Guitar 101: The Young And The Fretless

I just drove back to Nashville from Memphis and had a blow-out on I-40 in over 100 degrees of heat. This reminds me to remind you: NEVER leave a guitar in a car on a hot day. It can literally come unglued. Don’t take the chance. You can also strike up some interesting conversations by bringing your guitar inside when you go to a dentist appointment, driver’s license renewal or a champagne brunch. You could even get a gig. And just as you need to have a good spare tire, you need to carry spare strings, picks, batteries, etc.

In the middle two weeks of June, I was once again fortunate to teach at Kids On Stage Summer Academy down in Leipers Fork. The first week I taught Advanced Songwriting with the fabulous Bonnie Bramlett, one of the greatest, most soulful singers of all time. We had a really talented group, who didn’t have any trouble writing a song. In fact, the song our group wrote was better than many of the adult-written songs I’ve heard. The verses didn’t sound like the chorus and the lyrics made sense. On Saturday night, the group performed the song on the big stage. This is a great opportunity for kids to be on a real stage with a pro sound system and great lighting. Incidentally, the sound and lights were also run by the kids, with the help of their instructors. It was a lot like the real music business: Things go wrong. People get sick, somebody’s late, the guitar player forgets to check the battery in his acoustic-electric, someone forgets the lyrics and there aren’t enough guitar stands. The young folks pulled it off in spite of everything, though. Some of these kids are gonna be very successful in music someday. But whether or not they go into music professionally, it’s a wonderful learning experience and it’s really fun.

The second week, I got to produce and coach an All-Star Band. I had six great kids who learned and performed two songs. They picked the songs and I helped them learn and arrange their instrumental and vocal parts. This process always gets me thinking about how people learn songs and how they learn to play their instruments. It is gratifying and satisfying to know that these youngsters get a chance to learn some of the “tricks of the trade” before many adults do.

One of the things I notice, being a Certified Oldie myself, is that most kids today still like ‘60s and ‘70s music. Our bands consistently do Beatles, The Who and Led Zeppelin. I even have eight and nine-year-old students who listen to this stuff. I’ve learned a lot about currently popular music, as well, by teaching these juvenile humans. I even really like some of it. They often have pretty eclectic tastes, too. One thing I find consistently true is that no matter what your age, if your parents have to make you practice, you’re not going to excel at playing an instrument. The ones that really do well are the ones who don’t want to put their guitar down, even to eat. The desire to learn is the most important quality a student can have.

Aside from that, there are two things you have to develop before you can play guitar: a sense of pitch and a sense of rhythm. In my opinion, your early childhood environment plays a large role in the development of these skills. Being exposed to music and dance as an infant makes a huge difference. You can learn these skills as an adult, but it takes much longer. I have several students in their sixties and seventies, and I find that you can learn an instrument at any age. However, I think that developing a sense of rhythm is the most difficult skill for the majority of older people.

But I believe the most common problem with learning guitar is: You’ve got a (probably cheap) guitar that is too hard to play! The strings are too high. Superman couldn’t play a clear note on that thing! I’ve seen this over and over again. Don’t do that.

Some people have been playing for 30 years and they can’t play as well as these teenagers I’ve been working with. But maybe they don’t want to. At some point, people perceive learning to get better as “not worth the trouble.” Or it may just be that they don’t know how to go about learning. Some may think they have to learn a lot of technical, theoretical, academic stuff to get better. Some people equate putting forth effort with not having fun. For me, I find that I have a lot more fun when I can do things that require a lot of effort to learn. Things like making bar chords, using your pinky and learning to use a pick are common stumbling blocks that some people never get beyond. For some, it’s learning music theory. I’m convinced that breaking through that initial resistance is well worth the effort. I learn something about music and about guitar playing every day of my life, and look forward to learning a lot more. I guess the most important thing is, whatever you do, enjoy it. Viva la Música!