Frequently Asked Questions

While we enthusiastically work with students of all abilities, prospective students are evaluated based on their commitment to consistent attendance and focused practice.

12 & up.

Our faculty consists of experts in classical guitar, country guitar, blues guitar, heavy metal guitar, rock guitar, fingerstyle guitar and jazz guitar. If you are a beginner, however, the genre-specialty of your instructor is far less important than their ability to effectively teach you fundamental technique.

Like any skill worth practicing, mastery of the guitar is a lifelong pursuit. That said, we realize when most people ask this question, what they really mean is, “How long before I’ll be able to play competently?” The Short Answer: 3-5 months with consistent (every day), focused practice. The Long Answer: The truth is, guitar has an extremely steep learning curve. It is definitely one of the more difficult instruments to get started on. To understand why, consider the piano. Piano is widely regarded as the most beginner-friendly instrument. That’s because it was designed to do most of the heavy lifting in terms of volume and tone production. When you press a piano key, you are actually launching a hammer inside the instrument into a corresponding string. So long as you press the right key, you will get a beautiful note. If you press the right three keys, you will get a beautiful chord. By the end of their first piano lesson, most students will be able to play seven chords and maybe even a simple song relatively well. Guitar, on the other hand, isn’t quite so easy… There’s no such “key” or “hammer” responsible for the sound of the instrument. The only mechanism we have is our hands. And when we start, that mechanism is totally untrained. This means there is a fair amount of fundamental technique that beginners must ingrain before they are able to play even simple musical ideas fluently (things like clear chords, and smooth chord changes). The good news is, all of these skills are extremely learnable in a relatively short period of time, so long as the student is motivated and their instructor is competent. Still, it’s important for beginners to realize that until they’ve mastered basic mechanics and coordination, their initial guitar lessons may more closely resemble a yoga or ballet class than what they might have imagined a music lesson to be. We believe, at its most fundamental level, learning to play an instrument is learning how to move well. Any instructor or program that doesn’t acknowledge this should be avoided by anyone serious about learning the guitar.

Beginners are expected to practice everyday for 30-45 mins. More advanced players will need to practice more than that in order to advance their skills.

No, sorry. Access to a guitar is required to ensure daily practice.

First and foremost, you want your guitar to be something you are excited to pick up. This means, above all else, purchase the guitar you are most attracted to. Resistance to practice is something all students (and even pros) deal with. So you want an instrument that beckons you. A common misconception we hear from students and parents is that it’s better (or almost, more virtuous) to learn on an acoustic guitar than an electric guitar. This is false. Whichever style the student is most excited to learn is what they should use. Other than that, stick to the big brand names and avoid used guitars unless they are from a reputable dealer.

$250-$600

Acoustic (steel string): Fender, Taylor, Yamaha, Martin, Takemine, Gibson Acoustic (nylon string): Cordoba, Yamaha Electric: Fender, Ibanez, Gibson

Absolutely not. In fact, if you are left-handed you actually have a slight advantage over right-handed beginners. Here’s why: When we first start learning guitar, both hands are totally untrained. And while it’s important to train both hands eventually, the left hand is actually the most important (and challenging) at the beginning. This means left-hand dominant people will have a slightly easier time. Another reason why we discourage “lefty” guitars is that they are very rare to see in the wild. If you’re ever in a social situation where there is a guitar floating around, 99% of the time it’s going to be a standard “righty” guitar. This means, if you only play “lefty,” it doesn’t matter how brilliant of a guitarist you are– as far as you’re concerned it might as well be a tuba. ONE EXCEPTION: If you are reading this and you are already proficient on a “lefty” guitar, we don’t recommend switching. Chances are, you are all too familiar with the above points and have made your peace with them. In that case, we wish you godspeed.

Steel String Acoustic guitars come in a variety of body sizes. It’s important to choose one that you can comfortably get your arms around. For kids who are still growing, it’s often best to purchase a ¾ sized guitar. Because of these considerations, we strongly recommend buying a guitar in-person rather than ordering online. Most guitar shops have knowledgeable sales associates who will be able to make sizing recommendations.

If you’ve spent any time on the “guitar internet” you’ve surely come across various e-courses touting something like: “A revolutionary new method, guaranteed to take you from guitar-zero to guitar-hero 10 times faster than traditional guitar lessons!” To be fair, some of these courses are pretty well structured. The problem, however, is that the subtext of nearly every one of those sales pitches is: “Great news! We’ve found a shortcut to guitar mastery and it’s actually super easy. Now just sign on the dotted line and say goodbye to boring drills (and thousands of dollars) forever!” Suffice it to say, reality never lives up to the hype, and students are nearly always disappointed with their purchase (we hear from them all the time). In a lot of ways, online guitar education has entered its “fad diet” era. These days, it would seem the actual effectiveness of a learning system is less salient to its commercial success than the “new and exciting” angle it claims. And if the current state of my Instagram feed is any indicator, that intuition seems to be working like gangbusters for countless internet entrepreneurs. (Sure, you’ve seen the ads for e-courses, but have you seen the ads for e-courses teaching you how to make your own e-course? It’s an educational goldrush, folks. And you, dear student, are the gold.) At Waldron Guitar Academy, we remain stalwartly above the fray. In an era of “fad diets” we are the ones holding our students accountable to the hard truths of nutrition and exercise. Or – in musical terms, foundational technique, mindful & consistent practice, and resilience in the face of inevitable frustration. Why? Because while learning to play guitar is fun, it’s ALSO really hard. There are no shortcuts. Mastery cannot be bought. It’s something that must be earned. The sooner we accept these truths, the sooner we can address the core issues holding you back. And – the sooner you’ll start progressing. That said, if we have any “patented system” at all, it’s this: Our faculty is made up of the most experienced guitar teachers you're likely to find outside of a university setting. In fact, more than one of our instructors also hold music professorships at prominent universities. Our lessons are followed up with detailed lesson recaps as well as a recording of the session (for our virtual students). This keeps the student on track in the practice room, and allows the teacher to progress logically from the student’s previous lesson. Our faculty talk to each other. We share notes and teaching methods. If you ask a question that is outside of your teacher’s purview, they have a colleague they can either ask or refer you to. Call us an academy, call us a teaching collective, just don’t call us a business. Yes, we make money (we are professionals, after all). But, as educators, we measure our success against how many competent guitarists we produce, not by our bottom line. And if you’d like the 30,000 foot view of what a typical guitar student's progression looks like… (*mind you classical guitarists take a different path) Beginner Stage: Open chord fluency & basic technique —> Power Chord Fluency —> Basic Barre Chord Fluency & Scale Technique Intermediate Stage: Learning The Notes —> Learning Triads & Basic Music Theory —> Solfege —> Mental Agility Between Triads —> Tiny Pentatonic Scales —> Tiny Major Scales —> CAGED (chords/pentatonic/diatonic) Advanced Stage: Daily Intensive Technique —> 7th Arpeggios —> Upper Structure Harmony —> Learning Music by Ear —> Harmonic Analysis —> Learning and Arranging Chord-Melodies

We’d understand if you took our answer with a grain of salt. Afterall, we offer remote lessons and, if you’re reading this, statistically you are most likely not local to us. Still, here are some points to consider if you are skeptical about virtual lessons… The two most impactful factors to your guitar progress will be: a) The experience level of your guitar instructor. b) Your commitment to consistent & mindful practice. These two elements are FAR more important than the medium of instruction. In fact, we submit that a master guitar instructor would be more effective over a voice-only phone call, than a less experienced instructor could ever be in-person. Now give that master instructor a strong internet connection and a high-definition webcam, and it’s not even close. Many guitar students don’t have access to WGA’s caliber of guitar instructors in their local area, so they choose to study with us virtually. Over the years, we’ve helped accelerate the musical progress of students all over the U.S. and our international reach has spanned 6 continents. Virtual lessons are as effective for complete beginners as they are for highly experienced players. Some of our most successful students (virtual or otherwise) have been remote students who, when they started with us, were total beginners. Believe it or not, Avi Khemini, a remote student of ours, still holds the all-time record for fastest beginner progress. He went from total-beginner to competent-chord-strummer in just four weeks, totally remotely. Many students who are local to us prefer to study remotely. This is for a number of reasons, not least of which is Los Angeles’ notoriously bad traffic. But we’ve even had students hyper-local to us (within 5 miles) who prefer to study virtually out of convenience. A common scenario is that a student will start with us, adamant that in-person lessons are the only way to go. Then for whatever reason– a work trip, or an illness– they will suggest doing a one-time virtual lesson. Once they experience just how seamless, convenient and effective the virtual lesson is, what may have felt like a one-time concession becomes their new preferred method of learning. If you’re still wary about virtual lessons, that may be hard to believe, but we see this sort of thing time and time again.

For the vast majority of students, their computer’s built-in webcam and microphone are sufficient. In some instances (with certain PCs, specifically) an external camera and microphone is recommended. There are high quality yet affordable options we’ll be happy to refer you to. Cell phones and tablets are also options. After your trial lesson, we’ll review the lesson footage to make sure the audio/visual is looking good. If there are any issues, we’ll discuss troubleshooting options and help you make sure everything is up and running before moving forward.

After an initial trial lesson, students purchase packages of 4 lessons at a time. When a package is purchased, the student’s account is assigned 4 lesson credits which are redeemed over the next 4 weeks. After the initial package is tapped, we’ll check in with both student and instructor to see how things are progressing. If it still seems like a good pairing, we’ll move forward with another package and the student’s account will be put on auto-renew until canceled.

So long as your lesson is canceled in accordance with our policies (24hrs notice is required and strictly enforced), then that week’s lesson will be taken off the calendar and the lesson credit will, by default, transfer to the following week. The best way to cancel your lesson is through our scheduling system, Fons.

We take student-teacher compatibility seriously and, though it’s rare, sometimes we miss the mark. As a matter of routine, we check in with both student and teacher after the initial trial lesson, and again after the initial package of lessons is finished. However, if at any point during or after this process you’d like to try a different instructor, just reach out to our main office at 323-922-4698 and we’ll set up a call to discuss.

Go to our enrollment page and fill out the form. We'll contact you within 24hrs to schedule your free consultation with a member of our admissions team. From there, we’ll learn more about your experience level and goals and determine if you would be a good candidate for our program. We look forward to hearing from you.

Learn more about what sets our instructors apart Hear from some of our virtual students