Blackbird takes flight

It took me a few days, with some dedicated practice time but I've completed Blackbird. I skipped one Saturday of lessons and came back having learned the piece in its entirety. Fingerpicking conquered! Well, it's one song but I learned a lot, and not just in terms of playing guitar. I walked into my most recent in person guitar lesson, showed the teacher what I learned from a YouTube tutorial (that is, not from him). He noted the marked improvement and commented about my picking technique which was a lot of pulling on the strings so he suggested the more classical style, putting the hand in a C shape and picking in the direction of the shoulder (sort of diagonal?), pressing down lightly on the string but not scooping? I don't think he thought that I got it right but didn't offer much more in terms of how I was going to get it right except by saying it took him after his first year of playing before he got it. 

Having finished Blackbird, I was eager to move on to something else, and so I said, Landslide. He agreed that this was a good move but we sat there with minutes left in the lesson so I just started bombarding him with questions, so as not to waste the time, going back to a different song that I had wanted to perform and trying to get a grasp of all the techniques I needed to learn to come up with my own sh*t for playing songs that I like. So other than strumming and fingerpicking, is there anything else? He says no. But it is at this point where I realize several things that I did not appreciate during my lessons with this guy. One, he yawns, a lot. On my previous lesson, he was constantly yawning. He did so less this time but he was still doing it. I kinda had it with the yawning. I don't want a teacher that's constantly yawning during the lesson and when I show him material, he will look at it, give it a quick pass, often saying things like, I'm not sure what that is, or that's a technique for (name a different instrument) or that piece is more for (name a different instrument). What I would have liked is for him to give it a go, tell me how I can translate this to guitar, or show me something that I can learn. 

On the subject of materials (music), I've tried asking him if he had the tabs for certain songs. He always no. This makes me now assume that all materials should come from me. I don't know what level of perfection he expected us to get to during lessons but if I can play a song in its entirety, I would move on to something else. Although I appreciated many of his tips, I do feel like me learning anything new from him, those moments have come to a close. It is sad that I feel like I learned more from watching YouTube videos than I did from these one on one in person lessons that I've already had 5 of and spent a bit of money on. Since I already paid for another month, in order to salvage what's left, I asked to be switched to a different teacher. Maybe in three lessons, I could learn something else from someone else. In the meantime, it's back to the YouTube videos to learn Landslide. 

I am considering this Lauren Bateman one, which in theory would be just what I wanted because I had been asking for a woman teacher. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKprmyDGs7M

A quick preview tells me, I might go back to Dave Tran, whose mild manner, soothing voice and well-structured videos are just so top-notch. I am seriously considering signing up for the GuitarZero2Hero premium course. In the meantime, shall we have another look at pretty guitars? I saw this purple Luna at Guitar Center. It was a used instrument but in good condition. I played with it for a little bit too. It was under $300 so priced well. All the little details on it, the flower on the top, the moon phases on the fingerboard, it was super pretty. Was I surprised that it sold within a couple of days? Not really. I have to watch out for more of those.

Going, going... gone!

Playlist Recommendation: Fast Car, Tracy Chapman