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Comment by honkycat | Hacker News Reader

I've been learning guitar and ive been amazed at how bad lessons and education is for adult students. The apps i have used barely work and are extremely unambitious.

Classes are so disorganized and i am constantly wading through material that is a mile wide but a foot deep.

Yes i have seen Justin Guitar I'm not a huge fan. I dont want to have to wade through content to find the exercises that are relevant to me. I think Duolingo has an interesting approach to this, where has you re-visit concepts every day and it tells you what to practice to reduce decision fatigue.

I want a dashboard that is keeping track of my goals and progress akd has an opinionated way for me to measure my skill, and to direct my effort.

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I think there’s some sort of issue happening where learning in general is widely misunderstood, and teaching is undertaken by people who have little understanding of how humans learn things.

I don’t know what’s going on. Something about the wide access of the internet plus a bunch of teaching methods that were traditional and terrible resulted in everyone deciding they can teach stuff and somehow we almost act as if it doesn’t matter how something is taught??

I can’t explain it but I see it everywhere.

Anyway, perhaps just pay someone to teach you guitar? That’s how I learned martial arts and music all my life. Nothing beats one on one lessons with an expert.

I should have included a summary of how I'm learning in my post haha.

I take private lessons once a week, and strive for an hour a day practice.

I have a good summary on my blog: https://cresten.pizza/blog/2020-01-03-rocksmith-review/

When you say you've seen Justin Guitar do you mean the web site or YouTube? He has a structured program: https://www.justinguitar.com/classes/beginner-guitar-course-...

I haven't seen the new site design but it seems ok. When I started learning the guitar (~6 years ago) Justin was a huge help but I complemented that with in person lessons with some teachers and with additional material/random songs. So consider me a fan. I also recommend getting in touch with other musicians/players, that's gonna push your level way more than an app would.

May I ask how long ago you've started learning and what level are you at?

I think there is a lot of great material online. But in order to grok most of it you need to have some foundation.

I've never used any app (well, I use a metronome app) since I haven't seen anything that looked useful. Ear training apps could be useful but I haven't been able to stick with it. In general "apps" seem a poor fit for teaching the guitar.

Honestly I just got really frustrated when I tried to sign up for the Justin guitar paid site and it just broke and wouldn't let me sign in and pay them.

This is the right answer here. Justinguitar has a very structured introduction to guitar, with specific practice exercises. Not sure what else you could want.

Regarding Duolingo: I thought it was a fun way to learn the basics of a language, but I quickly found it to be extremely inefficient.

I've been ignoring Anki for many years, thinking it was overly complicated and being disappointed that I had to create my own sets.

I finally came around last year, I automated the set generation based on a frequency list and currently I'm on a 450 day streak for my language of choice having learned ~6200 words.

Can you please share either the frequency list or the method you used to automate the deck generation? I've been looking to do something like this, perhaps with genanki.

I'm learning Italian, so I found this list:

https://www.internazionale.it/opinione/tullio-de-mauro/2016/...

It's based on the most frequent words in a collection of texts, with additional manual curation. The words have grammatical classification, but no translations.

I basically wrote a node.js script using some npm libraries, one that can parse PDFs and another one that can drive a headless Chrome.

I parsed the words from the list, and then looked up each one in an online dictionary using the chrome driver. Then I retrieved the translation from the DOM, making sure that I get the right part of speech for each word in the list (sometimes the same word can be an adjective and a noun for example).

The dictionary that I used also has example sentences, grammatical gender for nouns, a description of the meaning of the word in Italian, and very importantly, a phonetic transcription in IPA. I grabbed those as well.

Then I just dumped the whole thing to a CSV file and imported it into Anki, and I created a custom card template to show all this information. I also added text to speech which is wrong a lot of the time so I don't rely on it.

I only use Italian to English cards. I make sure that I know the pronunciation and the grammatical gender for nouns and not just the spelling.

The whole thing took maybe a weekend to write (I don't even regularly use javascript). The learning was the hard part (I spent at least an hour per day all of these days). It was only possible because I'm working from home.

The cards are perfect in most cases, but some require manual fixes (I'd say 5%).

I am actually building an iOS app based off of this concept. If you’re interested in trying out an early release and providing feedback, it would be seriously helpful! My email is in my HN profile.

All those things are helpful but nothing will ever beat one-on-one lessons (Covid/finances permitting) with a teacher who is proficient in the style of play you’re most interested in. Or if you have a buddy who will jam with you and show you scales, basic chord progressions, and standards. I have been playing guitar for 21 years now, and bass for about 7 (4 of those in a relatively successful band, as small gigging goes) and every time I stop being lazy and signup for lessons again my skills accelerate exponential faster than tooling around on my own.

I know Covid makes this difficult, as can cost, but I highly recommend it! Even an hour lesson every other week would work wonders for you.

Edit, grammar: I got my second Covid shot today and I’m a bit groggy.

Do you think some of the advances you make by having a teacher is the discipline.

I mean I guess you set up a time every week and have to actually go and spend that time. I guess you would feel bad if you didn't practice what the teacher told you to?

This is what stops me progressing, I don't have a reason to play. I never progressed more quickly than when I was in a band.

I actually have a teacher so I can speak to this: a teacher helps a lot because they police my technique when they watch me play and point out errors in my technique.

Additionally I do find it motivating to have someone else on my team helping me keep motivated with playing.

Teachers (good ones) teach and correct technique in ways that no apps or self study methods will ever be able to do. Unfortunately the most benefit here comes from in-person instruction which is hard right now. But in person, they can see the way you are holding the instrument, they can work directly with your hands, etc.

But yes a skilled teacher is always worth it if you have the money. Apps, subscription services, and so on have a vested interest in keeping paying customers. Therefore they ensure you always feel safe and comfortable. If you feel too challenged, your association with the sefvice will turn negative and you'll stop paying.

But learning an instrument is not comfortable; it's extremely challenging and requires hard work and commitment. It doesn't have to be like bootcamp, and of course it's really fulfilling to watch yourself improve, but there's no hiding how challenging it is, especially if it's your first one. Good teachers know this and have the pedagogy to help you through it in as efficient a manner as possible.

Besides, the good teachers are always in demand so they are usually not too concerned about losing a student here or there because they decided it was too hard for them.

I'm a guitar noob as well and I've been playing around with Rocksmith on PC. I don't think it replaces a real teacher at all but if you want something fun as an alternative and a way to learn popular pop/rock songs I suggest you check it out.

You can use it to practice like this post's article. You can repeat sections and slow the tempo down. I'm not a fan of how the game ramps up song difficulty (IMO I think it starts way too easy such that the practice is not useful), but you can tweak this really easily.

I have a review of Rocksmith on my blog actually: https://cresten.pizza/blog/2020-01-03-rocksmith-review/

It is nice to play along with songs but the exercises are not great.

It has so much potential though! I hope they're planning another one.

I bought a bass recently, which came with three free months of Fender Play [0]. I'm happy with it -- yeah, I've skipped stuff since I already know note values, scales, etc., but I like their progression.

They have a number of different styles of guitar (rock, blues, fingerpicking, etc.) with a 7-day free trial.

Their Facebook group is fantastic, really supportive, with "office hours" live videos taking questions every week.

[0] https://www.fender.com/play

I'll give fender play a try.

Hey honkycat,

I'm currently trying to solve the exact same problem you're describing, since I also got frustrated by the current state of music teaching.

I'm still in an early stage of development, currently trying to fetch proofs of interests and working on a prototype, but I should be able to release a MVP by the end of the year.

If you want to have a chat about it, or want to be on the list for early access, feel free to reach me.

https://mamie-note.dorik.io/

Nice, this really IS exactly what I was describing: A dashboard with daily exercises for me to iterate on without having to do the toil of building one myself.

Have you thought about taking lessons from a teacher?

I've been working on this, focusing on the fundamentals of playing and learning by ear. Check it out at https://www.goodbyeruth.com/

I was just mulling this over in my head compared to my guitar playing experience.

I am self-taught (some friends helped) and have played for just over 20 years.

I'm assuming here that you are not trying to learn classical guitar, if you are I think you should find a real teacher. I urge you to learn rock music by playing songs. I was an indie rock fan, and started off strumming the chords to my favourite songs. It is relatively easy to do, and the rewards come quickly. The trick is to find a song you like that uses simple open chords, and not too many of them! My first tune was 'Live Forever by Oasis' as an example (cringe). For something more tasteful try 'knocking on heaven's door' by Dylan. It is easy to read chord diagrams. Get a few thin picks and go for it. Really just go for it, the changes will speed up by themselves and the strumming patterns will too, by listening to the song and imitating. Now pick another song with some of the sme chords. A month of evenings can get you reasonably proficient. If you have a friend who is a bit further along then play with them Whenever you can. This is about as far as lots of famous musicians ever got. Remember that!

Alongside this you can try out some riffs. 'Smoke on the water' is the classic, but go with what you enjoy. Tab for these is free online and easy to read. Find a riff you like, if you have a friend who can play the chords while you riff that is fun. You learn riffs like the guy in the article, note by note.

Learning to solo is harder. I used to buy tab books and copy solos I liked. Eventually I realised that I needed to understand some very basic theory, like 'Keys' and 'scales'. I read this in a book but you can google. This is easy on a guitar because you only have to learn a scale shape once and you can change key by playing it in different places on the neck. If you like blues and rock and roll then you only need to learn the minor pentatonic scale to begin with. These 5 notes made many a solo. By running through those 5 notes you start to form licks and phrases you can use. The best way to learn this is to learn to play a basic 12 bar blues shuffle, and play with a friend, taking it in turns to solo. The second best way is a looper or backing track.

I then wanted to play folk fingerstyle. I found the tab for Nick Drake's 'Cello Song' in a magazine and spent a year repeating the first main phrase over and over, a few times most days. The rest of the song came exactly like the op and quite quickly. Afterwards I could pick up other fingerstlye songs quite quickly.

I don't know how to play Jazz.

I think the cap this way of learning places on you is that you don't learn much theory, which makes it hard to arrange songs, compose, etc. Just remember that a lot of the people you are listening to are in the same boat...

This is good advice. Knockin on heavens door is the perfect beginner song, although at ultimate guitar I think the most popular version uses a capo, just ignore that and play the chords.

I like ultimate guitar a lot, there are often simplified versions of songs so you can make rewarding progress early.

If you want something simple but need a noisy thrash, the next song could be Neil Young "Rockin in the free world", easy to make that sound good even if you don't have a great singing voice.

I pay for an ultimate guitar subscription. I like the website okay, but I found that my copy of guitar pro is a bit better.

Ultimate guitar would do everything I need if it had a way for me to highlight sections and then hit a a shortcut to restart the section.

Yeah I can't say the UG website is anything special, the scrolling feature is pretty useless without being able to limit it to smaller sections of the pieces as you said.

Mostly I pay for the breadth of songs available.

I pay for it too. If I hear a song I want to play I want to get straight into it.

What I would really like though is something like 'lead sheets' which just tell you the chord progression and tab the main theme, so I can jump straight into my own version of a song.

>The trick is to find a song you like

This is really a trick. Lately It's difficult to find a song I like. Most of them became boring or let's say not motivating to learn them.

I am really puzzled about what to learn next and I do not know where to get a good advice that is "workable" in my current situation.

I play by ear and can figure out chords for compositions I like and if I can't I may search the internet for the hard parts but usually I am too lazy to do it and it's more interesting to figure it out by myself. Also because lately I see that internet versions are frequently "worse" or even wrong or too primitive ignoring all they beauty of complicated chords.

So I am pleased with what I have on the one hand. On the other hand I am stuck with question what to learn next? I never master pieces to the complete perfection because honestly I do not perform for the public and so I find it hard to motivate myself with that because who needs another moderate piano player these days when there are plenty of trained pianists available? How many chances I have to win competition with "well trained" people? And who would wish to listen unless you are "perfect"? So what is the point? I play for myself or my friends but if I wish some piece to sound better I find it difficult to achieve even though I know that I am more than capable to improve them to a much better level. So I can't reasonably motivate myself as a "performer/future performer" to sit and train for many hours. I've heard that this "many hours training" could also rise my level of understanding theory but I do not see a direct connection between those.

Perhaps I just do not see it and thus do not know how to progress and choose what to learn next to move forward? Any advice?

What kind of pianist are you? Classical? If so have you thought about an about turn to try the boogie woogie or ragtime. You might find it very liberating, and easier to find someone to play along with.

>Since I play by ear I would not consicer myself classical.

>have you thought about an about turn to try the boogie woogie or ragtime.

If you have something concrete some particular piece or place to try those I would appreciate it very much and someone who is reading would too I think.

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