I don't normally have a lot of respect (as I've been saying in others thereads recently) for anonymous posters - but I will go along with this statement wholeheartedly...

"beware of teachers. They have a self-serving agenda in wanting you to take lessons from them (that is, to put money in their pocket), and... if they don't know what you want to learn, they will try to convince you that what you want to know isn't worth the effort and you should be learning what they know (unless you want to play classical or jazz, then teachers of are some utility, because most of them cut from the same pattern)."

There are a FEW teachers who are not of this type - but you don't know they whether they are as GUEST says until it is too late - you have paid money to be steered in a direction which you didn't know you didn't want to go until you didnt get to where you should have gone... :-)

I upset my first music piano and singing teacher by getting second prize in a eisteddford - she had said that I was one of her "worst students" - may father had said that I was a "natural", and he was right - but not in front of small audiences - the bigger the crowd the less nervous and more confident I am...

While the "self taught" path may produce interesting results - it can also produce disasterous results. I know of a violin player who had saved his money all year to travel to Brisbane (the "big smoke") from a country town with no violin teacher (or one considered good enough!) for his 2 weeks vacation every year. Here he went to the Conservatorium Of Music and studied hard - then went back home and diligently practiced bad technical habits all year.

He could not bow a piece consistently - there are good reasons for consistent bowing - legato phrasing and so on - and could NEVER go cleanly from note to note - my father joking said that he was the only player he had ever known who could slide an open string!

Now this guy thought he had been trained as a "Classical Musician" and loved "Classical Music" but he had a technique that would not have been out of place in "Folk Music"... but since he could rarely go from note to note cleanly, there was always something "odd" - it was not unlike those deadly "School Bands" which always sound "out of tune and time".

He had several very expensive instruments - but seemed a shame - because he always felt that the problem with his playing was that the instruments were not good enough - thus he bought better and better instruments - but like Sidam (Midas in reverse!) musically, everything turned to shit in his hands!

Robin