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In case it can help you, I’ll share my experience about the lessons.
I would say when I started here as a very beginner that only knew a few of open chords, everything seemed a bit overwhelming because doing these lessons requieres a lot of personal work and effort. Self learning can be tough and I’m not really sure that everybody understands it.
First thing I did when I enrolled, was reading Syn’s tips wich helped a lot and then I started diving into the beginner’s lessons and had to stop and take my time to process that information.
In the meantime I took another approach to guitar and started taking lessons online with Dave, my teacher, and I learned a lot of songs, using them to practice technique and learn to move my hands.
What I understand now is that I need the combination of two different approaches to learn guitar:
The lessons are awesome IMO, well structured, clear, easy to understand and short enough not to be too intense. I’ve seen online lessons not half as good as these for 200$ the subscripition. The only thing is, I guess, at the beginning here I would have needed more examples of songs assocciated to each lesson to help me work on whatever that lesson is teaching and keep me motivated.
- Learn songs, play my covers and utilise them to work on theory, technique and everything else.
- Do lessons and exercises
It is now, that I would say I have a bit of a background after 2 years and a half learning, when I am really understanding the lessons and using them to make progress, because I’m getting tired of only just learning songs, playing covers…Now I really want to learn the guitar, the instrument, which I woud say is something different from playing guitar and want to know what goes on behind a song that makes it work. But at the very beginning I really needed the fun and the excitement of learning and hearing myself playing a real song and this was my impulse to keep working on guitar.
This is Syn Gates School, but no miracles are done here without a lot of consistent personal work on guitar. I’m not sure many people get it. Actually if you read Syn’s tips carefully, I would say this is crystal clear.
Another thing that I don’t think some people get is that learning guitar is a slow process, you can’t learn overnight, your hands will hurt, you will get frustrated many times along the way and you’ll have to overcome that if you want to make some progress.
You can learn ONLY if you want to learn, no excuses. I have a busy life, I’m a working mom, my son has a disability and life is complicated, A LOT,…but you know what? I do really love music and guitar and that’s my motivation. Other people here have busy and complicated lives too and they still make progress.
Also I have to say that the sense of community here has been very important for me to stick to this site and I love it when other students offer their help when I ask my questions in the forums or when I post my videos it makes me feel really good to have other fellow students watching, commenting, giving some tips… and I love watching the progress of other students too.
But, like it’s been already said, it’s a bother to have all these videos of people promoting themselves. Some days I just have a few minutes off to browse the site and what I want to see is my friends showing their progress, and those other videos make me waste my time sometimes. That really pisses me off.
Sorry for the long post. Just hope it helps
I have to say that I’ve been seeing your threads about this award and I was totally ignoring them because I had no clue what this was about, didn’t know the target is to impulse the use of the lessons. I thought it was something for advanced students.
You know at the very beginning of the school I was very active here, then I didn’t visit much for a while (life was way too busy and complicated) until I came back some months ago.
I guess you started this award while I wasn’t visiting much and that’s why I didn’t know about this. Now I’m reading this and feeling bad about ignoring it. Sorry about that. And thank you Jak for all your effort to make this happen.
I’m happy to be back too!! And ready to keep learning!!Mariler,
Yes, I did start this back in FebruaryBut it's completely okay! That's the reason why I gave another 30 days for students to try. I'm very glad you are open with me about your experience, as I read in your other comment how much you've grown!! I'm so happy that you're back, and I hope you're doing okay!
Oh man ! I never ever thought to mention it but you hit on something thats always bugged me.Hi Jak, you asked about experience in lessons, I will give my thoughts on it. I am very gratefull for this free lessons and great community, thats why its not my style to critisise about the lessons. But since you asked our opinion I will give my thoughts.
For me some things in lessons go too fast. I would like to give more examples. Like about major scale, we learn one scale, I would like to learn 3 or 4 or not just a scale on one string, but on different strings/positions. I just tried lesson 8 about chord building in major. I didnt understand some things. I saw someone in discussion thread also not getting it and someone explained it, for me its hard to just read about it, I like to see it in video.
What I do: I watch PG lessons, i miss something or dont understand and look on youtube for a video that goes more into it (like GuitarZoom), or I just give up, because I dont understand it. I also think the beginner lessons require some knowledge already.
I would prefer longer lessons (and a option to zoom in more what PG does on guitar).
But as I said, im so gratefull for all here, that I never 'complained' about it. I love the community here, it made me grow, get more self esteem on posting videos.
Hi Jak, you asked about experience in lessons, I will give my thoughts on it. I am very gratefull for this free lessons and great community, thats why its not my style to critisise about the lessons. But since you asked our opinion I will give my thoughts.
For me some things in lessons go too fast. I would like to give more examples. Like about major scale, we learn one scale, I would like to learn 3 or 4 or not just a scale on one string, but on different strings/positions. I just tried lesson 8 about chord building in major. I didnt understand some things. I saw someone in discussion thread also not getting it and someone explained it, for me its hard to just read about it, I like to see it in video.
What I do: I watch PG lessons, i miss something or dont understand and look on youtube for a video that goes more into it (like GuitarZoom), or I just give up, because I dont understand it. I also think the beginner lessons require some knowledge already.
I would prefer longer lessons (and a option to zoom in more what PG does on guitar).
But as I said, im so gratefull for all here, that I never 'complained' about it. I love the community here, it made me grow, get more self esteem on posting videos.
Another thing I would like to tell you, is that when you learn the major scale in the beginning lessons, he is trying to teach you the formula for how to BUILD a major scale. You can easily take this pattern that he teaches you and learn every single major scale there is!So you are not just learning one scale, you are learning how to build the major scale therefore learning over a dozen scales if that makes sense. When you get later on in the lessons and the more advanced classes, there are definitely more scales that you learn. But because the major scale as the foundation for how to build a scale, those other scale patterns won't make sense to you if you don't learn the major scale first and how it's built. Does that make sense?
Well....I could make a video giving my 2 cents on it. Any lesson in particular that you need further insight in?Yeah that makes senseBut what I would prefer is if PG explaines it, he explaines like 2 major scales so I can see the difference and then figure out myself the other scales. I think its difficult because I had no theory learned yet and now that im learning it, things fall into pieces.
Thanks for your kind reply to my post!I dont wanna be ungrateful, since this is the best website for me since i started playing guitar. So its nice you appreciate the feedback
A Cj 2 cents on lesson 8 then!Hi Jak, you asked about experience in lessons, I will give my thoughts on it. I am very gratefull for this free lessons and great community, thats why its not my style to critisise about the lessons. But since you asked our opinion I will give my thoughts.
For me some things in lessons go too fast. I would like to give more examples. Like about major scale, we learn one scale, I would like to learn 3 or 4 or not just a scale on one string, but on different strings/positions. I just tried lesson 8 about chord building in major. I didnt understand some things. I saw someone in discussion thread also not getting it and someone explained it, for me its hard to just read about it, I like to see it in video.
What I do: I watch PG lessons, i miss something or dont understand and look on youtube for a video that goes more into it (like GuitarZoom), or I just give up, because I dont understand it. I also think the beginner lessons require some knowledge already.
I would prefer longer lessons (and a option to zoom in more what PG does on guitar).
But as I said, im so gratefull for all here, that I never 'complained' about it. I love the community here, it made me grow, get more self esteem on posting videos.
Thats so kind that you offer to make a video, i will remember thatWell....I could make a video giving my 2 cents on it. Any lesson in particular that you need further insight in?
Well any other lesson you have issues with let me know and I will try to give my insight!Thats so kind that you offer to make a video, i will remember that! Atm I have no questions, just did lesson 8 and 9 today and I just did lesson 8 once more and it makes sense to me now
Amazing words. You really are the perfect balance between being sympathetic and being blunt. I'm working my ass off. No more excuses. Thank you for lighting a fire under my ass.Hello students!
Please don't forget about the Rockstar Student Award! For as many students as I'm seeing having issues with their growth on here or struggling to learn their favorite A7X song I'm really stunned that not more people are participating in this. As of right now, there have been the same three students neck-and-neck with winning first place. But as soon as things get going, they fall off after about a week of productivity. If I have to combine the first and second place award together and issue it evenly between even five students, I will do it. But I don't want to. (I DO know there is a certain student who is busy with a certain endeavor and I have already taken their past progress and growth into account for sure)
I'm going to be honest here. This hurts a lot. I worked really hard and had the team behind the school set this up because it was a dream of mine to give something like this back to the community. I got the fucking Black Moon guitar because of my hard work, and you all came together and supported me and cheered for me. I really, really, REALLY want another student to feel the gratification I felt when that happened. The amount of emails back and forth, tech work, hours spent negotiating, designing the flier, reaching out to Bill and Hector, and more ALL went into this. I'm sitting on a $1,000 prize and no one wants to take charge and claim it. I designed it and dreamed it, YOU GUYS got it this far. Now it just needs a few hardworking winners.
I will never forget dreaming about making this happen before I even became an admin. I waited for almost a year until I got on good terms with Syn so that I knew I could offer such an idea. Not only did he like it, he LOVED it. The light turned green on the project and I immediately went to work. And the school was ecstatic for one week then went silent.
So if you need help with guitar, you want to learn an A7X song, and you really want some mad Syn gear, here's what you do.
1. Take a few lessons on here
2. Post up what you learned/how they helped you in video/forum format
3. Cheer your other students on
4. Post progress videos from the lessons
That's it. And you'll win...
1. A $500 SGS gift card
2. A month of private lessons with Bill Hudson of Northtale, Trans Siberian Orchestra, endorsed by ESP and featured in Guitar World "Betcha Can't Play This" and was taught by Kiko Loureiro (guitar virtuoso for Megadeth and more)
3. A month of private lessons from Hector Trejo to learn any A7X song of your choice
OR
1. A $100 SGS gift card
2. ONE lesson with Hector Trejo to learn any A7X song of your choice
I really want to see consistency. A few students get on the ball and then they sort of stop. But regardless, I'm giving 30 days now. If I have to break up the award I will. But I don't want to. I'll announce the Winner(s) July 30th! Also, please don't think I'm being "harsh" or "unrealistic". The criteria to win is not difficult and we all should be doing this anyway. If you have time to respond to 20 different forums and post 5 covers a week, you have time to work on your self growth. I've extended the deadline now THREE times to allow students to keep trying. But after July 30th it's over. So I wish you all the best.
Good luck everyone!
The winners are decided over a long period of time and their overall activity/progress etc. They will be announced on August first.pardon me, but how many hours till the end? I don't want to post too late
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