I played guitar and bass for a long time from trying to learn online. I learned to copy what people were doing and I learned a lot of theory, but I never really felt comfortable and confident playing. I was passable enough to play with other people, be in some bands, and play some very small shows. It was always a struggle though, and felt more like work than fun.

I got interested in keys, but never bought an instrument because guitar and bass was still hard and I didn’t want another thing to struggle with, and I eventually stopped playing anything for a couple years after my last band stopped playing together.

Fast forward, and I was offered a Rhodes piano that used to belong to my ex father in law before he passed. I got it tuned up, and started playing Twinkle Twinkle, Happy Birthday, and other easy stuff and it went ok for a few months. Same issue you brought up and that I had with guitar. I’d bounce around learning what I wanted to learn at the moment, and be able to play that specific thing, but I didn’t feel accomplished.

I went to go see a music teacher for the first time after playing for about 20 years on my own, and it was life-changing! I knew all these random facts and techniques, but now I see I basically built a house of bricks, but with no mortar to stick it all together. I could pass as a musician, but I was just cobbling bits together.

With a teacher, I now learn the things in proper order to have them make sense. I came into it already knowing A, B, E, K, S, etc, but not the stuff to tie it all together. Now I get to learn in order, and when we get to a new thing, I can feel the bits I thought I knew actually click together and I have all these epiphanies.

I’ve actually learned more in 6 months of a half hour lesson a week than I learned in over 10 years of “teaching myself” online. And, honestly, it can be the blind leading the blind when you’re trying to teach yourself something you don’t know. After all, who corrects you when you’re wrong?

There’s some moments I still get frustrated practicing something new, but my lesson gives me the bits I need to do that week’s practice, and if I still don’t get it, the teacher can focus on what exactly I’ve been but getting next lesson, I’m not in my own to try to figure out what it is.

So to anyone trying to learn music on their own, even if you’re doing ok, it may help to take lessons. Someone more experienced can spot weaknesses you can’t see or don’t know how to fix, or you can learn a new style of music, or whatever.

If you’ve stuck with learning something on your own for an extended period of time, at some point you deserve to spend time with an actual expert. At some point, you’ll get stuck at the point where you don’t know what you still need to learn otherwise, and you could be missing out on a lot.