Guitar Lessons Toronto

While Merriam School of Music has been exclusively operating from two campuses in Oakville and Vaughan for many years, the school has just recently expanded with a third campus located in Toronto. Merriam Music’s Toronto campus is located in the same building as the legendary Robert Lowrey Piano Showroom. The school offers guitar, piano, and voice lessons.

The benefits that come along with taking guitar lessons are countless. Playing guitar is a lot of fun and serves as an excellent stress reliever. Furthermore, the simultaneous coordination of your brain, body, and senses leads to the development of many beneficial attributes, including increased cognition, creativity, and confidence. Playing in an ensemble and band settings can also help establish stronger communication and teamwork skills.

While there is no set-in-stone timeline for a beginning guitarist to become proficient at the instrument, most people that have learned multiple instruments find the guitar to be one of the most accessible instruments to learn.

Although it can take many months or even years to get to a point at which you’re able to learn and play your favourite songs and pieces on other musical instruments, many students will be strumming the chords to their favourite songs in just a few short weeks of lessons with proper instruction and sufficient practice.

Becoming proficient at the guitar is a marathon more than it is a sprint. Because of the fact that muscle memory is established through consistency and repetition, it is usually better to practice a little bit every day than only once a week for a long, extended duration. Seeing material and being reminded of technical details each and every day keeps things fresh in your brain, which leads to more consistent progress and avoidance of backtracking.

Every teacher and music academy may have a different approach to how guitar lessons are structured. However, generally speaking, there are a few key elements that nearly all guitar instructors will cover in lessons.

Learning to read and play from notation, chord charts, and TAB is a critical skill for any guitarist regardless of which style or genre they wish to specialize in. Developing good fretting hand technique and strumming, picking, and fingerpicking techniques with the alternate hand are also crucial. Most guitar teachers will also incorporate some type of repertoire assignment each lesson. Working through an actual song gives the student a chance to workshop their reading abilities and technique in a fun and engaging way.

Lessons durations are usually in 30 minutes or 60-minute durations. However, some teachers and schools may offer 15-minute or 45-minute sessions. With that said, it is recommended for most younger students to limit their lesson duration to 30 minutes. This is to ensure that young students do not get restless or bored and maintain a favourable sentiment towards weekly lessons.

On the other hand, teenage and adult students may prefer to take 60-minute lessons in order to cover more material or cover material in greater depth. The only thing to remember is that, the longer the lessons are, the more practice time will be required to review lesson material and homework each week.

There is no definitive “best” guitar brand, but there are certainly a number of guitar manufacturers that have established a great reputation for very good reasons. Companies like Yamaha, Fender, and Gibson have been manufacturing guitars for a very long time and have a proven track record of high-quality, good value, and consistent manufacturing standards. Most of these companies offer entry-level lines that make their products accessible to even beginners on more limited budgets.

One thing to be wary of when it comes to lesser or unknown brands is the quality of their finishing. The factory setups of some cheaper acoustic and electric guitars make them either very uncomfortable to play or even completely unplayable without significant adjustment and set up from a guitar technician. Keep in mind that any work from a technician costs money. So, from that perspective, it may be wise to spend a bit more money upfront to get an instrument that is ready to be played right off the shelf.