YouTube, the Guitar Student, and the Importance of Music Mentorship
I’ve been a guitar teacher for more than 8 years now, and I’ve loved every second of it. I get so much joy from working with students week after week, and I feel immense pride watching them achieve their musical goals.
But there’s one website that both helps and haunts me as a guitar teacher: YouTube.
The Student Who Skipped Step One
A few years ago, a new student came to my studio for their very first lesson. After some small talk, he noticed the different guitars and gear around the room and began explaining why he never bonded with Fender-style guitars—mentioning fretboard radius, scale length, and fret wire.
I thought, Wow, this student must really know his stuff. Those are topics I usually only discuss with my nerdiest guitar friends.
When I asked him what he wanted to accomplish, he said his biggest weakness was his picking speed, and he wanted exercises to improve it. Again, impressive. Surely this guy had been playing songs, maybe jamming with friends, maybe even performing gigs.
So I asked: What songs are you working on that you can’t play fast enough yet?
His response?
“I don’t know any songs.”
What.
How does someone know all this technical jargon and think their “weakness” is picking speed—when they don’t even know a single song?
The answer: YouTube told him so.
(And if you’re one of my students reading this and worried I’m talking about you… I’m not. Believe it or not, this scenario has happened multiple times!)
YouTube: The Best and Worst Teacher
This story is an extreme case, but honestly, YouTube affects almost every lesson I teach. I often joke that 20% of my job is teaching guitar—and the other 80% is fixing the job YouTube has done.
Many students come to me after YouTube overload. They’ve learned a few songs, maybe the pentatonic scale, maybe some random bits of theory—but none of it connects. They’re left with a scattered grab bag of knowledge, poor technique, and no clear direction.
I hear the same email every week:
“I’ve been trying to learn guitar using YouTube for a while now, and I feel stuck. I’m not getting better anymore.”
The problem isn’t the teachers on YouTube—there are fantastic ones (I grew up watching Marty Schwartz, JustinGuitar, and David Taub of Next Level Guitar). The problem is the lack of curriculum.
YouTube is designed to keep you clicking, not to give you a structured path. One minute you’re watching a great lesson on the pentatonic scale, and the next you’re tempted by titles like:
“Sound like Steve Vai with this easy trick”
“Become a shred god in 3 easy steps”
“Understand everything about music in 10 minutes”
This scattered, grab bag approach to music education is akin to taking every math class you’ve every taken in your life from 1st grade to your senior year of high school and like an iPod pressing “shuffle.” Imagine barely having a grasp on addition and subtraction, then attending a lecture on the quadratic formula.
Why Mentorship Matters
That’s why music mentorship is so important.
A mentor—whether it’s a teacher, an older sibling, or a fellow musician—guides you through the confusing path of learning an instrument. They can expose you to music you wouldn’t discover on your own, hold you accountable, and help you connect the dots between scales, songs, and theory.
For most people, this means formal lessons. A good teacher creates a personalized curriculum based on your goals and interests. With this structure in place, YouTube transforms from a confusing maze into an amazing supplemental tool. Instead of drowning in random videos, you can search for lessons, licks, or performances that directly support what you’re already learning.
Throughout my own development, I learned from everywhere—books, DVDs, YouTube, classes. But none of it would have made sense without the mentors who helped me put the pieces together.
In Case You Skipped to the End (Like on YouTube)
At the end of the day, YouTube is a powerful resource. But without guidance, it can leave you frustrated, confused, and stuck. Mentorship provides the structure, clarity, and encouragement that no algorithm can.
If you’re serious about becoming the guitarist you want to be, I’d love to help you get there. Whether you’re brand new to the instrument or you’ve been grinding through YouTube lessons for years, I can give you a clear path forward, personalized exercises, and the kind of accountability that makes real progress possible.