Let’s get things straight. We spend our whole life TALKING to people. Where did we learn this? Most folks DON’T take speech lessons and many people DO make a good living just talking to others. Truth is, if you really WANT to learn anything – you CAN. Even without lessons. Then why does anyone need a teacher when many people learn an instrument on their own?
While growing up, there was no Internet, but I learned songs on guitar from vinyl records and tapes. If I wanted to play a song, I used a tape recording and learned it piece by piece using the rewind and play buttons. No-one taught me this, but I discovered that listening for the bass note in a song and matching it to a note on guitar, I could figure out what chord was being used. Most pop songs of that time were “strummers” and used basic chords – either major, minor or basic 7ths. Anyone who plays a few chords and has a good ear can do that. However, today there are infinitely more resources available to learn almost anything you want.
I’m a guitar player and I can search online for any song title and probably find either TAB notation or chords and lyrics for free. Then I can watch it played on youtube. Youtube may even have someone giving a lesson on how to play something.
If you want lessons, you can take an online course – often for free. Then, there are useful forums, blogs (like this one!) and other sites for advice from experts and enthusiasts. If you REALLY want to learn – you CAN, with or without a formal teacher. I use these resources all the time and it’s a wonderful thing. Then, do we still need music teachers?
Hhum hhummm – well, as a guitar teacher, I can say the short answer is, you can make faster progress, learn good habits and techniques from the start, be guided about what’s important and get encouragement along the way. That’s it!
In my mind, saying that everyone should be self taught doesn’t contradict the statement that you are better off learning music from a good teacher. I learned classical guitar from 8 years old. That was a great foundation to gave me confidence that I can learn just about anything if I’m willing to devote the time. Of course, those feelings apply to other things in life too. The way I see it, the role of a music teacher is to help the student to use good learning methods and gain confidence through applying a little self discipline. Of course, kids often need constant support from both teacher and parent, and this process takes years. So a music teacher’s role is ultimately to show students how to self-teach so that they are able to enjoy and discover things about music on their own.
