Taking Regular Guitar Lessons vs. Practicing More | Los Angeles or Skype Guitar Lessons with Vreny

Taking Regular Guitar Lessons vs. Practicing More.

Here are some regularly occurring student comments, and my take on those comments.

<<< I want to at least be more proficient at what we've worked on so far before coming back in. Does that make sense? >>>>

That’s a bit like saying: I want to lose 20 pounds first before I start working out or going to the gym, so I’m at least more proficient on the workout machines. 🙂

Just like going to the gym is The whole point of taking lessons, is getting more proficient.
So wanting to get more proficient before taking lessons… defeats the whole purpose of why you would want to take lessons in the first place.
It’s like wanting to become more proficient before you’ll get more proficient.

So it doesn’t seem like a very good, effective, or efficient reason to wait to have the next lesson.
Especially, since your progress is the result of how regular your lessons are… not of how much you practice in between.

It’s the people who try to cram in extra lessons wherever possible who get the most out of their money (amazing progress, great results, deep joy, and satisfaction)… not the people who wait to have a lesson till they have practiced more.
It’s not as much practice, as it is lessons that are the determining factor in how much progress one will experience.

I understand that sometimes people are too busy to find the time to practice.
However: this is all the more reason to meet as regular/often as you can for lessons, rather than skipping lesson weeks.
Your progress doesn’t lie in your practice… as much as it lies in your lessons.

Moreover: practicing by yourself with THAT much time between lessons, could possibly do more damage than help your progress because you might practice with bad technique or bad habits without any correction or supervision.

That’s why, if you could only find 1 hour in a whole week to pick up your guitar, that hour should be used to have a lesson, not to practice.
You then get way more out of your time and money and don’t spend one second doing things incorrectly or furthering hammering in bad habits unsupervised.

“I Need To Take A Break: The Counterproductive Excuse.”

<<< Yes, I am totally behind >>>

It’s interesting how many people have this completely backward…
it’s common for peeps to believe they need to skip weeks because they get behind…

but it’s actually exactly the other way around: they get behind because they skip weeks.

No one who meets weekly, ever “gets behind” (in a private instruction setting).
The reason for this is that the person who meets very regularly (weekly), constantly, during the frequent lessons gets everything further trained, drilled, hammered in, reminded, refreshed, etc on a regular basis.

Top-level/quality lessons are not just sessions where one constantly keeps moving on to yet new information over and over again… they are sessions where a part of the time is spent on repeating and further drilling old material previously covered.
As such… a regular student can never get behind on any info.

If one of the world’s top music colleges on the planet (Berklee College) does it this way (so does MI, Manhattan School of Music, Juilliard, etc.. ) then there must be something to be said about the higher quality of the lessons based on a system where the student keeps getting drilled on previous topics, and not just only exposed to new material during the lessons.

The occasional student who thinks of a lesson as just a time to get new info misses out on a lot and never really gets all the full benefits.

Conclusion

The above insights are formed by observations made during a couple of decades of teaching experience.

If you want the maximum out of your guitar training or your tuition, the above insights might help you make the best possible decisions conducive to getting better results in your educational goals.

Hit me up anytime at vreny@zotzinmusic.com if you have any questions, or if you would like to book a lesson.

These free lessons are cool, but you will never experience the progress, joy, and results that my students experience in lessons when you’re learning by yourself from blogs and videos.

That is why people take lessons: way better results and progress, much more complete information, exposed to way more creative ideas than you can get from a blog or YouTube video.
There is only so much that self-study can accomplish.

If you want to see amazing results and progress in your guitar playing, buy your first lesson here and get started ASAP.