The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26

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    Quote Originally Posted by Phil59
    So you're equating lawyer and guitar teacher? Is that a joke or just wildly pretentious? Plus, your comparison is muddled. It is actually "He who represents himself has a fool for a client." No reference to a lawyer representing himself. More importantly, there are many, many excellent self-taught guitarists. Not too many lawyers.
    Actually I was responding to Sam Sherry's response where he said he was too busy "husband, father and attorney" to take lessons. What do you think the rest of us are doing, twiddling our thumbs? We all have professional and family obligations. If we're talking pretentious, let's start there.

    If people want to self study, have a ball. It's when people try and sell this BS that 'there's nothing a teacher can teach me that I can't learn myself' that I reject. I've spent too many years helping self taught adults unlearn their bad habits to buy into that nonsense.

    I don't believe anyone is completely self taught. Self taught musicians learn from recordings or books, or from other musicians on the bandstand. It's not divine inspiration.

    I love when people say 'there are many, many excellent self taught players." Really? Cause I can only think of a handful. I think that's something people like to say to enhance their reputation. From my direct experience for every self taught genius, there's 100 hacks.

    As for self taught lawyers the most famous is Abe Lincoln. But the majority of American lawyers of the 1700-1800's were self taught.

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  3. #27

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dana
    Actually I was responding to Sam Sherry's response where he said he was too busy "husband, father and attorney" to take lessons. What do you think the rest of us are doing, twiddling our thumbs? We all have professional and family obligations. If we're talking pretentious, let's start there.

    If people want to self study, have a ball. It's when people try and sell this BS that 'there's nothing a teacher can teach me that I can't learn myself' that I reject. I've spent too many years helping self taught adults unlearn their bad habits to buy into that nonsense.

    I don't believe anyone is completely self taught. Self taught musicians learn from recordings or books, or from other musicians on the bandstand. It's not divine inspiration.

    I love when people say 'there are many, many excellent self taught players." Really? Cause I can only think of a handful. I think that's something people like to say to enhance their reputation. From my direct experience for every self taught genius, there's 100 hacks.

    As for self taught lawyers the most famous is Abe Lincoln. But the majority of American lawyers of the 1700-1800's were self taught.
    Well, actually Sam Sherry's response is completely reasonable. He evidently is now too busy to take guitar lessons, with the time and commitment they entail. To be clear, I have taken lessons for multiple years from at least three teachers. I'm glad I did. But I stopped with two of them because of family and work commitments. That's not pretentious, it's real life.

    You don't believe anyone is "completely self taught"? Well, of course self taught musicians learn from recordings or books, or from other musicians on the bandstand, as you say. But that doesn't mean they had regular lessons from teachers. In fact, two of the three longtime teachers I had never took lessons. They were "self taught."

    And of course most American lawyers of the 1700-1800s (200 years ago!!!) were indeed "self taught." Do you think they didn't read books about lawyering or talk to lawyers or watch lawyers in action or maybe work in a lawyer's office? Of course they did. After all it wasn't "divine inspiration."

  4. #28

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    Quote Originally Posted by Phil59
    Well, actually Sam Sherry's response is completely reasonable. He evidently is now too busy to take guitar lessons, with the time and commitment they entail. To be clear, I have taken lessons for multiple years from at least three teachers. I'm glad I did. But I stopped with two of them because of family and work commitments. That's not pretentious, it's real life.

    You don't believe anyone is "completely self taught"? Well, of course self taught musicians learn from recordings or books, or from other musicians on the bandstand, as you say. But that doesn't mean they had regular lessons from teachers. In fact, two of the three longtime teachers I had never took lessons. They were "self taught."

    And of course most American lawyers of the 1700-1800s (200 years ago!!!) were indeed "self taught." Do you think they didn't read books about lawyering or talk to lawyers or watch lawyers in action or maybe work in a lawyer's office? Of course they did. After all it wasn't "divine inspiration."
    Ok at this point I have no idea what your argument is, beyond repeating my points..

    Good luck.

  5. #29

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    The key for adults, imho, is to make sure that you have clear goals in mind and that the teacher is someone who can help you reach them. If you're having heart issues, don't make an appointment with a podiatrist. Or something like that.

    In my experience, I've found that pretty much all adults who can already play who take lessons "to get better" are usually wasting their time. Goals. Goals. Goals.

  6. #30

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    I have sought private lessons twice and they have absolutely been the best thing for my playing. I feel like they are very helpful, even if you do them for a short time, to see the holes in your playing and what you need to work on. It is not easy to notice things in your own playing that a teacher could identify and help you fix. As far as how often of a cadence I would say weekly is the norm, but I would ask to schedule it to allow enough time for you to really dig into the material before returning for your next lesson. If you don't think a week is enough time, ask for two.

    On my own history of lesson, I took some from a private teacher back in 2008/2009 when I was in my early twenties after being self taught to that point. While I was frequently gigging around town, I had become pretty stagnant and bored of my playing in a rock/blues vein and wanted to breakout out of the rut. These lessons were for me to learn arpeggios, other scales, and really start seeing the neck well. I stopped after a year roughly and continued to work on these things on my own.

    As I went further the jazz bug bit, and bit hard. I worked on learning as much as I could on my own before I kind of hit a wall. I had the opportunity to study music at the collegiate level and jumped at the chance. It was by far the best thing I did for my playing and I would not change a thing. Many online will say that there is not a point to music programs, the degree is useless, etc. And while there are valid criticisms, there are amazing benefits and experiences as well. Its very hard to find an opportunity, if you are teaching yourself, to play in combos and big bands, especially depending on where you live. These were completely eye opening on how to perform this music in a live setting. While a private teacher might not have this, he could have ideas on other students to pair you with. I also got to have arrangements played by these ensembles, and interact with world class musicians in masterclasses.

    As others have mentioned, the benefits of a teacher are only really felt if you put in the work and time on your own. It was an absolute grind for me in school, as I did this later in life while still working and having a family. It was wake up, get the family out the door, practice for an hour-ish, work, school, work, family time, and then hours of nightly practice and homework after they were asleep everyday. I still feel like I wish I could have devoted more time to it while I was there, but the other stuff obviously took precedent.

  7. #31

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    A teacher can be a tremendous shortcut and help in improving rapidly. But as an adult, make sure you enjoy their way of teaching, and be sure you really feel like learning new stuff and following someone else's instructions. The older we get, the more we are set in our ways, and the more difficult it is to stay motivated.

    I 've taught guitar for decades, and have also taken guitar lessons for decades in various styles. I enjoy both. In my opinion, if you find the right teacher (and there are lots of them around) it doesn't get better than that.

  8. #32
    I would like to be able to participate in sharing my playing for skype lessons and working on standards. What is the best home computer cam mic for someone on a limited budget?

  9. #33
    I recently bought a Cannon Vixia HF R 800 sara monic external mic and an Audiant iD4 audio interface my camera has usb and HDMI out I think I will go to my local camera store and ask but is this enough to get started? and do I need a bright camera light and wide angle lens? any help would be appreciated.

  10. #34

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    I do it on my iPhone 8. I can then airdrop it to my Mac without it any need for SD cards or wired connections.

    Modern smartphones have good cameras that are much better than my old digital camcorder. I’m starting to think about investing in a camera for videos.... mirrorless is what everyone likes because they are better for autofocus and video than DSLRs, but that can get expensive so start with a smart phone.

    I don’t have a webcam - I have one built in to my Mac. It’s fine for what I use it for.

    For audio I use a Rode NT1A with a Focusrite Scarlett Audio interface and that gives crisp audio. You could get a mic that plugs straight in, but my set up has more flexibility and I can take multiple inputs from guitar and so on.
    Last edited by christianm77; 10-17-2020 at 04:46 AM.

  11. #35

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    Lighting wise I have one of these cheap led units which is fine for nice soft lighting if I bounce it off a wall, and is useful for Skype lessons after dark, but mostly I use natural light atm for YouTube. (Also I use Zoom which is much better than Skype as you can switch off the audio gating.)

    My videos are not very attractive, but they get the job done. I’m sort of refining stuff to get it a bit better at the moment to try and move things to the next level, but I have around 4.5K subscribers now. If I want Patreon money I think I’ll need to do more organised and better looking videos.

    To give an idea of how it looks:


    (You can see Logic running behind me BTW which is what I use for editing audio.)

    Honestly, if you want really pro results I think you can chuck as much money at it as you like, but I think it’s good to get started doing it right away. Then you can upgrade gear as you go, rather than coughing up a load of money right away and then losing interest or whatever.
    Last edited by christianm77; 10-17-2020 at 04:47 AM.

  12. #36

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    For recorded content, Editing wise I am using Wondershare Filmora which is cheap or but I am seriously thinking of coughing up for Final Cut Pro as it runs much smoother.

    Not sure what the PC options are...

  13. #37

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    For Video editing on a PC i just use VSDC, cost me about 20 euros and its very easy to get things done..

  14. #38

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    My advise before starting lessons is to ask oneself: what do I want to get from taking lessons?

    I have found two main reasons: one is to gain knowledge. (duh). The other is to use the lessons and the teacher to impact discipline: E.g. establish a routine (like weekly, every other-week lessons), that will lead one to practice more, learn more tunes, etc....

    Of course knowledge is always gained but tons of knowledge can be communicated in, say, 30 minutes. Incorporating such knowledge into one's playing,,,,, that requires discipline, which can take months, if not years.

    These days, with all the ways one can "gain knowledge" (e.g. this forum), I assume most take lessons to impact discipline. Of course there are much cheaper ways to impact discipline then paying a teacher by the hour; E.g. ask your wife to nag you; "did you practice today!!!", but that often creates a host of other issues (ha ha).
    Last edited by jameslovestal; 10-18-2020 at 01:16 PM.

  15. #39

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    Education is really complex. But here's a fairly simple and not totally inaccurate way of looking at it.

    Want info? Go to the internet. There's no end of it.

    Wearing my 'teacher hat'; none of my jazz students are empty vessels needing deposits of information. They all know as much theory as they need. So why do they come to me?

    OK, wearing my 'student' hat, my Konnakol teacher has a YouTube channel of all the exercises that you can watch for free. Why do I pay him for lessons?

    So in educational theory we have a thing called a Kolb cycle, which David Kolb suggested as the process by which something is learned. Learning is a bit more complex than that, but this basic model is very helpful, and can be boiled down to the following in simple language:

    1) do the thing
    2) evaluate how it went
    3) think about how you could improve it
    4) try out some stuff, plan
    back to point 1)

    Now think how useful it is to have a teacher to help with 2) and make suggestions regarding 3) .

    And there you go, that's what a teacher really does. You can try and do it on your own... but you will have blind spots. And experienced musicians can hear more than you can. A professional musician represents a high level of embodied, intuitive knowledge you cannot get from reading books. Wish I'd known that 20 years ago.

    Other things I do - set assignments, practice exercises of course. But it's all based on that cycle. If someone has already has great technique I won't waste their time with technical exercises, but focus on what THEY need. It's not always easy to make that evaluation yourself.

    Also another thing a teacher can do - make observations, ask questions. I always find the way Jim Hall taught very interesting. I also like the idea of collaborative learning. Sharing, asking questions, exploring subjects together. I learn a lot from my students. I also think I end up learning what I need to work on better, too.