who's interested in getting together maybe a couple of times a month (At the weekends) is over 25 and who lives in north London then PM me.

Cheers.

[JimiAces]

hi,

not in london for a jam, but i totally agree with the concept. my brother in law is much better than me and jamming with him really improved my playing.

anyway onto the serious question. i've been teaching myself to play for about three years on and off and i am really starting to get back into it but i feel i'm not progressing, most likely due to lack of inspiration. i'm really considering lessons now, but at £70 for 4 lessons a month it's not something i want to walk into half heartedely. how have they been for you, would you reccommend i get a tutor?

Sorry to go completely off topic

[Bill Hicks]

I'm taking 2 x 1 hour lessons a month. I would try to have weekly lessons but at £25 a lesson it's something I just can't afford at the moment.
I've had around 13 lessons so far and I've learnt a lot regarding blues scales (Minor & major pentatonic) and the major (Chromatic) scale, but I feel that we are just going over the same stuff every lesson. Maybe I'm just being impatient and I'm expecting too much, too soon?
I do feel that two lessons a month just isn't enough so I'm looking into finding a tutor locally that is cheaper so that maybe I can have weekly lessons.

But in the meantime I will persevere with my tutor but there must be something else that I can incorporate as well to help me along.
I think that having practice sessions with other people is the way forward, well at least for me personally, but I don't know how to go about organising or finding like minded people to join up with.
I've seen that a few pubs in north London have weekly jam sessions but I don't feel confident enough with my ability to play in front of an audience, even if it's only a handful of people.

Overall you cannot beat one on one tuition, as long as you can afford it!
Maybe an option for yourself would be to find a course in a local FE college?

Book some lessons and see how you feel about it.
After all you don't have to commit to taking further lessons if it doesn't work out for you!

All the best.

[Kieron]

Wish I was nearer mate.

As for lessons - what about supplementing them with something you can do at home.

I swear by these guys for my drum instructional dvd's - I'd imagine the piano ones are equally as good.

Customs friendly too

Edit: Nuts why did I think you were learning piano when you're actually learning guitar!!!

Sorry mate

[Toasty]

Playing with other musicians will improve your playing ten fold. A very rough progression would be:

- Learn the basics
- Play with other musicians
- Learn / Write songs
- Form a band
- Learn a set
- Perform

You may not want to take it that far, but each step is a target. If you arrange to jam with some one else, you have an incentive to practise before hand and then learn tricks from your mates. You'll then discuss what songs to learn for next time, which again is an incentive to practise more and open your eyes to new styles and techniques.

Joining a band brings in timing, melody and the incentive to be good enough to keep things going. This is a major step in a musicians development and you'll learn so much and get so much better after a few sessions. You'll also learn about ego

The ultimate is then performance, even if you don't join a band, I'd encourage any budding musician to try and get themselves in a position where they can perform. A friendly Jam night is perfect, you really will have the focus to practise and improve on what you already know and you'll get to experience playing live, which is fantastic

Best hobby in the world!

[Bill Hicks]

Excellent advice there.

I'm thinking about putting a couple of adverts in my local newspapers advertising for fellow amateurs with the intention of getting a few jam sessions going maybe a couple of times a month, or more.

I'm also going to ask my guitar tutor if it would be possible for some of his other students to get together for regular jam sessions as well.

Like previously stated it has to be a great way of gaining confidence & knowledge.

Thanks.

[deadtotheworld]

WWwwwooooooooooooo there! £25 a lesson??? Jeez that sounds alot to me.
Buy a book and teach yourself for a few quid - if you work hard and dont give up, you will develop your own style and sound instead of sounding like your teacher.
I know loads of players who learnt from teachers and NONE of them are as good as the players I know that have taught themselves.

I taught myself with Tablature books. Buy a book by your favourite band, they have all the chords and notes in a simple easy to follow presentation. You already will know the song to hear it - so can instantly realise if you are playing a wrong note. There is also a legend of what certain things mean and how to do them such as pick scrapes, palm muting, artificial harmonics etc.

If you start of with the easy parts and then link parts together until you can play the whole song, and learning the lead parts you will develop your knowledge of scales etc You will just take all the stuff you have learnt and be able to apply it to whatever you want to do with it, be it a bedroom hero, jamming with mates or writing your own stuff in a band.

The amount of times I have seen people that have been taught bad habits and technique that they then need to 'unlearn' is incredible... as I see alot of adverts saying 'Guitar teacher available - I am currently in my last year of a blah blah blah music degree - £20 an hour lessons' and I think - so youre a student who then wants to charge me a lot of money so you got beer money! Once you learn a few chords, and find some peeps to jam with - you will wonder why you ever paid £25 a lesson to learn stuff that you will naturally learn at a better standard and have fun and better inspiration doing it.