Playing guitar is a lifelong endeavor. So don’t plan on learning everything anytime soon. Here’s a few essential tips it took me twenty years and half a head of hair to figure out.
First, there is no substitute for passion. Simply put, learning, and more succinctly, practicing, is a task made much more tolerable if you have the desire. Ask yourself why you chose the guitar (or insert random instrument here). Is it because you saw how cool the lead guitarist of band X looked with his Les Paul slung low and the throngs of hotties watching with adoration and lust in their eyes? Or maybe you heard a blistering track on the radio and longed to be able to play like the unknown rocker? Perhaps you went to a concert and envied the performers on stage, commenting to yourself, ‘if those idiots can do it…’. Maybe some oracle issued a prophecy to you that declared ‘if you play it they will come.’
Actually, it doesn’t much matter why you started to play, it only matters that you did. There is no right reason to start playing the guitar, and in kind, there is no wrong reason. Whether forced to start lessons by a ruthless dictator of a father (why are you looking at me?), or the result of a lifetime love affair with the guitar and everything that it represents, you are in the same proverbial boat. The difference between the hack guitarist and the one who ends up composing riffs and solos that can both raise the dead and summon the angels is, as I referred to above, passion.
When I began playing the guitar, it was, in a sense too late. I was sixteen and clueless. I had worshipped from afar for years, jealous of anyone who could be seen even carrying a guitar. But I, of course do not blame myself, since I had no exposure to music, save for a year’s drum lessons spent whacking away on a wooden block with a thin slab of latex glued on top. It helps to have some personal influence, but if you are a first generation rocker, fear not, for you too can achieve ultimate guitar immortality. At least you should be able to impress your friends and family. So while starting young is preferable and a nice head start, don’t fret (ha ha) if you get a late beginning.
So let’s assume that you have the passion, then what’s next? Do you need someone to show you how to play the first three chords of ‘Smoke on the Water’, or maybe you figured that out by yourself. If you want to play the guitar and enjoy yourself, and in turn, be one of about a billion people, then learn a few chords, maybe a song or two and then park your Yahama acoustic in your living room. Congratulations, you are a person who can now claim, ‘I play guitar.’
When I came to Boston in 1985, I learned something that both frightened and motivated me. Everyone, and let me repeat myself for those of you in the back row, EVERYONE can play the guitar. That is to say in a city like Boston, replete with artists, musicians, and a student or two, you will be hard pressed to find too many people who do not lay claim to at least a partial knowledge of the fair damsel, a Guitarra. So if you picked the guitar in an effort to stand out from the crowd, then forget it. For those not content to be one of the many, use your passion to your advantage.
I was so stupidly single minded when first attempting to play the guitar, that if there was a music video on television which showed a guitarists’ fingers as he worked the fretboard, I stared like a twelve year old looking at his father’s Playboy. I couldn’t get enough. I was addicted to the guitar. Unfortunately, I had no teacher or mentor to correct the countless mistakes I made as I attempted to self teach, an awakening that leads me to my second and equally as vital point, don’t do that! No matter how gifted you think you are or how stubborn, do not simply buy a book by Mel Bay and try to teach yourself. The pointers and insight to be learned from those of us lucky enough to have been playing the guitar for half of our lives is a source that you must tap.
So to sum up:
Passion – have it
Teacher – get one (at least)
If you have these two ingredients, then you are on your way. It is important to find the right teacher, however, and not some bored stiff, so set in his musical ways, that he fails to address the reason you are there. When you sit down with your teacher, tell him why you sought him out. ‘I want to learn to play Stairway to Heaven’, ‘I want to learn to strum some chords as I sing ‘, ‘I want to learn the songs of James Taylor’, ‘I want to be a master of blues guitar’, ‘I want to be good enough to start a band’, ‘I want to learn fingerpicking’, ‘I want to be dangerous at jazz guitar’, ‘I want to be as good as it is humanly possible for me to be’,
It is vital to let your wishes be known from the onset. If your teacher disregards the reason you came to him in the first place, then you will become discouraged, dissatisfied, and ultimately a failure as a guitarist. If you are unhappy with your instructor, then find another. Don’t worry about hurting his feelings. If you are not happy, then find someone else. There are many teachers in the naked city, and I am just one. Also, play with and surround yourself with as many and as varied guitarists as you can find. You never know from where the next riff, lick, or secret trick will be found to add to your musical arsenal. This brings me to my third point, which is to watch and listen. By this I mean that you should stare at other guitar players’ hands and attempt to steal every note they claim as their own. Music is owned by everyone and no one, and therefore, in an effort to learn, listen and watch everyone you come across, be they on a stage, or in a music store, or on MTV. A great example is an album (I know I am dating myself) I used to listen to religiously called ‘Jimi Plays Monterey’, a live recording of Hendrix at the Monterey Pop Festival. It was perhaps the most brilliant music I had heard emanate from a guitar. Years later, I saw a video of him performing the very set, and to my amazement, his voicings and technique were nothing like I had imagined. I studied his fingering and stole as much as I could from ‘he who shall not be equaled’. And though I lost my eyesight twelve years ago, I never forgot the lessons learned from watching, and to this day, I sit three inches from the television screen whenever Alvin Lee plays ‘Goin’ Home’ live at Woodstock - 3 Days of Peace & Music (The Director’s Cut), or when I pop in the DVS of ‘The Song Remains the Same’.
The next article I write will cover guitar techniques I was forced to learn after losing my eyesight. Remember that dried up old saying about Necessity being somebody’s mother? You may be well advised to wear a bandanna tied securely around your eyes as part of your training on the guitar. But I will address that in further articles.
So, while I had the passion, I did not have the teacher. I did, however, become adept at stealing licks, and other tricks. Alas, if I could do it all over again…
Remember
Passion – you gotta want it
Teacher – be humble and ask for help
Watch and listen – steal from every source out there, it’s free!
It sounds basic,and perhaps it is, if only someone had been so patronizing as to have let me in on the simple facts, then I would have saved a thousand headaches, and perhaps, a thousand strands of hair.
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more articles by Robert Gerson
May 22nd, 2007 at 1:26 am
Great article and choice of music mentioned–those were the days of my youth and it brought forth some magical sounds. Like many of the European (mainly British) musicians of the day, my musical roots are from old American blues tunes. I have quite a collection. It’s always amazed me how we hardly appreciated what we had right here in our back yard until it was “introduced” to us from across the ocean. The good thing about today is that there is more access to the various musical styles from around the world, opening a whole new avenue for young people to explore. I agree with you in that you must practice until it becomes part of you, a second nature.