subject: Learning Guitar [print this page] As far as learning any musical instrument is concerned, let's start out by stating the obvious that not all students are created equally. Not every beginning student has the kind of talent and ability that seems to have been dished out to some of them at birth. Some people seem born to play an instrument or even several instruments. Some call that God-given ability. Whatever and however you wish to call this inherent ability doesn't matter. Some people have it and some don't.
Some people are somewhere in between.
What also seems to be true is that this ability is triggered in different ways. People handle things and learn things in different ways. So it stands to reason that the best way of learning a musical instrument will vary from student to student.
Although the guitar is one of those instruments that make it relatively easy to learn to play songs at least in a simple manner, like all instruments it has its complexities. It's not a simple thing to be technically proficient. The art of playing music itself is involved in every instrument - and every instrument has its own technique involved that enables a player to interpret that music.
Music is a logical and mathematically perfect language that is played emotionally. Some guitarists can learn the language and the proper technique, but have a hard time communicating this technique into something that sounds emotional. It's one thing to be technically proficient, but it's another thing entirely to be able to communicate emotionally with ones audience. Some players simply do not have this ability to communicate emotionally. They can't get a handle on it. They literally get stuck on the language and on the technical aspects of playing.
The great players can do both.
And in order to be great, or at least good at communicating the emotions that are contained in songs consistently, a relatively high level of technical ability and knowledge of the guitar itself is required.
For example, there are several different ways to play a D chord. Each of these ways has its own "emotion" of sorts associated with it. Further, there are other chords such as a D2 or Dsus4 that can be substituted for the D chord on different occasions that add its own color and emotion to a situation. All of these chords can be strummed in various ways or the notes can be picked individually - also in various ways. These choices are what I'll collectively call "the what".
The ability to pick and choose at will out of this library of sounds contributes to the ability to add the right color and emotion to a given song. But it's also true that it is "how" that this is done that makes the technical "what" choice emotional.
But for the average beginning guitarist, it starts with the language of music and the technique of the guitar. It is the learning of "the what".
As a guitar teacher, I can teach proper technique - the "what". The "how" is a different matter altogether.
I believe that "the what" goes a long way towards facilitating "the how".
If you buy into this point of view, then it follows that there is a high value on learning proper technique as well as the language of music itself.
This is the age of the internet - a resource that did not exist when I was learning how to play the guitar. To get to where I am now I did two things - I took lessons and I tried to learn my favorite songs on my own by either buying the sheet music for the song (or the whole album song book), or by trying to "pull" the chords off of a recording. I would sit for hours at a time playing a song over and over trying to get it right. I tried to copy every single nuance.
But now we do have the internet as a resource. There is a wealth of information on it that we can use to help us learn. This is a very cool thing. And seeing as how every student learns differently, the internet provides options. This is also a very cool thing.
But there is one thing that the internet cannot provide to the learner - immediate feedback. That's where private instructors come in.
Without feedback, there is no good way for a beginning guitarist to know whether or not his/her technique is good. And although poor technique can sometimes be corrected without the use of a private instructor, often times it never does get corrected. This makes everything harder for the student.
Yes it is true that a lot of good things can be taken from the internet. It is also true that a student can initially use this resource as the sole tool to get started playing the guitar.
But sooner or later this student is going to need professional feedback - not to mention another learning source.
The feedback will help with the technique issues. And the extra learning source? Well... an extra learning source is a good thing isn't it?
A student needs to learn from as many different sources as possible and this includes having an experienced private tutor or instructor. Often times, an instructor is not only an instructor, but a mentor as well.
You can't get that from the internet.
If a guitarist learns the proper techniques and has a basic knowledge of the language of music, he/she will have a foundation from which creativity can flow easier. Technique promotes the ability to be creative. Creativity unlocks emotion. Emotion unlocks communication.
That's what it's ultimately about.
Just knowing "the what" does not guarantee "the how", but if a player has good technique, the more options to communicate emotionally exist for that player.
