Learning a musical instrument inexpensively?

[Gilberto de Piento]

I'm interested in improving on the guitar but I don't want to pay. Right now I can play easy songs using chords but I've been stuck at that level for years. I'd like to play more interesting stuff and also understand some music theory.

There are a ton of videos on YouTube but they are scattershot and seem to be mostly about getting the viewer to spend money. I want a curriculum/system to work through. Any recommendations for free/cheap resources?

I'd also like to pick up some sort of drumming (or maybe some other instrument) I can do around a campfire while others play guitar, etc. (too many guitarists). Any recommendations for an instrument or resources?

[TopHatFox]

Probably just pay for a comprehensive course you can cast on your TV while reading music theory books, then supplement with the occasional lesson or Youtube video.

[Loner]

I'd question how useful a "program" and even (much) knowledge about music theory will be if you just want to play some songs you like. I'd say the quickest and surest way to improve is just to play a lot by learning a bunch of songs, and to hack at them until you play them well. Music theory can then come in at a later stage, to help you grasp what you were doing already. If you want to compose, or play professionally, or improvise, some theoretical knowledge can come in handy, but anyways, you should first master the instrument with your hands, so that should be priority. And for that, there's only practice. So I think that for the moment, your focus should really be on learning songs, or maybe doing (among other things) scale exercices (although personally I always found that too boring).

As for Youtube, I think there's an immense amount of good ressources there. The problem is possibly even that there's too much stuff if you are just beginning. Given the amount of ressources out there, I would personally never pay for courses. If you are into rock and blues, check out Texas Blues Alley, his videos helped me a lot when I started. IIRC he was an engineer, and he presented the fretboard a system of "boxes" that was simple to understand.

Re the percussive instrument, perhaps look into the Cajon. It even doubles as a seat. Perfect for campfire duties.

[Peanut]

It isn’t clear to me from your description if you can already read music? I know there are famous guitarists who don’t but in general I’d recommend learning to do it. So if not I would work on that first. Being able to sightread and sightsing are invaluable components of musicality.

As for a program, Suzuki has been around a long time. Not a bad place to start. Most of it’s probably free or bootleg online.

To learn cheaply I’d try to find someone who’s willing to teach you for free perhaps in exchange for learning something from you?

Scales and finger strengthening exercises are not exciting but serve important purposes. The former in particular will help you sightread.

Harmonica is a great instrument for the campfire!

[Jin+Guice]

I've struggled with this for years and to a certain extent still struggle with it. The first question to ask is what do you wish that you could do that you can't do?

If you're a nerd, it can be easy to get sucked into theory because it's, well, nerdy. If that's where your interests lie, there's no harm in learning about it, but theory is always secondary to actually playing and listening.

I think the value of paying someone else to teach you how to play an instrument is in 1) having someone to sidestep you around common mistakes/ cue you into shortcuts 2) to give you honest feedback on your progress. The only online videos I use are "how-to do specific thing I really need to know how to do" (usually play a song I'm struggling with transcribing) videos.

In general I'd say the most important quality for a musician (especially a non-classical musician) is to have excellent timing. The next is to be to learn songs quickly. Related to learning songs quickly, it's very helpful to be able to pick out melodies/ harmonies completely by ear or after humming a little/ playing a few notes on guitar. It's also useful to be able to read music, though your approach to learning how to read music is somewhat defined by style, particularly for guitar.

Again though, the possibilities are basically infinite and no one can do them all, so what do you want to do that you can't?

[theanimal]

Have you looked at djembes? Those seem fun and portable.

[IlliniDave]

There are mountains of free lessons on Youtube, and yeah, scattershot, but so is playing guitar. I'd suggest at least using them until you have some specific ideas of where you want to delve deeper. Truefire has a lot of good stuff too that's fairly cheap if you hit the sales they have several times a year. And don't neglect trying to work stuff out by ear. Very valuable skill.

[white belt]

Great thread. The short answer is you absolutely can improve using free resources (youtube, books from the library, transcribing).

I'll give my 2 cents on learning guitar. Background: as a teenager I spent 2-6 hours a day practicing guitar for about 2 years, which got me to the cusp of being good enough to enroll in a jazz guitar undergraduate program (I auditioned but was not successful the first time and decided to shift my focus, although I believe I would have passed an audition a few months later). I still play occasionally and want to get back into consistent practicing this year. I plan on pursuing full time music when I end my current career in a couple years.

Like any other subject, there are Wheaten Levels of understanding with the guitar, or music in general. Advice that will be appropriate for an advanced music student will seem completely inane to a intermediate student (see here for an illustration of this). The challenge for the student is finding appropriate resources. I haven't come up with a great solution other than just expose yourself to a lot of different resources and ideas until you find what sticks. As has been discussed in other threads, there is no way to skip levels.

There are, in order of importance, 6 pillars of music development (source):

1. Experience
2. Listen
3. Interact
4. Imitate
5. Create
6. Practice

I think a common mistake among music students and teachers is to only focus on practice, without recognizing the value of the other five pillars. You are a musician at all times, even when you are not playing an instrument.

There are 2 schools of thought when it comes to learning music. The more popular school of thought is that a musician should be well rounded in that they have a grounding in music theory, sight reading, numerous songs, chords, scales, and so on. This results in splitting up your practice time between multiple subjects and grinding your way through drills, etc. I think this isn't the best advice for the amateur musician who is not trying to become a professional (professionals need to be well rounded so that they can play a wider variety of paying gigs).

Instead, I'd recommend a pragmatic approach, where you focus on a skill you want to learn and pursue that. Then as you become interested in new things, you can explore those as well. This has 2 benefits: you will more easily learn skills that matter to you, and it will keep you focused on short term targets which you can then evaluate and adapt as you see fit. Kind of like Agile project management, where you're getting continuous feedback to shape where you are going and you have the ability to make adjustments along the way.

Over time, you will develop music strengths and weaknesses. A teacher can help point out your weaknesses that you may not be able to see. He can also provide a direction to travel if you find yourself stuck at a particular level (provided they are more advanced than you). Finally, a teacher can provide you with guidance on how to pursue a particular style. However, I don't think paying for lessons regularly is necessary. I see teachers as a tool to guide you, not as someone that can necessarily fast track you to virtuosity. Like any other learning endeavor, this is a journey the individual must walk.

I'd like to give you more specific advice, but your goals to me are too vague. Do you want to be able to improvise? Do you want to be able to pick out songs by ear? Do you want to write original music? Do you want to sing while playing guitar? Do you want to learn a specific style that you can't currently play? The more specific you can make this the better. Perhaps then I can give you some more actionable advice.

In terms of percussion instruments, I second the suggestion of Cajon. They are fun to play and easy to sit on. You can probably find some DIY instructions to make your own as well.

[ertyu]

cheapest instrument of all: your voice.

[BookLoverL]

For a popular instrument like guitar, there are a huge amount of free resources online. Yes, they won't all be connected together, but if you know what skill you want to work on next, you can look specifically for videos and articles relating to this skill (and not only on YouTube - if you want to learn music theory, there are likely to be articles about that). Basically, my advice would be to get more specific with the search terms you're using.

[horsewoman]

Instead, I'd recommend a pragmatic approach, where you focus on a skill you want to learn and pursue that. Then as you become interested in new things, you can explore those as well. This has 2 benefits: you will more easily learn skills that matter to you, and it will keep you focused on short term targets which you can then evaluate and adapt as you see fit. Kind of like Agile project management, where you're getting continuous feedback to shape where you are going and you have the ability to make adjustments along the way.

This was my approach and it served me well so far. Especially if you are like me (easily bored) it gives you quick results and keeps you motivated. It took me from "never touched a harp" - "to play for money" in 1,5 years. Am I a well-rounded musician? Hell, no - but I kick ass in the area I focused on (singing and accompanying myself).

I'd recommend covering songs. And not only looking up chords online and strumming along with your usual stumming/picking patterns, but to really deconstruct the song. Why do you like it? What techniques do people use when playing this song - I often look up harpists on YouTube and watch closely what they do to make a song sound good. I look for videos where I can closely see the fingering to get new ideas.
Sometimes I try to cover a song with my harp that has been played by band - how can I approximate to the dynamic provided by a few instruments with only one? How can I change up the accompaniments to create more softness, fullness, to make it more dramatic? How can I use quietness to make what comes after more poignant? You already know the basics, so maybe turning your focus on arrangement will get you more interesting results and more fun playing?

Regarding percussion: Like @whitebelt advised, a Cajon is a great instrument. It can be played in a way that is not so obtrusive, until you get good with it - there is nothing worse than a really loud and booming rhythm that is not in time! Terrible for listeners and fellow musicians!
I recently had reason to get better with percussion myself for a project - added difficulty I had to sing and drum simultaneously. So I put up a metronome and mindlessly played along to the metronome beat on my frame drum while singing the song. I only focused on being in time, not on any fancy drumming patterns. I did this daily for 2 weeks and noticed a tremendous improvement afterwards. I'll never be a great percussionist, but for the few songs I need it I can do it without wrecking the performance. Like with strumming patterns you can learn an easy pattern for every time (3/4, 4/4, 6/8...) and practice it until it is memorized safely. Once you can do that in your sleep, more sophisticated patterns will emerge on their own. A metronome is your friend to progress as a musician!

[FrugalPatat]

Not an advice; but this is my guitar-path:

In hindsight the most important thing I did was to constantly make my own music at whatever level I was at. Even if you just know 3 chords without having a 'theoretical' clue as to their relation you can make music out of that just based on feeling. I think it's a mistake to think you first need to learn a lot of stuff before you can start making music. I did it like this for maybe 3 years. I started out just gradually learning more and more chords (and 0 scales); and I would use that to make music; I also imagined melodies in my head and then play them.

The thing that changed everything for me however was when I started playing melodies on top of backing tracks or generally just music that I liked and that I presumed was just using 1 scale. I originally started doing this just because I didn't want to be bored spending time learning scale patterns and I was afraid of being stuck in such patters (and becoming one of those people running up and down the scale). So I'd put on music I liked and tried to find melodies on top of that gradually expanding to using all of the neck and just 'hear' if it sounded right. I did this for several years and so after some time for every key I knew where all of the notes are in the major scale on the guitar neck. But more importantly my 'hearing' improved greatly and the experience of playing on top of other music had immense spill over effects on when I just played by myself.

After playing every day like this for about 10 years I decided I needed some lessons. I figured I didn't know what I was doing and with more knowledge I could be better. So in these lessons I spent a few months praticing improvising over jazz standards, learning other scales (like harmonic minor), getting used to key changes and learning basic harmony stuff etc. I quit because I saw that it would take years to really internalise where all of this was going and that I would need maybe 4 hours a day to really do it all (time which I didn't have or wanted to spend).

So I decided to limit myself to keeping thing 'simple' and try to be creative within these boundaries.


So I concur with whitebelt in that for the amateur musician it's not necessarily the best to try to do it all.

[fiby41]

How to play guitar on youtube if you want to fell great about yourself

How to play guitar by a 5 year old Chinese girl otherwise.

[steveo73]

I play guitar and I use torrents sometimes to get stuff that I use. I tend not to pay because I think that these lessons are all short cuts. I can't play by ear but I honestly think that is the best way to learn.

There is heaps of free stuff out there. I think it'd be pretty easy to reach your potential with lots of practice and never paying for anything.

If you want some form or curriculum I'd just write down a plan and start learning the songs that you like. I haven't been playing a lot but I tend to play my own stuff including soloing to backing tracks on YouTube plus learn how to play songs.

For instance I'd like to get 5 Hendrix songs down end to end. I can play The wind cries mary, Purple Haze & Hey Joe end to end including the solos. I can play these to backing tracks on YT. It takes a while to get this down for me at least. I played the backing tracks slow at the start because YT is so good you can play songs at like 75% speed or whatever.

In stating all of that if you do pay for something I think you can get really good value out of what you pay for so long as you use it.

[IlliniDave]

I can't play by ear but I honestly think that is the best way to learn.

I used to think the same thing. In part it was because as a youth when I first started getting interested in music I had two people in my inner circle who had exceptional ability to learn by ear. One was my grandfather, and the second was one of my friends. The latter probably had a bigger influence because I watched him go from never having touched a musical instrument to learning the gist of a Kansas tune on piano in about 20 minutes.

Anyway, it's something I always struggled with and something I recently decided to tackle head on. If it's something a person wants to do I would suggest getting a software program called Transcribe! The main useful feature is that it can be used to slow down audio. One can do the same with Youtube, but Transcribe can go slower with fewer artifacts. It costs about $40. There are other programs that do a better job than Youtube, for about the same price. There is also a free DAW program (Cakewalk by Bandlab) that will do it as well with a bundled plugin, but there's a lot of overhead associated with learning to operate both the DAW and the plugin.

I picked a section of an instrumental tune by Andy Timmons that was both above my skill level and faster than my hearing. I broke it down into phrases and figured it out in about a week working 30 minutes a day at 30% tempo. I've spent the last year working 20 minutes first thing each morning trying to work the section up to tempo (that's a different story, haha, but I'm working at 90% now).

Encouraged by that I applied the same approach to a set of 40 blues phrases from a book I'd bought a number of years ago. Rather than reading the transcriptions in the book I used the audio demo and slowed it down. The set of phrases was pretty well thought out in the sense they progressed in difficulty and later, more complex phrases were built off the earlier simple ones. I worked on a few each week and found that as I got into the more complex phrases it actually got a little easier because the I could recognize the backbone of the simpler phrases in them that I'd already flailed around to pick out.

A feature of Transcibe! I deliberately do not use is that if you want it will do a spectrum analysis of a window of the audio and map it to a piano keyboard, so if you get really stuck it will point you to the tones present in the audio. You'd still have to figure out what's guitar and what's other instruments though.

Not trying to present a commercial for Transcribe!, there are other ways to achieve the same thing. The point is I've found that starting with baby steps has led to improvement in my "by ear" skills in a short time. It's a bit humiliating, and time consuming, but it seems to work. For better or worse over the last few months I've gone down a rabbit trail of working on original music with my son-in-law, which has curbed my "study" time to a bare minimum, but I've got a list of items I intend to get to eventually (songs I have never tried to play) and work them out by slowing them down and slogging through by ear, even though transcriptions and video lessons might be readily available that would make for a much more efficient process. Coincidentally, one of the Hendrix tunes you list, Wind Cries Mary, is one on the list. And the Andy Timmons tune I mentioned is "Electric Gypsy", which he wrote as a tribute to Hendrix after reading a biography of the same name.

[steveo73]

@IlliniDave - thanks for that info.