You don’t need music lessons

Ever since the birth of music, it has been influencing countless young people to pick up their songwriting pens and create a generation of music. But then boring old scientists decided to implement "music theory" (which you totally don't need) and introduced professionals to educate the younger generation. However, you need to pay a high price for lessons nowadays. Seems a bit unfair, don't you think?

It's unfair because there are countless musicians who have never had a lesson in their life - and some of them are the most successful musicians in existence. Prince, Dave Grohl, Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie - all of these are self-taught musicians. "What's so bad about having a couple of lessons?", I hear you ask?

We all know that professionally taught music lessons can be unnecessarily extortionate - I remember showing interest in taking up piano lessons back in my old high school, and I was given letter that stated £100 per term. Let's just say that I didn't bother after that.

The fact is that with the current rates for music lessons, many children & young people are shut out of opportunities to fulfil their potential and talent, all because it costs them and their parents a mortgage to just learn how to play the guitar. "A bit unfair" is an understatement.

Whilst I understand that having lessons help clarify some issues you might be having playing an instrument and singing, as well as gaining some amazing advice from experienced professionals, they're really not that necessary. Musician Dave Grohl even spoke about his experience with drums lessons:

"I never took lessons to play the drums, I learned how to do it on my bed, by listening to Rush records and punk rock [...] I took one drum lesson, and [the instructor] was like, 'How do you hold your sticks?! Yeah that's not how you're supposed to hold them', and I was like, 'OK I don't have $30 an hour to sit here and re-learn everything'". (Source: Gigwise)

Think about this: Someone had to create music by themselves all those years ago in order for other generations to learn about it. The only viable reason for music lessons, in my opinion, is to make a profit and to teach people how to play like other people, with no room to explore their own style of music, and most people who take up music lessons have to put up with "predetermined curriculums that may shadow creativity & unnecessary pressure to master an instrument." (Source: Normans Musical Instruments)

At the end of the day, it's all down to choice. Whether you prefer to teach yourself guitar and become better at self-expression, or rely on an expert to get you to the level you want to be at, or a mixture of both, we all have our own ways of becoming fully fledged musicians. But ask yourself this: do you really need to spend £100 on music lessons?