What to play as you learn

You have begun your journey as a guitarist, it’s time to start figuring out what to play as you learn. Maybe you are specific to a certain genre like heavy metal and it’s time to start scouring the web for Dimebag Darrell licks and solos (good luck starting out with that) or maybe you just want to figure out what the heck Tom Morello is doing to get those crazy sounds. There is a huge list of guitarists you can to learn from. Or possibly you are just interested in diving right into the guitar and learning it from a purely musical perspective, or you want to learn how to write your own songs or solos. There are few ways to accomplish your goals and we are going to cover a few of the ways you can accomplish each one.

If you want to learn how to play songs or solos from other artists, the internet is a bountiful place to find material. However, I recently listened to a podcast by comedian Marc Maron who was interviewing veteran journalist Nick Tosches. Tosches described the process of research these days using the internet as a correlation between misinformation being equal to information that is available on the internet. This is the same with the amount of incorrect tablatures floating around the internet. A lot of the tab sites have rating systems to give you an idea of the accuracy of each published tablature. If you can, it is most beneficial to sit down with a song or solo and learn it note for note by ear. This will help develop your aural skills, and find those little licks that players will sometimes recycle in songs and solos. The best way to start is to listen to the song/solo, find the key, and then learn what the bass line is doing. Learning the bass line may sound out of context, but finding that baseline will give you an inclination of two things: the key of the song, and the chord progression. The chord progression lets you know what the chords are and what notes actually fit in that chord. I’ll expand more on this in a later blog post.

Method books are a great way to learn. There are a lot of beneficial books out there to help guide you on your journey to playing. Many of these will focus on different musical aspects or genres. These can include: site reading, chord strumming, scales and/or modes, licks to specific genres (how to play country, how to play jazz, etc…). You can learn a lot from sitting down and learning from these types of literature. Your best bet would probably be to hire a private guitar instructor to help you understand this literature and expand on it. I've written some previous posts on the benefits of using an instructor and how to choose an instructor.

If you want to write songs, learn how to play the basic four chords. G, C, Em, and D. You can use a capo to move keys up and down to fit your voice or the feel of the song. You can use the basic principles of poetry (meter, end or middle rhyme, and alliteration) to build the lyrics of your song. I find it the most fun to collaborate with other songwriters. I tend to have writers block when it comes to writing bridges for some reason, collaborators tend to help me complete songs that would otherwise be mediocre.

Building solos is an entirely different monster in itself. You need to obtain a sort of grasp of musical theory to build your own solos or have exceptional aural skills. I personally didn't have the latter as I started out. It took a few lessons and some understanding of chord theory before I could start building my own solos. I would suggests learning how to improvise in the blues style before you start out in other genres. Blues typically only has 3 chords to play over, it is as simple as it gets. You can either change scales over each chord change or play the relative 6th minor pentatonic over the the entire key of the song. Again, I’ll expand this on another blog post or over a short series of posts.

As you learn, I would like to encourage you to find other guitarists that are learning in the same method as you or are interested in the same genres as you. It’s still beneficial to find other guitarists that are playing different or multiple genres from what you are studying. Other players can bring a wealth of information to you . You will be surprised by what you will pick up by just sitting and jamming with your buds.

I hope this short list of what to play has been helpful to you. There are many different ways to go about to learn to play. You might use one or a combination of all of these techniques. Go out and have fun with the instrument. Be the best player that you can be.

Buying Your First Guitar

So you’re thinking about buying a new guitar or even your first guitar. If you don’t have one or if you are in the market for your first guitar; then it’s time to buy an acoustic guitar. There you go, blog post finished. Now you know what to buy. Be the best player you can be.

Well, maybe you want more information. Maybe you have an acoustic already, or you want to know what kind of acoustic guitar you want. Let’s dive in a little bit more just for the sake of learning. Your decision of what guitar to buy is based on a lot of things like: style, cosmetics, sound output, weight, and the level of craftsmanship. But like I said, if you don’t already have one, it’s time to get a good acoustic guitar.

Why buy an acoustic guitar? There are a lot of different benefits of buying and owning an acoustic guitar. The main benefit that I want to focus on is that an acoustic guitar is the best tool to help you in your daily practice regimen. You don’t need an amplifier, cable, and it’s much easier to tune an acoustic with a mic type tuner. You can keep an acoustic guitar handy in the room that you practice. Easy set up to help guide the path as you practice.

Something else to consider is that you should purchase a guitar to your level of playing. If you are just starting out, you don’t need to buy the most expensive guitar you can afford. Start out small, there are great guitars that are built at the economy level. You don’t need a 1,500 to 3,000 dollar guitar to get started. You don’t even need that high quality of a guitar to started gigging. As you grow in your ability to play the instrument, your taste in styles of guitar and tones are going to change. It’s best to put off the bigger purchases until you know exactly what you are going to want.

Styles of acoustic guitars include dreadnoughts, grand auditorium, jumbo, auditorium, classical, and grand concert. A quick Google image search will let you see the visual difference among the styles. Each style has their own acoustic differences that I may cover in another blog post. However, I would suggest that your first acoustic guitar be a dreadnought. This will be an excellent tone for you, it’s widely available through several guitar makers, and it will be the most comfortable to hold and play.

Electric guitars come in a variety of flavors as well: solid bodies, hollow bodies, and semi-hollow bodies. The most recognizable of these styles is the solid body guitar. Many are based on the fender stratocaster with single or humbucker style pickups and a bolt on neck. This will generally get you whatever tone and sound that you are looking for. There are other styles of solid bodies that include the Les Paul style, PRS style arch tops, and the fender telecaster style guitar. These will provide you several different sounds and I would encourage you to try all of the styles at your local music store. Hollow body and semi-hollow body style guitar can be specific to the genre of music that you are trying to play. Hollow body guitars can be found heavily in jazz, big band, and rock-a-billy. Semi-hollow body guitars, like the Gibson ES-335, can be found in early rock and roll records. Don’t feel bad for wanting to buy a guitar because it looks cool. Be sure that you are buying something with good quality. If your guitar looks cool, then so so do you. Remember, looking cool is half the battle.

Sound output is important with either acoustic guitars or electric guitar. Louder is better isn't always necessarily the case when considering the genre you want to play. Active electronics are usually found in you solid body electric guitars that are geared more to heavy metal players. You certainly wouldn't want that style of electronics on an arch top acoustic guitar. The sound would bounce around in the sound chamber and feed back so much that you’d might only be able to play the the guitar with the sound pot on level one. Different style of guitars will have different potential of volumes as well. A jumbo or grand concert should be louder than a smaller dreadnought, but sometimes the bracing across the soundboard (top of the guitar) can increase the volume of the guitar.

It’s okay to consider the weight of the guitar too. If you are planning on playing two hour gigs, you might want to consider finding a guitar that isn't so heavy that you are slouching by the end of the night. The weight of the guitar will have significant effect on the tone of the guitar. Generally speaking, heavier guitars will have a darker tone. In contrast, lighter guitars can also have a more 'trebley' timbre. Comfort is important as much as the tone. You need to find a guitar that marries all of the factors that you are looking for. You can find a guitar that has excellent craftsmanship that isn't too heavy. You don’t have to spend a ton of money on tone and comfort.

In conclusion buy an acoustic. I hope you gleaned a lot of information from this post. I can expand tons on each paragraph from this post. I’d love to expand more on each style of guitar and the tonal properties of them. I may do a part 2 of this post and include a list of great economy guitars. The best way to purchase a guitar is to go to your local music store and pick one up and strum it. If it sounds good, feels good, and looks good, then it’s right for you. Don’t spend a ton of money, especially if you are new to the instrument. Get out there and have fun. Be the best player you can be.

Practice and the 80/20

I first heard of the 80/20 principle at a meeting at a financial institution that I once worked for. It must have been close to lunch, because my first thought was of 80/20 beef. That would be the ratio of meat to fat. 80 percent meat and 20 percent fat. My mind then drifted off to making chili, I make really good chili. It was a boring meeting, but the gist of what the individual holding the meeting was is that 80 percent of the company was controlled by 20 percent of the shareholders. The idea flipped my understanding of how my company was operating and how it was building revenue. This is an idea that translates through business, our personal lives, and even our journey as a musicians. This blog post is going to focus on applying this principle to you daily practice on your instrument.

Let’s see what wiki’s ‘official’ definition of the 80/20 principle is. “The 80/20 principle] states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.” This is also known as the Pareto principle. Pareto was an Italian economist. Wiki states, “while at the University of Lausanne in 1896, published his first paper "Cours d' economie politique." Essentially, Pareto showed that approximately 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population; Pareto developed the principle by observing that 20% of the pea pods in his garden contained 80% of the peas” I recently read a blog post by bestselling author Tim Ferriss that briefly describes using the method to learn how to play the guitar. The 80/20 principle applies to practicing the guitar in that your small practice time earns great reward, 20 percent of your practice time reaps you 80 percent of your reward. To earn the 80 percent, it’s important to focus on the 20 percent. That 20 percent can be maximized by using time management, technology and tools, and by building rituals.

Time management is huge in organizing your practice time. It’s likely that your entire daily life doesn't revolve around your instrument. It may be extremely important to you, but you may have other responsibilities that are bidding for your time. These responsibilities can include your, job, family, school, or any other important task that demands your attention. In the 80’s (around the time I was born) Steven Covey created a simple visualization using ‘big rocks’.  The idea is that, in your life you have ‘big rocks’ or high priority tasks you have to do. It’s important to define what those rocks are and complete those tasks first, then fill in the things that are less important. You will find that your ability to get things done that matter will become much easier for you. Now that you understand this, you need to define how big the rock of ‘practicing’ is. This will be different for everyone. Currently I spend 15 to 20 minutes of practice time every morning around 5:30. As a music student I spent an average of 3 hours a day practicing the guitar. As an adult, I now have other obligations that bide for my time. It can be hard to tell my wife and children that I can’t attend to their demands because I want to practice. Somewhere around 15 to 30 minutes daily works fine for me these days.

There are a lot of great tools out there that can aid you in your practice. I first highly suggest purchasing a tuner. You need this to keep the guitar in tune so that you can hear what you are playing. This may seem obvious, but if your guitar is out of tune, you won’t know if you’re playing the correct notes. You can purchase a tuner for your guitar at your local music store, or you can simply download a guitar tuner app onto your smartphone. The apps are great for tuning, and can sometimes be better than the cheaper tuners you can buy. Regardless of your level of experience with the instrument, you need to buy a metronome. You also have the smartphone option here. I have been playing the guitar since high school, but I didn't start using a metronome during my practice hours until I was in college. The metronome, or click track, will train you to play at tempo. It will also encourage you to play more ‘clean’ and force you to keep a good technique in the left hand.

You know that you need to practice now right? Now you know where that lays in your priorities list, or how big of a ‘rock’ it should be. Finding the time is the hardest part. One tip is to add your practice time to a ritual that is already in place. I knew a phenomenal session player out of Nashville that told be that as a child, he started out every day by practicing his guitar while he waited for the school bus. He happens to be the same guy that turned me on to practicing with a metronome. The morning is one of the best times to set up your practice time. There is very little that bides for your time early in the morning. If you don’t have time in the mornings, I would suggest either waking up earlier or adding it to another daily ritual that you already do. Maybe as soon as you come home from work or class. However, I highly suggest maximizing your early mornings. This will be your best shot at success.

For just a second I would like to explain why I used the term ritual instead of habit in that last paragraph. A habit is something that has more control over you than you do of it. Smoking is a habit, swearing is a habit, poor eating choices is a habit. Rituals are things that apply to activities that you have control over that can bring positivity to your daily life. For example, I work on this blog every morning as a ritual. Part of my early morning ritual involves: drinking a full liter of water, practicing my guitar, a short time of fitness, sitting down to write. Hygiene is in there too, but I don’t think I need to go into that in much detail. In short, build rituals to build a better you. Start this this now.

In short, time management, ‘big rocks’, use a tuner, use a metronome, and build a ritual. If you want to be just okay at your instrument, just pick it up whenever the mood hits you and never challenge yourself. Chances are you are already there, congratulations. However, if you are among the few that are ready to put some hustle into being great, use these tools to become better. Step by step, the journey is long, and it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become great at anything. Get going, get started, be the best player you can be.

Finding an Instructor

In a previous post I suggested using a guitar instructor as one of the best ways of beginning a journey into playing the guitar. Finding and choosing an instructor is one of the most important decisions in this path. You may be making the choice for yourself or for your child, but it’s not a decision that should be made lightly. The following text is compiled of a few considerations to think about when choosing an instructor.

I’d like to start off with sharing my credentials as a guitar teacher. Let’s pretend as if I were trying to sell you my services in guitar instruction. I've been teaching guitar for ten years now and I’m extremely passionate about it. I have taught students ranging from the ages 6 to 80 years old. I've been employed at music academies, studios, and I have taught privately in my own home. I hold a bachelor’s degree in guitar performance. During my degree program I studied under a world class jazz guitarist that focused my instruction heavily in modern music theory and jazz improvisation. During that period I had the opportunity to play with a two time Grammy award winner, a handful of professional road traveling and session musicians, and I have had the opportunity to attend master classes with some of the greatest musicians from around the world.

There is something unique to some instructors that you may look for in your search. As you look for instructors, you will find tons of players that are teaching on the side to make extra money. However, I know myself and other instructors that consider themselves ‘teachers’ that play on the side to make a little extra money. Teaching the guitar is more than just finding some extra cash for instructors like us. I know that particular inversion may not sound like much, but the important thing to look for is somebody with ‘the heart of a teacher’.In other words it’s important to find somebody with a marriage of patience and knowledge that is interested in showing you how to play the instrument.

As I mentioned above, I have a degree in guitar, but that doesn't have to be a deal breaker in your search . The attributes that I mentioned above, (the ‘heart of a teacher’) are much more important. The teacher should be very skilled, however, he or she could be playing in a local band, a local public school music teacher, or just someone who happens to have passion in the guitar.

In short, I believe it’s really important to find a teacher that is passionate about teaching. Search for an instructor that has the ‘heart of a teacher’.  I hope this guide serves you well as you search for an instructor. I hope you become the best player you can be.

Where to Start

You have decided that you want to learn how to play the guitar. Now you just need to find the path of learning to get you to become the great player that you want to be. Ahead of you are some different methods that can guide you on this journey and each one of them has it’s own unique strength. These methods include online learning, method book/text based learning, and private instruction. I will lay these out for you so that you may decide for yourself what is the best path for you.

Online learning. This is a great way to learn almost anything, including the guitar. Anytime I’m faced with something I haven’t done before, i.e. replacing a part on my car, or working with a tool I’m unfamiliar with, I use Youtube to research it. Youtube is a great source to learn a new a instrument. Be prepared, it’s a jumbled mess out there in the land of instruct-able videos. You may need to be prepared to pay for a series of online video lessons. Some online instructors have also been employing the use of skype to give online lessons a more personal touch. You may consider looking into your local music academies near you that may offer this service. This could give you the benefit of meeting your teacher face to face if the need were to arise. However, there are plenty of qualified guitar instructors on the web that are offering their services through live video instruction. Guitarlessonsokc.com will be offering skype lessons with our qualified staff soon. Check back for updates or contact me directly at cory@guitarlessonsokc.com if you are interested in getting started.

Method books and text based learning are excellent ways to gain knowledge of an instrument, learn to sight read, and build an understanding of the fundamentals of music theory. The Mel Bay Method for Modern Guitar is a long running and trusted series of guitar method books that have been guiding aspiring guitarists for decades. I have been teaching out of this method for the past 6 of 10 years that I have been teaching. This is a simple way to learn an instrument. Go to a music store and buy a book and get started. Now days you can order online or even download method books in a .pdf format or ebook.

Private instruction is arguably the best and most efficient way to learn an instrument, but I may be biased since I am a private guitar instructor. There should be music academies in your area that offer private instruction for guitar and other instruments. These lessons are typically 30 minutes long once a week and vary in price. I suggest  you research an instructor that  you plan to study under. Read teacher bios to make sure that you find a qualified instructor that can meet your needs. Online skype lessons are also available as I mentioned above. Many private instructors will also employ the use of a method book as a means of reference in your learning progress. This is a service that we offer here at guitarlessonsokc.com as well. Feel free to contact me directly for info on private lessons here or in your home. You can also check out our teacher bios to connect with best teacher for you.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Whatever option that you pick (pun intended) will set you on a very exciting path to learning the guitar. I hope you have fun with it. Be the best player you can be

Welcome to my blog! I'm glad you're here and I hope that the ideas that I share here are helpful to you as you begin or continue your journey on the path of playing the guitar. The purpose of this blog will be to educate students and teachers alike regarding the guitar. My name is Cory and I have Bachelor of Arts in Guitar Performance from the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. I also recently completed my Master of Leadership from Mid-America Christian University. I have taught guitar for about ten years. I am currently employed as a private guitar instructor for the South Metro Fine Arts Academy.

My intentions for this blog are to bring new and innovative ideas for guitar students and teachers. Every music teacher is different in their approach. Contrasting teachers may have different styles of teaching and methods. On this blog I will offer many of my ideals and methods that I teach directly to my students. I hope to write on different subjects and offer illustrations and diagrams to help provide clarity to the ideas that I write about.

I want this to be a place to learn. I hope that students and teachers will visit this blog often and grow because of it. Thank you again for visiting!