Youtube vs One-to-one Lessons
One of the most popular forms of online guitar lessons today is Youtube. The platform is awash with incredibly skilled guitarists, who produce excellent content for free, every week. To get started, you can simply search for “online guitar lessons” or “how to play the guitar”, and you’ll get hundreds of relevant videos from different creators. We’d suggest starting with those that have the most views or the videos that have lots of subscribers.
The problem with this way of learning is twofold, over-choice and lack of real-time feedback.
Over-choice, choice overload or choice paralysis describes “how people get overwhelmed when they are presented with a large number of options to choose from” (Swartz, B 2005) The problem is that youtube is somewhat of a victim of its own success. There is so much good content that students either don’t know where to begin or jump around from topic to topic. We regularly get messages from new students that have tried to learn with youtube and say something like, “I’m struggling with my bar chords, and I need to learn all the major scale modes and jazz theory.” A good guitar tutor can assess where you are with your playing and provide content and ideas in the correct sequence of your learning. Their job is to help carve a program that works for you and encourage and motivate you to move through it.
The lack of real-time feedback is another issue with learning with youtube. Students can often be playing something incorrectly without even realising it. A personal tutor would pick this up before bad habits set in.
In conclusion, both learning styles have a part to play, and we would recommend a combination of the two. We still think youtube is a fantastic resource that we all use ourselves. The comparison is very similar to keeping fit. You can use youtube for online fitness workouts or have a personal trainer in the gym. Any musical exercise is recommended, but if you want to really grow your musical muscles, why not book a free trial lesson with one of our guitar teachers?
References
The Decision Lab. (n.d.). Choice Overload Bias. [online] Available at: https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/choice-overload-bias.The Decision Lab. (n.d.).
Comentários