Dave Wirth
One key failure that online guitar lessons have not been able to escape is that they do not seem to make most challenges beatable. What I mean is that most online guitar lessons do not take into account where the student is coming from and exactly how much to guide them along. Most of these lessons somehow skip a crucial step here and there that would greatly aid in understanding. Worse, they will put pressure on the student to get over it, buckle down, struggle, and learn guitar. This is analagous to being given a 500 page book on anatomy and being told, "You have a test in three days on this. Fail, and you will be thrown off a cliff. Pass, and we give you a different book. It might be Quantum Physics, too. Good luck."
The trick to learning anything is making sure that the information presented to us, as students (and I am absolutely a student as well), is thoughtfully selected and tested in real-time. I am wary of any teacher who tells me to memorize things; If it's not useful then it's a waste of my time and energy! Selectivity is everything. Furthermore, memorizing things makes it hard for each challenge must be commiserate with my ability. I only have so much brain power. In conclusion, the entire set up of the lesson, the presentation of the material, everything, must ultimately help the student learn what it is they need to learn, and no more. Anything more is like cotton candy; Lots of sugar and little substance.
