Spent 6 months trying to learn guitar from YouTube videos... finally caved and got a real teacher

I was dead set on being self-taught because who wants to pay $40 a lesson, right? After watching like 50 different videos on barre chords I still couldn't get a clean F to save my life. My buddy Dave kept telling me to just try one session with his teacher over at Melody Music shop downtown. I finally went in last Tuesday and within 20 minutes the guy fixed my thumb position - turns out I was gripping the neck like a baseball bat the whole time. Now after 8 weeks I'm playing stuff I struggled with for half a year. I guess some things you just need a second pair of eyes on, you know? Anyone else have that one skill where they wasted forever trying to DIY it?

2 comments

2 Comments

davis.emma2d ago

The thumb thing is exactly what got me too. My neighbor who gigs every weekend took one look at how I was holding my pick and just laughed. I was strangling it with my thumb and pointer finger like a caveman. He showed me to just barely pinch it with the side of my thumb and let the other fingers relax. Felt wrong for a few days but everything got so much easier after that. Its crazy how one tiny change opens everything up.

michaelw261d ago

Just barely pinch it with the side of your thumb" - that's exactly what my buddy Tom had drilled into him. He spent months gripping his pick super tight while learning metal riffs. Sounded all choked up and scratchy. One lesson with this old blues guy, and he changed his whole grip in ten minutes. Next time I saw him play, his tremolo picking was clean and fast. Looked like a different person.