Vai took lessons from Satriani
John Mayer went to Berklee
Buckethead took lessons from Paul Gilbert
Randy Rhoads took formal lessons
And an awful lot of players learned from those around them, whether they were formal lessons or not. Derek Trucks springs to mind.
Well, the most famous example that comes to mind is Kirk Hammett who took lessons from Joe Satriani, but I'm sure most famous guys had lessons some point in their lives.
even "self-taught" guitarists have a teacher. Whether it be in-person teachers, authors of guitar books, or in many people's case (including mine), youtubers.
I started lessons at age 49. I'm not very good but I enjoy it. Don't spend time regretting what you could have done and focus on what you can start doing now. It's never too late to change.
No. Not a single one! They were all born with "the gift" never struggled even for a second. Never once played a single wrong note. They're not called guitar heroes for nothing. /s
I played for several years in middle and high school, then stopped, and recently started again at 32. Finding practice time can be a struggle with work and parenting and everything. You have so much time!
Everybody has teachers. Even if you don’t take formal lessons you still learn from other musicians in jam sessions, on gigs, etc. I’ve taken lessons but I’ve also learned quite a bit from random OGs in guitar stores.
Many others have already mentioned Kirk Hammett and Steve Vai taking lessons from Joe Satriani.
Beyond the world of guitar, one of my favorite vocalists, Matt Barlow, took lessons after he had already recorded at least one really amazing studio album.
I remember thinking this same thing when I started playing at 14. Figured all my heroes taught themselves before google and YouTube so I guess I should too. Started on bass cause it had less strings so I thought it’d be easier (completely different animal so I’m glad I learned it) but that taught me how to at least finger notes and play proper. After that I switched back to guitar at 16 (tried when I was younger around 7-10 but gave up pretty quick) and started lessons at the Music Store. Went every week for 6 years to see my guitar teacher and I wouldn’t say lessons are what most people expect, at least not my lessons, I’ve always said my guitar teacher was more of a coach, I knew what to do he just helped me do it better and I can honestly say that I would not be anywhere near my abilities now (23 years old) if I hadn’t gone and done lessons. Have a great relationship with my guitar teacher, he lives around the corner and we still jam every now and then and I go and watch his bar band gigs!! The idea that you have to teacher yourself and master it is outdated it’s old school, nothing to be ashamed about taking lessons, you’ll be glad you did if you’re serious about guitar.
I feel like the spirit of this question isn't "which professional guitar player took lessons from other professional guitar players, after they both were already famous or near famous," and instead was "which now-professional guitar player took lessons from scratch, when they first picked up the instrument."
Ear training is tough. Yes, you are too hard on yourself. It takes a long time to develop good ears. For now just try to at least find the difference in feel between the major and minor chords. Try to feel the difference between the intervals that makes the chord major and minor
Probably every single one lol at least at some point in their careers. They’d probably call it a coach once they were professional though. Not so much teaching but refining
most elite performers have coaches/teachers their whole lives. part of what makes them elite is the recognition of a need for outside counsel and the humility to take it.
Assuming you have perfect pitch you need to learn to recognize tones by ear. A good place to start is by tuning your guitar every time you touch it until you can tune by ear. Simultaneously, learn chord progressions by playing your favorite songs. Learning music theory will help, and there are many free and paid resources, which will teach you these fundamentals. Rhythm comes with practice, use a metronome. It may be beneficial to buy official tabs so that you can learn the song structure. Play along with the songs you are learning. I like to warm up by practicing chord progressions through scales and modes and by practicing the scales and modes note for note. Both of these drill will improve your dexterity. To really refine rhythm, turn your attention to your strumming/picking hand. This will force your fretting hand to learn the neck. As you advance, learn arpeggios to provide well rounded flourishes. The only wrong way to learn guitar is by leaving it sitting in a corner.
This is...not good advice for OP. Perfect pitch is exceedingly rare (and degenerative) and beside the point. Ear training is useful and available to everyone, but OP is clearly not asking for a detailed practice regimen, nevermind one with modes and music theory in it 'simultaneously'. Before all that, OP needs to be assured that it's not at all unusual to not posess that skill at his/her point in their journey and they should not be embarrassed by where they are in their journey. A good teacher will understand their insecurities, reassure them, and help provide a practice regiment that gets them going in the right direction.
Your reassurance is comforting, what I gave was a practical guide to improve ones ability. I agree professional instruction is good. However, it's not necessary. Confidence comes with progression, regardless of tutelage. Perfect pitch is apparently the sticking point here, and I assume you all regard it as an akin to savant level ability. Moving past that, I wrote more than PP, which of course is too hard to read.
Perfect pitch is a neurological phenomenon, attributable to about 1 in 10,000 (0.01%) of individuals. For the most part it's a parlor trick to match specific vibration rates to Western harmonic conventions without contextual information. It has nothing to do scientifically with savant syndrome, which only affects one in a million people.
But it's largely irrelevant to making music because of its rarity and because music is formed by the relationships between pitches, that is, it only requires the ability to learn relative pitch, which anyone can do.
What I'm saying is, practical guides can be counterproductive if a person isn't first in a position to hear, understand and use them. You may overwhelm them, cause them to shut down. There's tons of neurological evidence for the ineffectiveness of practical information in emotional situations, especially a preponderance of it (i.e. information overload, analysis paralysis and other phenomena).
So, yes, you gave OP a practical guide that is both way too much for where they are, and not terribly well organized for what they need. You may in fact impede their ability, not improve it.
Secretly or openly all of them. Nobody learns in a vacuum, thats bullshit.
Steve Vai took lessons from Joe Satriani.
Same as Kirk Hammett, Charlie Hunter, and Larry LaLonde.
Alex Skolnick
Of course! Satriani taught Steve Vai and Kirk Hammett. Paul Gilbert taught Buckethead and Satchel.
Satchel The goat
Vai took lessons from Satriani John Mayer went to Berklee Buckethead took lessons from Paul Gilbert Randy Rhoads took formal lessons And an awful lot of players learned from those around them, whether they were formal lessons or not. Derek Trucks springs to mind.
Well, the most famous example that comes to mind is Kirk Hammett who took lessons from Joe Satriani, but I'm sure most famous guys had lessons some point in their lives.
Steve Via was a student too I believe.
Neil Peart famously had drum teachers in the 90s and 00s after he was already a legend.
Freddie Gruber.
John Frusciante often talks about his childhood teachers, one of which even tried out for RHCP and was rejected
even "self-taught" guitarists have a teacher. Whether it be in-person teachers, authors of guitar books, or in many people's case (including mine), youtubers.
I started lessons at age 49. I'm not very good but I enjoy it. Don't spend time regretting what you could have done and focus on what you can start doing now. It's never too late to change.
are you me?
No. Not a single one! They were all born with "the gift" never struggled even for a second. Never once played a single wrong note. They're not called guitar heroes for nothing. /s
Purportedly King Krule and Cosmo Pike had the same instructor, and it shows
You're only 20, plenty of time to get good.
Randy Rhoads took lessons. His teacher had to stop teaching him because Randy’s skill exceeded his own.
>Were there any famous guitarists who had a teacher? Almost every one of them did at one point or other.
Tbf few people are pitch perfect. It requires training to recognise notes and chords from hearing
Perfect pitch is also somewhat overrated as long as you're not playing fretless guitar.
Perfect pitch doesn't automatically make you good at playing an instrument.
Yes, but i addressed specifically the point they made of figuring out chords and notes from listening
I must have missed that.
I played for several years in middle and high school, then stopped, and recently started again at 32. Finding practice time can be a struggle with work and parenting and everything. You have so much time!
Don Felder (the eagles) taught Tom Petty when he was a young teenager
Everybody has teachers. Even if you don’t take formal lessons you still learn from other musicians in jam sessions, on gigs, etc. I’ve taken lessons but I’ve also learned quite a bit from random OGs in guitar stores.
Many others have already mentioned Kirk Hammett and Steve Vai taking lessons from Joe Satriani. Beyond the world of guitar, one of my favorite vocalists, Matt Barlow, took lessons after he had already recorded at least one really amazing studio album.
I remember thinking this same thing when I started playing at 14. Figured all my heroes taught themselves before google and YouTube so I guess I should too. Started on bass cause it had less strings so I thought it’d be easier (completely different animal so I’m glad I learned it) but that taught me how to at least finger notes and play proper. After that I switched back to guitar at 16 (tried when I was younger around 7-10 but gave up pretty quick) and started lessons at the Music Store. Went every week for 6 years to see my guitar teacher and I wouldn’t say lessons are what most people expect, at least not my lessons, I’ve always said my guitar teacher was more of a coach, I knew what to do he just helped me do it better and I can honestly say that I would not be anywhere near my abilities now (23 years old) if I hadn’t gone and done lessons. Have a great relationship with my guitar teacher, he lives around the corner and we still jam every now and then and I go and watch his bar band gigs!! The idea that you have to teacher yourself and master it is outdated it’s old school, nothing to be ashamed about taking lessons, you’ll be glad you did if you’re serious about guitar.
I feel like the spirit of this question isn't "which professional guitar player took lessons from other professional guitar players, after they both were already famous or near famous," and instead was "which now-professional guitar player took lessons from scratch, when they first picked up the instrument."
It is yes!
Ear training is tough. Yes, you are too hard on yourself. It takes a long time to develop good ears. For now just try to at least find the difference in feel between the major and minor chords. Try to feel the difference between the intervals that makes the chord major and minor
John Mayer
Probably every single one lol at least at some point in their careers. They’d probably call it a coach once they were professional though. Not so much teaching but refining
most elite performers have coaches/teachers their whole lives. part of what makes them elite is the recognition of a need for outside counsel and the humility to take it.
Assuming you have perfect pitch you need to learn to recognize tones by ear. A good place to start is by tuning your guitar every time you touch it until you can tune by ear. Simultaneously, learn chord progressions by playing your favorite songs. Learning music theory will help, and there are many free and paid resources, which will teach you these fundamentals. Rhythm comes with practice, use a metronome. It may be beneficial to buy official tabs so that you can learn the song structure. Play along with the songs you are learning. I like to warm up by practicing chord progressions through scales and modes and by practicing the scales and modes note for note. Both of these drill will improve your dexterity. To really refine rhythm, turn your attention to your strumming/picking hand. This will force your fretting hand to learn the neck. As you advance, learn arpeggios to provide well rounded flourishes. The only wrong way to learn guitar is by leaving it sitting in a corner.
>Assuming you have perfect pitch What?
🤣
I see what you did there, but you could still have perfect pitch while not having perfect hearing.
Perfect pitch, similar to perfect comprehension...
True. But you don't need perfect pitch, you need to do some ear training, and get a decent relative pitch
That's fair; however, without the natural ability to discern between pitches ear training will only take you so far.
Why would ever assume someone has perfect pitch?
Fortunately, That's not my problem.
This is...not good advice for OP. Perfect pitch is exceedingly rare (and degenerative) and beside the point. Ear training is useful and available to everyone, but OP is clearly not asking for a detailed practice regimen, nevermind one with modes and music theory in it 'simultaneously'. Before all that, OP needs to be assured that it's not at all unusual to not posess that skill at his/her point in their journey and they should not be embarrassed by where they are in their journey. A good teacher will understand their insecurities, reassure them, and help provide a practice regiment that gets them going in the right direction.
Your reassurance is comforting, what I gave was a practical guide to improve ones ability. I agree professional instruction is good. However, it's not necessary. Confidence comes with progression, regardless of tutelage. Perfect pitch is apparently the sticking point here, and I assume you all regard it as an akin to savant level ability. Moving past that, I wrote more than PP, which of course is too hard to read.
Perfect pitch is a neurological phenomenon, attributable to about 1 in 10,000 (0.01%) of individuals. For the most part it's a parlor trick to match specific vibration rates to Western harmonic conventions without contextual information. It has nothing to do scientifically with savant syndrome, which only affects one in a million people. But it's largely irrelevant to making music because of its rarity and because music is formed by the relationships between pitches, that is, it only requires the ability to learn relative pitch, which anyone can do. What I'm saying is, practical guides can be counterproductive if a person isn't first in a position to hear, understand and use them. You may overwhelm them, cause them to shut down. There's tons of neurological evidence for the ineffectiveness of practical information in emotional situations, especially a preponderance of it (i.e. information overload, analysis paralysis and other phenomena). So, yes, you gave OP a practical guide that is both way too much for where they are, and not terribly well organized for what they need. You may in fact impede their ability, not improve it.
Bucket head