When is “free” too expensive?
I’m thinking about free music lessons. For some reason this has been a hot topic this week among colleagues, friends, students, and folks I meet. There are so many free lessons on theory, guitar, improvising, you name it - why would anyone ever want to actually pay for a lesson?
Let me tell you up front that I would not waste my time with most of the free “lessons” that are available online. If I’m going to work on material in my practice time, I want it to improve an aspect of my playing that needs it, and I want it to be effective and efficient. I also look for the best teachers I can find for the subject matter. So here’s what I have against most free lessons:
1) You usually get what you pay for. While there are some good free tips around, these are a slim minority of what are presented for free. Most of these seem to be posted at random, with none of the planning or focus of serious learning tools. And yes, I do give free tips on this blog occasionally, but these are meant to augment what you are (hopefully) learning elsewhere, not as a complete course in anything. (I do teach privately, and will have a complete theory course coming out later this spring, but they cost money. It’s a job I love, but it also pays the bills.)
2) There IS harm in trying some of it. I used to think that almost anything was worth a try, but as I’ve gotten older I have seen a lot of stuff that is not just wrong, but is grossly misleading. Over the last month alone, I’ve been sent parts of courses for comment that are so off-base that a student would have to spend month unlearning the biggest mistakes before actually learning a better way of doing things. Yes, there are many roads to “the truth” but not every road leads there, not even most of them. It’s like getting bad directions when driving: you waste time, get lost, and often have to re-trace your whole route just to get back to where you started.
3) You waste your valuable time. The majority of players that I know have day jobs, and so have a limited time to both play and practise. We all progress by working on our weaknesses, and we progress quickest when we have the best learning materials. My experience as a student, teacher, researcher, and reviewer has shown me that the best materials cost money. Still, there are real bargains that make some of these inexpensive, mostly through economies of scale, where the author sells enough to be able to keep the price low while still earning a living. When you are thinking of the cost of a DVD or book, factor in the cost of your own limited time and the investment that you will be making in learning the material. What will you have accomplished when you finish the material? Is it closer to where you want to be?
4) The best teachers can become discouraged. This may be the most insidious problem of supposedly free lessons. For anyone wanting to learn to play guitar we are living in a Golden Age. Some of the very best players of all time are willing to teach! Want to learn fingerstyle guitar? Tommy Emmanuel will be happy to show you how. Or Laurence Juber. Take your pick from all sorts of great players. Want to learn fingerstyle jazz? Martin Taylor will teach you. Jazz improvisation? Robert Conti has all sorts of courses from your very first solo to pro-level choruses. Rock more your style? Alex Lifeson will teach you classic Rush songs. BUT what all of these greats have in common is great demands on their time, so if the time they spend creating these materials doesn’t seem worthwhile - if they don’t sell - then that time will be directed elsewhere, and we all lose out. Besides, maybe the best in the field actually do have something to teach you.
Some Real-World Examples
Let me wind up with some actual examples from the past few weeks. My attention was directed to a web site full of free lessons consisting of dozens of arcane “modes” that were nothing more than arpeggios of altered dominant 7 chords. You could spend months learned these “modes” and yet still be completely mystified when it came to using them in a solo over a real tune. Knowing the basis of chord construction makes the entire “course” obsolete and needlessly confusing.
Parts of another course, this one actually somewhat expensive, was sent to me by a disgruntled purchaser who had read a positive review of it in a magazine for which I sometimes write. The pages he sent were again not just confusing but confused as well, this time mixing up the names of modes with the functions of chords on scale degrees. A good understanding of what a key is, and how to form its chords, would not only make this whole topic redundant, but would also show it as the “baffle-gab” it is: the use of impressive-sounding terminology to hide the actual lack of content.
On the positive side I’ll mention Robert Conti’s Ticket To Improv Volume Four, which I gave a rave review (see my last post). For $25, less than what I would charge for a 30-minute lesson, you get months of instruction focussed on learning jazz improvisation, plus a whole range of tips from creating your own style to speeding up your picking. No it’s not free, but depending on your level and free time to practise it can end up costing between $1-2 per “lesson” and you end up with four great solos to play. PLUS every one sold is one more reason for Mr. Conti to continue to spend his time creating DVD courses, time which could be spent gigging or recording or just relaxing.
So remember: Caveat Emptor - let the buyer beware of “free” lessons. They may be more costly than you think.
And let’s keep the good teachers in business.