I've been fiddling around on my guitar for about a year now and I figure I'm not going to get anywhere unless I get a teacher. I can play many songs just by looking at them (minus the solo) and I'm what I'd consider acquainted with the fretboard. Mainly it's been "just for fun", to see if I'd like it, and I think I'm ready to take it a step further.

But how do I go about finding a decent guitar teacher? Some make it seem like you really need a GOOD guitar teacher if you're going to get anywhere. And I'm not exactly swimming in money either. I'm a little bit nervous about just doing a search and picking the first one I find.

Any ideas or experiences?

Having a guitar teacher helped me by teaching me how to actually learn to play. I only had him for about a month, but he taught me more in that time than I ever learned by myself. Of course, he taught me absolutely nothing as far as songs go, but having someone show you how they do it and giving you tips is absolutely invaluable.

How much did it cost per lesson and how did you find him?

It cost $30 an hour and he had been running ads in the local newspaper. Eventually he had to stop giving lessons because he was losing more money with how much he had to drive daily to give them.

I recommend you get a guitar teacher, if just for a limited amount of time. Maybe if you're lucky, you have a friend who can give you some for free or something. Several of my friends are leaps and bounds ahead of me in playing guitar, and whenever I hang out with them, I simply ask them some questions about how they do things, and I'll compare to them how I do it, and they can show me how to improve or if I'm doing things right.

When I first started bass, I could play songs after a few months, but I felt I needed to know the theory behind it (I didn't even know the names of any notes on the fretboard at this point). My teacher has taught me all that stuff and a lot of techniques that I would never have known otherwise. And as the other guy said, it's always extremely helpful to watch other musicians play.

So I would say just find anyone who is advertising. They're not exactly going to be bad, because you're guaranteed to learn new stuff anyway.

I beg to differ.

My guitar teacher was a disaster even though he had professional looking ads everywhere.

He:

-Could barely speak english
-Didn't know music theory
-Didn't know tab (he invented his own tab system, which was crazy. if he wanted me to play the 2nd fret on the A string, he'd say '52', or the 7th fret on the D string, he'd say '37')
- was an absolute perv. I was 16 at the time (female btw ) and he said so many inappropriate things. The lessons were at 4.30 on a Thursday, so I often didn't have time to change into my own clothes from my school uniform after getting home, and he'd always complain whenever I didn't change into a skirt or whatever.
- All the bastard taught me were ethnic Nicaraguan songs.
- Charged €50 an hour
- Never corrected my bad habits - of which there were a lot as I was a beginner. If it sounded good, then that was good enough for him. Nice idealistic approach, you might say, but when I was in pain from holding the guitar incorrectly or when my thumb position was restricting movement and chord changing, his laid-back style got pretty darn irritating.

So, yeah, not all teachers that advertise are decent! Best thing is to ask someone you trust and who's a decent player to recommend a teacher for you.

I honestly learned more from watching Guitar World lessons than 12 weeks of lessons with this moron.

Just buy some instructional DVDs and really feel like you need a teacher, go look for one

You find them how you find any such thing, through ads.

I got a great teacher at a small music school. $30 bucks a lesson, well worth the cost. I would suggest trying a teacher, if you can get a good one, because a lot of the time you get further if there's someone there to watch what you're doing and point out how to fix problems.

OK, he sounds shitty, but didn't you pick up any tips at all on guitar playing? Not even from your ethnic niguara songs? (or whatever it was )

Haha! Honestly dude, I don't think I learned anything from him. Maybe the constant laborious practice of switching from F to C in one of those songs he taught me helped me become more agile in switching chords, but even that is debatable!

Don't get me wrong, there are AMAZING guitar teachers out there, and most of the time I'd say that beginner lessons are necessary and a wonderful help. It's just so important to get a good teacher. A bad teacher is worse than no teacher at all.

I agree with this. I took lessons for about 4 years and the knowledge I learned extremely helped with my development. Lessons provide you with lessons that will educate you on actual music theory, which to me is a concept lost with many "guitarists". For the most part, formal guitar education will also help you advance much faster than those who are self-taught (there is always the exception of the prodigy players though). I definitely urge you to take lessons. As Misainzig put it, the help is invaluable.

I took lessons for about five years, between the ages of 10 and 15. My teached didn't teach me a heck of alot about technique, but he did teach me about theory, modes, chord progressions and improvisation. I stopped the lessons because I was more interested at the time in learning Sepultura and Testament songs (like most 15 year olds, hah), which I did on my own. Ironically, years later I've found his teachings on modes and theory to be invaluable in regards to my current musical direction. Overall, I'd say it's possible to teach yourself most aspects of playing the guitar, as long as you have the drive to do so. No one taught me the correct way to pick, or to tap, or to sweep. These are all things I learned over time, on my own.