Book Private Guitar Lessons in San Jose

Organized Classes

The ability to play guitar is a fantastic skill to have in your back pocket. Whether you are spending the day in a park, camping with some friends, or at a party, the ability to play guitar can be used in so many different situations. If you have ever seen Stevie Ray Vaughan or Jimi Hendrix play guitar, you would see the immense skill involved in composing and producing the sounds that scream out of their guitars. These guys are among the best modern-day guitar players out there. They had years of experience under their belt by the time they gained fame for their skill, but it all resulted from diligent practice. 

At the San Jose School of Music on Lincoln Avenue, you can find world-class music teachers who are passionate about sharing their love of guitar with others. Their patience and expertise will help facilitate your journey that is learning to play guitar. They offer classes and private lessons throughout the week. When you are looking for classes in a different part of town, check out The Opus 1 Music Studio on Grant Road. Here they offer lessons in guitar, piano, vocals, and many other instruments. 

Live Shows

Garner your inspiration from seeing performers in real life. Places like the Mexican Heritage Plaza on Alum Rock Avenue or The Stage in San Jose hold regular live shows with many different genres and styles of music. Coming to watch a show can provide much-needed insight into how other people play their guitars. If you watch closely, you might be able to see how they strum or how they move their hands up and down the neck of the guitar.

If possible, you should go out and see as many concerts and live performers as possible. Each one will teach you something about the art of playing and showmanship. It is certainly magical how a couple of chords start to sound like music and with it altogether. It is not necessary to always go to a formal concert. On any given night, you can walk through downtown or another busy district of San Jose and see people playing music in the streets. 

Street Performers

Think back to when you were a kid and you saw someone playing music on a street corner. Watching the live performer from only a couple of feet away was captivating. It’s likely though that you never considered why they were doing that and for how long they had been out there. Busking is a way of life for some. For others, it is an amazing way of fitting some guitar practice into your busy schedule. Without the need to organize it, many street performers find a busy street corner and start playing. It’s been done for ages that way because it works. Playing on a street corner attracts people and garners attention. The lead guitar player for the band John Butler Trio was found busking in the Fremantle Markets of Western Australia. Finding a similar corner in the Rose Garden district of San Jose, California to play guitar would be a beautiful way to spend an afternoon.

Street performances also broaden your future audience. The wider your audience is, the more feedback you will receive. In the sense that you can look at people’s reactions to songs you are playing and gauge whether they should be kept as they are or if you should alter them in some way. Considering there is an ever-coming wave of new spectators, you will have a constantly new audience to test out new music.

Learning with Technology

The technology of modern-day really leaves a large impact on our daily lives. Various devices and apps have been developed to help people in the process of learning to play the guitar. There are devices that will listen to how you play and give you feedback as to the clarity of your strumming and your timing. There are adaptors like the EZ-Fret that can be attached to the neck of your guitar to make holding down strings less painful. It has buttons on it that will depress the strings for you thus reducing the finger pain. 

A new device that is getting backing on Idiegogo plans to make learning guitar even easier. It is called FretX and it uses a device that is attached to the neck of the guitar and gives light feedback for learning specific chords.  It also interfaces with a phone app through Bluetooth offering more information on your performance. Unfortunately, this tool is still in the development phase, but it will definitely help anyone playing guitar.

Other tools come in the form of mobile phone apps that show you chords to a specific song and listen to how you play it. Apps like Yousician offer step-by-step guides, adjusted for your level of proficiency. It provides instant feedback on your rhythm and accuracy of the chords and strings you plucked.  Another app that provides similar feedback is MyMusicTeacher. This app has over 2500 videos and exercises in a range of music genres. It uses your microphone to listen to how you are playing and will tell you if you messed up or need to work on a certain chord arrangement.

Guitar Teachers

Learning from a teacher is like a fast pass for getting better at a musical instrument. You will still have to put in all those painstaking hours of practice and endure the frustration of messing up multiple times on a new song, but the rewards are right over the hill. Look at the plateau as a challenge. This is the point where many people lose interest and stop playing altogether but once you surmount the challenge, you will see a dramatic improvement in your abilities and skills.

A private tutor will be able to watch how you play and give you direct and immediate feedback regarding your form. They will be able to tell you to change how the guitar is resting or to try strumming another way. Tricks of the trade that they learned can be passed on to you instead of you having to figure it out all over again.