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456 points adityaathalye | 9 comments | | HN request time: 0.594s | source | bottom
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6Az4Mj4D ◴[] No.43542309[source]
What is the best way to learn Guitar as a total noob? Can this app help
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dboreham ◴[] No.43542807[source]
YouTube.
replies(1): >>43543316 #
1. j4coh ◴[] No.43543316[source]
I’m not sure why, but so many guitarists I’ve met who learned from YouTube are bad. I’m not sure why, maybe they are replacing watching with practice? No custom feedback from real musicians who hear you play? YouTubers are motivated to overcomplicate things so you keep watching more videos? I’m not sure.

It may also be the context, I play original, improvisational music with people/in front of an audience and YouTube may be particularly bad at preparing people for this.

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2. andelink ◴[] No.43543593[source]
Is anything really, _truly_ learnable from YouTube? It's the ultimate "feel productive" placebo out there.

I'm ready to be downvoted.

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3. dragandj ◴[] No.43544265[source]
To be honest, most guitarists out there, except for the small percentage of top professional performers are bad, regardless of how they've learned.
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4. j4coh ◴[] No.43544274[source]
I agree with you and upvoted, but saying things like being ready for downvotes is the surest way to get them if only for commenting on downvotes. :)
5. j4coh ◴[] No.43544310[source]
That’s true to an extent, though I think there are good local players in most every town, but then using this definition I mean the people who learned on YouTube are exceptionally bad.
6. marliechiller ◴[] No.43544335[source]
How do you mean? How does youtubing a lecture differ from sitting in the lecture hall itself for example? I'd argue both arent great learning experiences, but lectures seem to be viable enough to make up the bulk of contact time at university
7. belter ◴[] No.43544407[source]
That is also the secret of most self-paced online platforms like Udemy, Pluralsight and many others.The metrics they don't like to share. Most users never watch videos until the end, they buy courses but never start them or complete less than 4% to 10% of the course.

You can see sometimes course authors acknowledging these metrics. Companies training departments just wash their hands and say, we have these thousands of courses made available for our employees... :-)

8. balfirevic ◴[] No.43546291[source]
> No custom feedback from real musicians who hear you play?

Of course people who learn at home on their own will, on average, be worse than people going out and playing with other musicians. That would likely be even more true if they bought a VHS tape with lessons, or book with a CD.

9. bluGill ◴[] No.43546643[source]
Yes, but it is very very hard to find the personal discipline needed to do so. If you watch mindlessly you will learn very little. If you watch, then do the exercises/practice (depending on the topic different things are needed) you can learn a lot. Almost nobody does, but youtube and classroom lectures that are known to work are very similar - the difference is classrooms have various ways to get people to do the other homework.