Learn guitar online or from private teacher? Surprising answer!

You’ve made up your mind, and are ready to start learning the guitar. But where do you start?

Should you get private lessons, or learn online?

That is the question I want to discuss in this article.

You need to take a few things into consideration to make up your mind.

Costs of learning
Speed of learning
Efficiency
Private interaction
Conveniency
Social aspect

Costs of learning guitar online vs from a teacher

Let’s break down the costs of learning guitar on a yearly level.

The average rate private guitar teachers charge is around $40/hour. An hour being 50 minutes to be exact. You will need to take 2 lessons per week (1 is just not enough), which equals to $80 per week, or $320 per month, or $3,840 per year.

If you need to travel to the teacher’s place, you should factor in travel costs as well.

In contrast, the average rate of the top online guitar lesson websites as described by TheGuitarLesson.com is around $150 per year.

That’s a huge difference which few can ignore.

Speed of learning guitar online vs from a teacher

How quickly you will learn to play guitar is not as black or white as the cost aspect was.

You see, the main determinant of how quickly you’ll learn to play guitar is how much you practice.

It is best to practice every single day, and to learn new techniques all the time. If you visit a guitar teacher for 2 one hour classes per week, there is only so much info that you can obtain.

In contrast, you can choose to access online lessons every day of the week, for as long as you want. You can learn way more in a week via online lessons, than you can with a private teacher.

Efficiency of learning from a teacher vs online

Online guitar lesson websites are video based and provide supplementary tablature and jam tracks.

You can watch the videos as many times as you need to, download the tabs, and play along with the jam tracks.

In contrast, a private teacher’s lesson is not recorded, so you can’t go back and rewatch what the teacher taught you. This is a big limitation since you cannot remember everything the teacher taught you during the lesson.

1 on 1 interaction

When a guitar teacher is there with you, you have a chance to ask questions. The teacher will also correct your form, and offer advice tailored to you specifically.

Don’t forget that this only happens during the 1-hour lesson though, so it’s actually not much time.

Online lessons are different. Most of the time, you are watching a pre-recorded video and learning the material by yourself. If you have questions, you seldom have a chance to ask anybody.

This is changing though.

The best guitar lesson websites have developed a few ways to interact with students on a private level:

Jamplay, GuitarTricks, and TrueFire all have private video lessons now. You can set an appointment with a teacher of your choice, and have a 1 on 1 lesson for around $35.
Jamplay also has group live lessons, where you can enable your webcam and communicate with the teacher holding the lesson.

So as you can see, personal interaction is being added gradually to online lessons as well.

Conveniency of learning online vs with a teacher

With online lessons, you simply need to have your PC or smartphone ready, log in, and start learning at your leisure. You can do this at 3 in the morning, noon, or 8 at night after the kids are asleep.

With private teachers, setting a suitable appointment time can be a hassle in itself. You need to respect the schedule of the teacher and make time within your own schedule.

Getting to the teacher’s place of teaching is another factor you need to consider. It takes time to get there, and time to get back.

Social aspect of learning guitar

Private teachers are usually good at getting their students to mingle and get to know each other. In fact, the better private teachers will hold concerts with their students, or push them to form bands.

This is especially important for children.

With online lessons, you may have a forum to communicate with others, but that’s about it.

There are a few great ways to circumvent this limitation though:

Search meetup.com for musician meetups in your area
Visit music stores where you can mingle with like-minded musicians
Ping your circle of friends to find out whether you can be connected with musician acquaintances.

Here is an interesting infographic as well.