With regard to the OP, I've always opted for lessons, although that's a complicated story in some respects. I personally prefer the interaction with a teacher and most of the ones I've had have been good. I've had only a few duds, and those have been the ones wanting to maximise their income (that's another story for a different thread).
Long post....
I have been able to read music (bass and treble clef) since I was about 10/11. In later years I have had to get to grips with alto and tenor clefs as well.
As a youngster when visiting my gran, she showed me basics of playing the piano. I didn't own a piano until I was in my early forties and that's when I had a few lessons. I couldn't really afford to continue with lessons then (he was expensive) so had to park them.
In my thirties, for a complex set of reasons I won't bore you with, I started singing lessons: I had never sung after the archetypal not-being selected for the school choir at the age of 11. Sure, most people can 'sing' to some extent, but to do it properly requires some technique other than not strain the voice. Weekly lessons carried on until I moved to Shropshire just before I was 40. I resumed lessons locally last year after a 25+ year gap.
Some years later (be about 2004) I bought my bass viol. Tutors for the viol are few and far between, so I started off learning from a tutor book. To get some lessons, I started signing up to weekend courses etc. That is a VERY expensive way of learning and I could only do that once, maybe twice a year. I went to an early music summer school which included tuition, but that was also very expensive. Eventually, I did find a tutor near Chester. By then, I was also playing tenor viol. There are a lot of technical issues with playing the viol and progress is going to be slow if you don't have someone with that technical knowledge to hand.
Before I had viol lessons near Chester, I'd had lessons with one of the few music teachers I didn't like.
Some years later, I did try to learn to play the lute. I rented an instrument from a luthier and had lessons. That was a VERY expensive experience. I was aware of how to read English/French lute tablature since you encounter it when playing "lyra way" on the viol. The standard 6 course renaissance lute has the same tuning as a tenor viol in G (G C F A D G) A combination of factors, including the cost, put me off taking it further.
The biggie was my early fifties... In 2011 I bit two bullets. The first was buying a shiny alto sax. Never having played a wind instrument, I started lessons with the tech at the shop where I bought it. I immediately got on with it. Unfortunately, the shop closed after a couple of years and he moved on a bit after that to take up contracts playing on cruise ships. It took me a long time to find another teacher. I did sign-up for a set of small groups lessons with Bob at Curly, but distance made that impractical on a regular basis. I had regular local lessons, which got me to grade 6 until I moved in 2023.
Back in 2011... I bought my first cello. I had played a bit at school but had only had one year's worth of lessons with the peripatetic teacher. It took a long time to find a teacher that was both local and affordable. I had a few lessons with a teacher, who was cellist with one of the northern orchestras. He was fine, but it was an awkward drive in the evening after work and he was also expensive. There was a gap and I found another teacher through the local choir. I had lessons with them for a few years. The breakthrough was a much younger teacher who was the conductor of the local orchestra. I made a lot of progress with him. Covid messed stuff up and I obviously lost him when I moved 150 miles.
The instrument which I mostly failed to find a teacher to get on with was the electric bass guitar. That kicked off several times, each time strugglign to gain traction. The first three teachers were just weird. The first I never had a lesson with as every time he cancelled. After the third cancellation, I gave up. The second one was bizarre. He had some sort of recording studio set up and ran parallel lessons in three rooms simultaneously. That was just a joke. The third attempt was amusing. He'd taken retirement from his job and had done some training as a guitar teacher. I was a shock to him. I understood music theory much better than he did and he had the honesty to say that he didn't feel up to teaching me...
There was a gap... I then went left field and out of my comfort zone and signed up to the local "Rock Skool" set-up. The bass tutor there was young (mid-twenties) music grad. That worked. He liked having me as a pupil as he didn't get many who could already read music and a technical understanding of music. We got on very well. Unfortunately Covid blew everything up. Everything stopped for a long time. He got a full-time head of music post, got married, now has two daughters. He took on the Rock Skool franchise nearer to home and I lost him as a teacher, which was disappointing as we'd got on well.
I then moved to Cumbria.
Up here, I have struggled to find teachers that don't involve substantial 50 mile journeys. I have a sporadic singing teacher, but no cello, bass, or sax teacher.
I started organ lessons after I moved here. I found details of a teacher through the Royal College of Organists and he's only 7 miles away. That's been progressing.
Because I'm probably moderately insane, I've started to learn to play a brass instrument for the first time. I started with group lessons with a training band, but now have private lessons with brass specialist (professional orchestral trumpet player).
At the moment I sing with two choirs, I play cello in an orchestra, I conduct a brass band, I play sax or euphonium in a community group, I play euphonium in a training band. I have been asked if I will conduct a new brass ensemble being set-up locally, which will be a paid role....
Personally, I prefer to work with a teacher, but that's me.
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