I'm well aware of the irony here. I'm a guitar teacher online, telling you how to know whether you can trust guitar teachers online. So you'll have to take my word for it a little bit.
But it's a jungle out there. There's loads of great stuff and there's lots of bad information. And because of the way algorithms work (I'm a bit of a slave to this as well), people present things as the one and only fix, when often there are a few ways you can approach them. So here's how I'd treat any guitar information you take in online, mine included.
"The one trick that will transform your playing" ▶ 1:02
If you see a lesson that promises the one trick that will transform your playing, or what you need to play faster, the fact is they might be right. That might be one trick that does transform your playing. But it won't apply to everyone.
So the way to treat these lessons is to look at them and think, here's something I can try. Whether it's presented as a silver bullet for everything or just a handy little tip, treat it as something to experiment with. Take in the information, and if it sounds like it's going to help you, give it a go.
It's also worth checking the comments. They'll often give you a bit of a barometer as to whether the information is useful. Although, as I've learned, sometimes the comments are full of people who are a bit sarcastic and, let's just say, not very open-minded.
Why a new technique often feels worse at first ▶ 1:45
Here's an important one. When you try a new technique, it's often going to slow you down straight away, particularly if you're anywhere beyond the intermediate level, and particularly with anything technique related.
If you have to change your fundamental playing style or the way you approach things, it throws off your muscle memory and your habits. So when a new idea feels wrong, it's worth recognising that you aren't always the best judge of what's right for you on the instrument. That might sound a bit awkward to think about, but it's true.
If other people seem to have found a technique useful and it doesn't immediately work for you, bear in mind it might take a week or two to have any effect.
Be selective about what you commit to ▶ 2:24
That means you have to make a judgement for yourself: am I going to commit the next week, or possibly longer, to really trying this properly?
You can't do that with everything you watch, so you might have to get quite selective about what you actually try to learn. Pick the ideas that fit where you are, and give those a proper run. Keeping a practice log makes it a lot easier to see whether something is actually working after a couple of weeks, rather than going on how it felt on day one.
Treat every lesson as something to try ▶ 2:33
Whether it's my lesson or someone else's, treat it as something new to have a go at: a new way of playing, a new technique, a new way of approaching theory, whatever. If you think about it like that, you're pretty much immune to the whole "one quick fix" or "this is the only way to do it" thing.
The biggest lever is still focused practice ▶ 2:51
Something I'm very keen to get across is that the biggest lever you can pull to improve your playing is sitting down with your guitar for a long time and practising in a focused way.
So I'd be hesitant to follow advice that pushes a quick fix, unless it genuinely is a quick fix. If someone's suggesting that it's not that you're practising wrong, it's this magic trick, those are the lessons I'm a little more wary of. Sometimes they're legitimately useful. A lot of the time they ignore the fact that it won't work if you don't put the hours in.
If you sit at the instrument for long enough, you could play in the weirdest, most offhand way and you'll probably still get pretty good at the guitar.
Don't swing too far the other way ▶ 3:29
Take online lessons with a pinch of salt, but do try them properly. Don't just try something for a day and assume it doesn't work. We don't want to go too far the other way and trust nothing.
Stop worrying about all the "five fixes for this" or whatever. Just try things. Trust your own intuition. It'll build over time, and you will make mistakes along the way, which is fine.
So next time a tip catches your eye, pick one, give it a proper week or two alongside your normal practice, and judge it on what's changed, not on how strange it felt at first. Don't overthink it. Just make sure you're putting the hours in.
