Expert: Dave Dixon - 6/3/2009

Question
As a musician I've primarily taught myself how to play guitar. After three years I think i've made some progress but I still lack certain skills such as learning the guitar scales, writing chord progressions, etc. I struggle sometimes using picks to pick at strings because I am used to just using my fingers. Now would it make more sense to go and take lessons to get some of these skills down, or would I be capable of doing learning these things on my own.

Regards

Answer
Hello,

Thanks for your question.

I don't think there's any substitute for quality time spent with a guitar teacher, especially for "physical" stuff such as pick holding, fingering technique, etc.  For some things you need someone watching you to show you if you're going wrong anywhere.

The problem is that time with a good teacher costs money.  I think the trick is to get the balance between having one-to-one time (and making best use of it) versus filling in gaps using self-tuition.

If you can, I would certainly recommend that you find a good tutor locally, and spend some time on face-to-face tuition.  But also look for sources of material that you canuse for self-learning, which are focused on the areas you wish to work on.

I have a website at www.cyberflotsam.com where I publish guitar/music tutorials (just follow the "Music" link from the main menu) and there might be some things in there which you find helpful.  If you're looking to get into scale theory a bit more, than another site of mine at www.phatphish.co.uk might be of interest.

Good luck!

Regards,
Dave