I don’t know, I can’t relate. I have couple of favourite drinks and drink them whole life. Many drinks came and gone I didn’t give a damn. Why would you bother with trying every beer? Sounds like you do not have favourites.
We live in world where majority of people never have enough and I think it’s pity as it prevents us to be truly happy. If you like 1 salad dressing and that’s only one available, and ofc many other people take same dressing liking it more or less, why the heck would you need hundreds or thousands more?
I remember in my childhood we had three soap brands: Palmolive, Nivea and Dove. No one complained about limited choice and everyone was happy. I might be in minority nowadays but I firmly believe more choice is not always good.
It can be good and bad imo. Good in that you can always find an answer or lesson for a particular song or technique that you want to, but that’s only good if you’re following a structured learning course (like Justin of course ) and exploring further.
It might be a challenge if someone’s just starting out and doesn’t know where to go for that structure in the first place in which case confusion will quickly and easily set in and that prospective student would give up
I’ve encountered this in many other areas. The problem isn’t that there are so many teachers. The problem is that it can be hard to distinguish the good from the bad on a platform like youtube that just crams it all together.
Generally speaking, I think it’s a good thing that demand for something is high enough that it encourages people to pursue a living teaching it. The problem comes when people who are bad at teaching something get equal or greater exposure than the people who are truly good at it.
When it comes to guitar specifically, I’ve had a couple of teachers (in-person instruction) who had no presence on youtube who weren’t good enough to help me with my challenges. I was too much of a beginner to really be able to distinguish or really even identify what exactly it was that I needed. That’s the sort of thing I’m paying an instructor for, right? So this problem isn’t exclusive to youtube or the internet, either.
It is good to have lots of options but I think that the difficulty as a complete beginner is knowing which of those guitar teachers or courses is the right one for you. I think anyone in time will be able to play/copy a simple song from a good song lesson but without following a well structured course, it won’t help you to be a good player and develop. I think Justin’s course is very well structured and that’s one of the strengths.
I don’t think that there are really so many fully/well structured courses out there.
I searched and found Justin very quickly and it’s the right one for me. I also looked at Paul Davids but his explanations seemed much more complicated. I like the way Justin teaches and there’s no claims from him that it’s going to be easy. Justin is very upfront about the fact that it takes lots of practice and isn’t easy but focusses on that journey being a lot of fun. He is an excellent teacher.
Last year, I was looking for a beginner guitar online looking at you tube reviews and was constantly getting ads on you tube for « guitar tricks.com » Their ads were really enough to put me off trying the guitar at all. …. And yes, I think we can all forget the ones that claim some magic formula to let you learn guitar in 5 seconds.
Vast majority of ppl does. I think you shouldn’t worry, more and more world needs more every day. Never enough, as I said. Have even seen ppl claiming there is never enough VST plugins… I won’t comment on that. I’m grateful to God I wasn’t raised in “americanized” society and although my country is now following america, I do remember how good it can be without all those choices. Wouldn’t live in america if someone’s paying me.
@Notter Exactly! As you said, I almost gave up when I started my journey. Thousands of opinions, thousands of methods… Justin was God sent! It’s funny though many “teachers” and sites give you opinion on which guitar to start with, which are best for beginners, best methods to start with, lesson plans yada yada yada, but they always conclude: “In the end it’s up to you”. So I ended reading sheets and sheets of text TRYING to get advice, just to be cold showered with: “In the end you decide!” The whole point of seeking advice is gone. Perhaps that’s why I love Justins method so well. In the first few grades he gave EXPLICIT instructions to follow and I love to have organized, structured and planned path in front of me (however unmusical it seems). In fact, I got so addicted that I have hard time doing what Justin suggests in intermediate grades and that is to make your own learning path. Certainly progress bars on modules in percentage and putting checkmarks on completed lessons helped with my addiction
I actually found the original post one of the most interesting topics of late. I am American, but I do think there is some truth in what the OP was trying to express. He/she clearly has problems with anxiety due to too many choices and associates this huge number of choices with American culture somehow (they are not entirely wrong). They expressed a personal opinion about America, which is clearly specific to their own situation. I didn’t personally take any offense (though, I suspected some would).
Clearly, their comments about disliking the US were not in the spirit of the community and certainly lacked finesse, but given English is a second language, perhaps we could cut them some slack.
Yes, I did mean it and I do not see why it’s taken so offensively? I am quite sure you wouldn’t like to live in China/Russia, Arab countries yet many live and whilst some don’t like it, many do. I do not live in paradise, I live in Croatia, formerly Yugoslavia. Actually it wasn’t so bad country as it’s portrayed in USA. For me more problematic is worldview you exhibit that ANYTHING BUT U.S.A. or in best case West Europe is dreadful place to live. I do not deny that it’s highly developed country, certainly more than Croatia, but that is not only benchmark of good life. I earn more, hence I am happier. Here income isn’t high, true, but life is slower, people are contented with less and although nowadays that is changing it’s still nice place to be. I do not know whose fault it is, but not every country needs/likes/wants USA way of life or culture. I have feeling, and many indeed do feel, that USA is some kind of Garden of Eden and God forbid any other system. Yes, there are many opportunities in USA, “american dream”, but that dream is not shared by everyone. I think there is nothing harmful in it nor wrong. Would I be angry or get insulted if you say you’d never move here and live? Nope. It’s just plain wrong to assume USA is only way to live. Doesn’t help that mentioned country made a mess around world for centuries, so it’s not nice reputation it has.
We digressed a lot from topic, doesn’t matter. No problem in you blocking me at all. Not everyone likes USA, not everyone likes Croatia. Not everyone likes many choices, nor less choice. Problem begins when one option is forced on others.
I taste a small hint of politics flavored with a hint of irritation, which can quickly be shaken into a difficult cocktail until things start to be said that are not entirely desired, stay sweet.
Greetings
I just meant that perhaps they might have been slightly more diplomatic with a better command of the language. (But reading the subsequent post, maybe not
This topic is now getting very political and therefore I will ask @Richard_close2u to either shut it down or educate folks breaching Community Etiquette.
) and exploring further.
