Are guitar systems, techniques, and paid instruction worth the money?

Today we look at paying for techniques, systems and one on one lessons. Do they make us better or are they designed to take our hard earned money?

Starting the guitar can be pretty overwhelming at first. We want to be able to play our favorite music, create lasting memories, or as an outlet for our emotions. Where and what to start learning often times becomes the hang up on our journey. Maybe we aren't progressing as quickly as we feel we should. So, we start looking for ways to get better as quickly as possible.

Searching the internet, which sucks up valuable practice time, leads us to a sea of information. Methods, systems, and paid online courses claiming the guarantee to make us guitar gods. Stop wasting your money. These work fantastic to 1.take your money, and 2.be really good at techniques and exercises. These systems are filled with mind numbing exercises, and lack practical use. When was the last time you saw a lead do the spider walk up the fret board during a song. So what works? Learning songs and more songs from our favorite bands and guitarists. This shows us the practical application of the scales and chords. Songs show us how everything comes together to make the music we love. If you spend the same amount of time learning songs instead of systems and exercises you would be further ahead. Another way of looking at it is, will anyone ever ask you play that awesome fretboard exercise?

Let's say that you are learning a new song that has some really difficult elements. How do you nail these down? Practice! How we practice helps us develop. If I'm learning a new song some parts will be really easy and some very difficult. Focusing on the difficult elements is what makes us better, that develops the techniques. Start slow and be very deliberate with your movements across the fretboard and strings. Slowly speed up, and restart every time a mistake is made. There is a lot of muscle memory involved with playing the guitar. Eventually you will be able to play these sections with out thinking of it. If that doesn't seem to help then look up a specific technique, there are free videos everywhere of some one showing how specific techniques are performed.

If you are the type that has a difficult time with self starting, or structuring your practice, paid instruction is good way to get the foundation started on the fundamentals. With one on one instruction once a week, you will be introduced to music theory with practical application. You'll learn songs, be introduced to guitar theory, and have a starting format for how your practice session could be organized. Paid instruction is great to begin the journey, especially if you learn better from in person instruction. With an instructor you also get the added benefit of learning time keeping and playing along with someone.

Where do you get the music from? There are a lot of great resources on the internet, all you really have to do is type in how to play (the song title) for guitar. Like magic there will more than likely be a video of someone playing the song you want to learn. There are also sites like, Ultimate Guitar, A-Z Guitar Tabs, Guitar Tab Universe, the list goes on and on. Some of these offer free tabs, some of these free tabs are not 100% accurate to the original, but will sound close. Another great resource for tabs is a used book store. Thiftbooks.com has a pretty good collection of used guitar tab books. Buying a book is usually the best way to get accurate tablature for guitar. Building a library of books to reference is a great way to build on the song playlist and to keep on hand anytime you need a quick refresher. With books or tabs it is a good idea to have the song you're learning on cue to play along with. This practice alone will help with keeping time.

So stop burning your hard earned cash on mindless exercises and systems that keep you from the thing that really helps your progress. Playing songs! The money you save on monthly subscriptions could be used for strings, pedals, and amps. There are a tremendous amount of resources online that are free. Don't worry about that search till you need it. If you are working on a song and find a difficult part that you can't get past. That's when you spend the time looking for help. Sometimes the best thing to do is move on to another piece of music, and revisit the difficult one when the mind is calm. The main thing to remember is that you have to stay at it, practice is the only way to improve. Don't fall for the sales pitch promising greatness in 24 hours. You'll be able to play the exercise really great, but you will still have to learn how to use it and you still have to learn songs to play.