The two main options to learn guitar efficiently (meaning: this excludes self-study) are private one-on-one lessons and classroom instruction. Private, one-on-one lessons are the best approach to learning guitar, because a private guitar coach tailors lessons to you. You don't have other people in class to be nervous about, and you can ask questions that you normally wouldn't. Here are several reasons why you should invest in one-on-one guitar instruction rather than enroll in a class setting.

A Private Guitar Coach Tailors to You
When you are in a one-on-one lesson with a guitar teacher, all of the teacher’s focus is on you and your playing. In a classroom setting, multiple students all simultaneously are vying for the teacher’s attention.  Those other students might be holding you back when they are not up to your level, or make you feel uncomfortable when they are a lot better than you are. Either way, they take away attention you could be getting from the teacher. As a result: you probably occasionally are making mistakes that go unnoticed cause the teacher’s attention is absorbed by another student, or you probably could use some more guidance and pointers every once in a while, which you are not getting for the same reason. In conclusion: his focused attention on you only in a private lesson set up, results in you learning much more quickly and efficiently.

You Are More Nervous in a Classroom Setting
It is already bad enough just messing up or feeling self conscious in the presence of 1 teacher, imagine having 20 other guitar students sitting around you who all witness your insecurities. It’s human nature to get self-conscious when you compare your guitar playing to the playing of the other people around you in the room. In a one-on-one lesson, there is nobody else around who can make you nervous with their energy and playing abilities. There is of course also always the possibility in a classroom of having some people who feel a need to show off or to get noticed. None of that in a private guitar lesson: there is no competing, no ego, no having to’s, no social pressures… just you and your teacher.

Ask Questions You Normally Wouldn’t
Of the many differences between a classroom setting and a one-on-one guitar lesson, one major difference is the sense of personal comfort. Like for example: the comfort of being able to ask any question you want without having to worry that you might say or ask something dumb. Do you remember the times in school, where you wanted to raise your hand in class and ask a question to clarify something your teacher said, but you chose not to because you feared that the question might make you look dumb in front of everybody in class? That fear of being or appearing inadequate in the face of a group can be strong. That fear surely will hold you back from reaching your truest potential. In a 1-on-1 setting where it is just you and a teacher, you can ask away all you want because there is nobody else around to judge you.

So the gist of it is that taking private instruction: you progress much more quickly, get personalized attention, get constant guidance directed towards you only, feel like you are in a more caring, safer learning environment and get a lot more out of the lessons. However: there are some disadvantages too. One of the main disadvantages to one-on-one instruction is that it is more expensive than classroom education. Another disadvantage is that you are not getting the benefits of being exposed to the fear of having to perform in front of your peers, which is a great learning experience. No tougher audience than your class mates in a guitar class. It’s great preparation for later musician’s life. Nevertheless, those few disadvantages are negligible compared to all the advantages you get out of personalized instruction. The extra cost is most definitely worth the much stronger results, training and progress you get in return, and the psychology of dealing with performance anxiety, gets mastered just by being out there and performing in front of your friends till you feel confident enough to play in front of strangers.  

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Figuring out what to look for in a guitar teacher can be a daunting task. There is always the uncertainty and doubt of whether or not you will have good chemistry with your teacher. After all: you will be putting yourself in a vulnerable position, making mistakes and doing things you can’t do well - all in the presence of a stranger. The following list of the top 10 things to look for in a guitar teacher will help you in your search for a teacher and guide you in your choice of who to study guitar with.

1. Preparedness
   Knowing that your guitar teacher has a teaching plan and is actively taking notes while you’re playing is a good indicator that he is not simply trying to take your money. Some guitar teachers charge a lot, but offer little to no feedback on your performances during lessons. When a teacher is prepared, you will get more bang for your buck. “Preparedness” more specifically means that the guitar instructor has:

• A significant database of audio files of songs to teach. A database of about 40,000 songs is a big plus
• A music library in his teaching studio that covers theory, chords, techniques, exercises, literature and more about the instrument he teaches
• An extensive library of chord charts and sheet music so he does not use up valuable lesson time having to write down lesson materials while you are waiting to be taught.
   

2. Friendly, Supportive and Firm

A friendly, supportive and firm guitar teacher will make a big difference in your musical growth. For example, if you aren’t practicing as much as you should in the week following a lesson, a good teacher will hold you accountable for that. It might not be “enjoyable” to hear his criticism, but his candidness and upfront honesty surely will earn your respect and trust. On the same note, a good guitar coach also needs to possess the right amount of friendliness and warmth of personality and diplomacy to convey his criticism without making you feel bad or without offending you.

After all: an instructor who is only being firm without being supportive will not motivate or inspire you to start practicing more diligently. An experienced guitar teacher knows how to strike a fair balance between being firm and supportive.

3. Patient and Understanding

A patient and understanding teacher can do wonders for your musical progress and growth. An important key ingredient is that you feel comfortable in his presence and vibes. Great teachers are firm and on the ball, but also very supportive and patient when you are struggling with newly covered information. It is crucial that at any given time it is okay for you to make mistakes - that is what you are there for.  “Making mistakes” is not only part of your growth and learning process, it is a necessity. You will never play your best during a lesson and your teacher knows that. If a teacher shows any sign of impatience when you are struggling, look for another teacher immediately. You deserve better.
 

4. Working From A Professional Studio

A teaching studio tells a lot about the guitar teacher who owns it. The environment you learn in needs to be conducive to learning. If a studio is organized and professional, you will be more apt to learn information easier because you will be focused. Having a well-organized studio and being more focused is beneficial because you will get things done quicker. When a guitar instructor is fumbling through stacks of papers looking for the resources he needs, you will become distracted and learn slower.
 

5. Versatile
   Versatility is an important assed to look for in a guitar teacher. Every student will not want to learn the same songs in the same style, nor will every student be on the same level as others. A guitar teacher should always be on his toes and know how to help anyone at any level of playing to improve. Being able to help a guitarist regardless of his current style or mastery is an important factor in being a great guitar coach.
    
6. Has an On-Hand Database

A teacher who has an adequate database of learning materials such as chord and tablature charts will make a big difference in improving your guitar skill. A guitar teacher’s database should consist of at least 30 thousand different songs and he should be able to pull something up in roughly a minute. You will get more out of each lesson with your guitar instructor if he has a well established on-hands database because less lesson time will be spent looking for certain music and more time will be spent playing and receiving direction.
 

7. Driven
   Being a driven musician often translates into being a driven teacher. Fantastic music teachers are focused and constantly helping you improve in any way possible. A good guitar teacher will constantly correct and push a student in a supportive way. When you are constantly guided, corrected, challenged and motivated to push the boundaries, you will gain more in 1 lesson than you would in 5 weeks of self-study. An imperative trait of a top music coach is that he has a strong drive to help you succeed in your goals. Your progress is his focus.
    
8. Pushes You Out of Your Comfort Zone
   When you don’t feel a little bit uncomfortable, your teacher is wasting your time, talent and money. It is when you are out of your comfort zone, that you really learn. Think about it: if you are feeling very comfortable, you are basically doing things you can already do. “Learning” is the result of doing things you cannot do yet. A top guitar coach will have you spend 90% (or more) of the lesson time on things you struggle with and only 10% (or less) time on things that come easy to you. The instructor’s job is to then spend that 90% of the time guiding you in being able to overcome the struggles so you can move to the next levels in your playing.
    
9. Focused More on Teaching Than Being a Musician
   A fantastic guitar teacher is not just someone who knows how to play guitar and shows you what to do. Teaching guitar requires a completely different skill set than playing. A necessary trait for an effective guitar teacher is that he enjoys teaching just as much as playing guitar and is passionate about it. A great guitar instructor is excited about showing you how incredibly magical music is and has your best interest at heart. If you can hear a drive in your guitar teacher and knows he has passion for music, you a probably have a wonderful guitar coach.
    
10. Inspiring and Creative

When a guitar teacher is able to relate music to life experiences, he is able to reach a student musically as well. Being able to see a connection between music and life is be a very significant factor in learning how to improve your ability. Music isn’t simply about playing notes on a piece of paper, it’s about the emotions and creativity that go behind the notes on the paper. Having a teacher who knows this and explains it often can make learning guitar an incredible, unforgettable experience.

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It is interesting and funny to see how so many guitar players worldwide through channels like for example YouTube, are spending a great deal of their time comparing their favorite guitarists to each other like it is a competition. My favorite guitar player is better than your favorite guitar player!

Although a sensible guitarist knows that these statements are invalid, there is an interesting psychology behind this. The ego strengthens its sense of self and its worth by identifying with a group: “I know who I am! I am the kind of guy who listens to guys like Satriani and Vai! They are great, and I am into them”. You stand for something and this is your identity: you listen to Vai and Satriani. As such, the ego is also divisive. Its struggle to be “unique” and “special”, automatically also means that it has to attack the value of others in order to elevate its self-worth. Picking one guitarist to be the best in the world is alluring due to the amount of people willing to agree with your statement, and turning down others on top of that elevates your ego even more. It is easier to say, “Jimi Hendrix is the best guitarist in the world!” and have other people agree with you than it is to say, “Steve Vai has incredible technical abilities but Jack White has a very distinct, personal style.” The latter does not make you feel as important about yourself.

There are many reasons why claiming one musician as the best guitarist in the world makes no sense. Out of all the guitarists in the world, there are hundreds of different styles that can be played and no one guitarist is the same as another. In addition: everyone has his or her own opinions of what is “great.” People who love classic or hard rock would be apt to say Jimi Hendrix is the best guitarist in the world. On the other hand, someone who has a passion for blues and jazz music might say BB King or Joe Pass are the best guitarists to grace the planet. Comparing a jazz guitarist to a rock guitarist makes no sense because they are two completely different types of guitar players, who both have different, equally valuable energies and elements they bring to music.

It is also a shame when a guitarist focuses on such a narrow-minded vision, as it obstructs him from reaching his own true potential as a musician. Many people limit their vision of great style and talent by only looking into a narrow field of guitarists they admire. Once someone lets go of the belief that Jimmy Page was the most incredible guitar player in the world, they can begin to appreciate other styles of music and guitar playing. While looking into other guitarist abilities and styles, a person can begin to enjoy a much wider scope of music and in turn grow in creativity. Great guitarists all have their own very specific, personal sound, phrasing and style.

In order to grow as a musician or music lover, listen to some other genres and see the similarities and differences in other guitarists. Unfortunately, many people will always be biased and not give other guitarists that play different styles a chance because they, “don’t like that kind of music.” If someone doesn’t like blues and refuses to listen to Stevie Ray Vaughn while claiming Slash is the best guitarist, they are missing out on some great talent because of their biased opinions.

More importantly though, is to realize that being a master at guitar, does not have anything to do with how many notes you can play, how many chords you know, how many scales you know, how many styles of music you can play, how unbelievably your technique is or how many songs you know or how amazing your ear is. You are a master at guitar if you play every note you play, with utmost love for the sound, and with amazing joy, treating every note and sound like it is the very last one you are ever going to play again…. Without any judgment, without being self-conscious, without thoughts, without a need to show off or prove anything. Every time you do that: you are the best guitar player in the world, because that is where your true voice lies. NOBODY can play and sound like you can, not even Steve Vai, Jimi Hendrix, Van Halen, Randy Rhoads or Joe Satriani, not even if they have been playing for decades and you only have 3 weeks… because there is only one: YOU! That is why you cannot compare guitar players.

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One’s success in life is linearly correlated to one’s ability to focus. The ability to keep your attention to the task at hand is one of the most important skills to have. It is a skill that you can train. How do you train anything? Simple: you just do it, and correct your attention back to the task if you feel yourself getting distracted. Here are 5 great musical practice examples of how focus can greatly improve your efficiency and learning speed.

1. Learning A Song

Rather than playing the whole song over and over again, if you repeatedlyslip up on the same phrase or area of a song while practicing, zone in on that phrase only, playthe phrasevery slowly with a metronome and playit over and over until you have it down.Slowly increase your tempo until you can play the phrase at full speed. Then add it back into the song and play the whole song again. If you have another weak area in the song that you feel insecure about, do the same with that part till you have it mastered. Learn the song, mastering it one obstacle at a time.

2. Ear Training:

Don’t try to train your aural interval recognition practicing all musical intervals all at once. Take your time listening to minor and major seconds till you confidently can hear the difference, then add minor 3rds and only practice identifying those 3 intervals, then add major 3rds, and so on.

3. Technique exercises.

If you find a certain picking situation (for example “inside picking”) challenging, don’t practice long scalar picking exercises. Instead; narrow down the exercise to that one spot where you have a hard time with, or make up your own exercises to address that one particular weakness in your picking technique. Another great way to build your picking technique is short 4-8 note repetitive phrases. I always liked to call these “technique seeds”. They’re like little practice seeds, each individually addressing one specific technical challenge, which over time, as the challenges get mastered, grow into long, technical, intricate solos.

4. Chord changes.

If you have a hard time moving between 2 particular chords, simplify what you are doing in your strumming hand to just quarter note down strokes, so more of your attention and brainpower can be directed to the fretting hand. Then move back and forth between those 2 chords only, changing chord every 4 beats. If it gets easier: speed up the tempo a bit. If it gets still easier, slow down a bit but now change every 2 beats. As this gets easier, accelerate the tempo a bit again.

5. Learning Intricate Guitar Parts.

It is incredibly tempting, when you’re learning a guitar part or guitar solo that is very detailed (as opposed to just strumming chords), to skip ahead to easier sections, before having mastered the measure or phrase you were working on. It is also an incredibly waste of time to do so as your attention gets diverted towards too many areas in the solo simultaneously. Start with the first bar, repeat that bar over and over again till you have it memorized and mastered, then add the next couple of beats of the next bar to that. Repeat that over and over again till mastered, then add the rest of that bar to it and again repeat over and over again till mastered. Now connect both bars and practice these 2 till mastered. Work your way through the part that way measure by measure. That is the most efficient and quickest way to get a whole solo or intricate guitar memorized and mastered.

The idea behind those examples is that you focus (zooming in) on the core of the challenge you are dealing with by removing all the other activity or interfering actions. You then slowly and attentively keep repeating the challenging action, till it becomes effortless and natural. At that point, you start adding the other elements back in: your other hand, the rest of the song, more complicated strumming, etc.

Speaking of focus: if you find yourself ending up on Facebook or checking emails or sending texts in the middle of the time you had carved out for practicing: shut down your computer and your phone and get back to practicing. Make it a habit of shutting down all possible distractions while you’re practicing.

And yes: all this takes mental discipline, character and persistence, but guess what: it also builds character, persistence and discipline.

“That is part of the reason why guitar is our path to enlightenment”.

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Most music schools teach guitar students to keep their thumb behind the guitar neck. Although many great guitarists, like for example Pat Metheny, constantly play with their thumb over the guitar neck, keeping your thumb behind the fret board is considered the “proper” guitar technique. For technical shredding guitar playing, with wide scalar stretches, it is impossible to reach for all the notes if your thumb is leaping over, as you can’t stretch your fingers far enough apart if there is too much guitar neck in your hand obstructing your reach. On classical guitar: since the guitar neck is so much wider on a nylon string, you cannot play classical guitar adequately if your hand is not properly positioned with the thumb behind the neck.

While there is nothing wrong with playing with your thumb over (as long as it does not cause strain in your arm or does not limit your playing possibilities), it does not hurt to get used to playing with the thumb behind to keep all options open without stylistic or technical limitations, and to avoid arm and wrist tension that can occur when you grab over with your thumb, which is cause of most of the hand/wrist problems guitar players can have to deal with when practicing many hours a day. Keeping your thumb behind the fret board will spare your muscles and tendons, as there is less tension in the arm.

That being said: there are three exceptions that make playing with your thumb over the fret board not only acceptable, but actually a necessity.

1. Bending Notes
   String bending is one of the techniques that make guitar such an expressive instrument. Pushing up a string to bend to another note, takes so much finger strength that your thumb is needed, grabbing over the guitar neck to give your hand leverage. Having a grip on the guitar-neck makes your bends more accurate and more controlled. Whether you want to add bluesy blue note micro bends or more flamboyant larger interval bends like Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, you always benefit from grabbing over with your thumb when bending. You typically only need to grab over the fret board with your thumb for these note bends and not for the entire solo or song. What this means is that you would change your hand position often in a guitar solo depending on the particular phrase you’re playing. When you intend to bend, grab over, when your next phrase is going to be a scalar run, lower your thumb behind the guitar neck. If however: the whole solo contains constant bends, which would be the case when you play Jimi Hendrix solos, or any blues or blues rock solo for that matter, you would typically keep your thumb behind the guitar-neck throughout the solo. Best advice really is: use common sense and be present and aware of how your arm and wrist feel.
2. Muting the Low E String
   Certain chords require the low E bass string to be muted in order for the chord to sound good. For example: it is advised to mute the low E string when playing the regular, open string D chord on the 2^nd fret that beginning guitar students learn. The D chord sounds much better without that low E rumble underneath the chord. This is accomplished when the guitarist extends his thumb over to touch that low E string so it can't vibrate. In order to mute the low E sting, grab over the fret board with your fretting hand and slightly touch the E string with the inside of your thumb, just enough to mute it. This muting technique is also commonly used with any rhythm style that requires lots of percussive, muted attacks, like for example Texas blues, funk rhythms played on the top strings, or reggae.
3. Playing Thumbed Bass Notes or E Shape Bar Chords.
   Jimi Hendrix often used his thumb to grab over the fret board to play bar chords. Bar chords tend to be straining on the hand muscles. Playing the low E string note with your thumb on E shape bar chords, rather than underneath your index finger as a bar, conforms more ergonomically to how your hand functions. It makes the E shape bar chords less strenuous, no longer turning songs with bar chords into physical endurance exercises. You can also grab over the fret board with your thumb to play moving bass notes on the 6^th string while playing chord on top of those bass notes with your fingers. This technique is sometimes used in certain playing styles that are heavily finger picking based, such as flamenco and some bluegrass.

In conclusion: in some cases grabbing over the fret board with your thumb is a necessity. The main reasons why guitar teachers are usually adamant about keeping your thumb behind the guitar-neck, are:

1. To teach you “proper” guitar technique. Even if grabbing over with your thumb is not an issue as long as it does not create tension in your wrist or arm, you still benefit from getting used to holding your thumb behind the guitar neck as well.
2. To avoid tension in your wrists, hands and fingers, which can cause physical hand and arm problems, including tendinitis and in later stages possibly carpel tunnel syndrome.
3. To accommodate the style you want to learn or practice. When learning classical guitar, or work on shred picking technique; thumb is always behind the guitar neck.

Always remember, it is good to stretch before and during playing if you practice for longer periods of time or practice on techniques that are intense on your hand muscles and tendons. Take care of your body and play with good form and technique, and you will preserve your hands and wrists for a life time of guitar playing comfort. Now go grab that guitar neck and rock out!

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