How many times have you got to the end of a guitar lesson online and thought, I've just watched all of that and I haven't got a clue what to do now? Then you watch another one and feel exactly the same. Loads of information, no idea how to use it.
If that's you, this might be a bit of a bitter pill to swallow. If every lesson you watch isn't making sense, the problem might not be the lessons. I'm not trying to be mean here. Hear me out.
The information is already out there ▶ 0:29
There's a wealth of great guitar teaching online. There's a wealth of rubbish as well, but that's not the point. Everything you need to become a better guitarist than I am is available at the click of a button. It might not make sense to you right now, but it's all there, I promise.
Knowing the answer isn't the same as understanding it ▶ 1:07
I watch a lot of other people's lessons, partly for ideas and partly to keep my own playing fresh. And I quite often see comments from people saying they didn't really understand how the teacher explained it.
That's fair enough. Not everyone explains things perfectly, and some explanations suit some people better than others. But here's the thing: knowing the answer and really internalising the answer are two completely different things.
Lessons, mine included, are framed as "this is the answer to your problem". And there's a very good chance they're right. But there's an assumption that watching the lesson is enough, or watching several of them. It's not.
How much application is enough? ▶ 1:34
Take the CAGED system as an example. A lesson on it might genuinely help you get it. But if you've only tried it with one or two songs, you've not tried it with enough songs.
You need to apply ideas far more extensively than you might first think. When you've tried it with as many variations of a chord progression and as many songs as you can think of, and you still don't understand it, then come back and tell me you don't understand it.
A lot of people search the internet for those eureka moments where something just clicks. They do happen sometimes. Most of the time, they don't.
What actually worked for me ▶ 2:15
I know this from my own experience, because I'm teaching myself to sing. I've had a few lessons, I'm a bit rusty at the minute, and I've watched so many videos about singing from the diaphragm, projecting, breath control, all of it. Sometimes something clicks while I'm watching, I go to do it, and it doesn't work at all. Sometimes it doesn't click and I've got nowhere to go.
Where I've made the most progress is just trying to sing in loads of different ways. If I like how something sounds, I do it more. If I don't, I don't do it again.
Go in a bit blind ▶ 3:03
So if you've watched a million videos on a topic and you're still unsure, the problem probably isn't the videos. There are some fantastic teachers out there with some really clever ways of helping you. It's more likely the application.
Sometimes you just have to go in blind. Put a little bit of faith in what you're watching, apply the method and see what happens. A lot of things don't make sense until afterwards. You might think it isn't working, then you do it for an hour or two and suddenly you can make sense of it.
Pick one idea you've watched a lesson on and never quite got. Spend the next hour or two applying it to as many songs as you can, jot down what you tried in a practice log, and see where you are afterwards.
