The Guitar Study Newsletter for 6/26/2002
by Darrin Koltow

Greetings once again from MaximumMusician.com. This is Darrin Koltow, your escort to the joys of learning guitar, bringing you more music making, leaf raking, earth shaking tips. First, I want to thank you again for signing up for the Guitar Study newsletter at www.MaximumMusician.com. You can unsubscribe any time using instructions at the end of this email.

Get a buddy to sign up for the Guitar Study newsletter, at www.MaximumMusician.com . I've heard that telling others about GS produces unpredictable bursts of joy throughout your day. Who couldn't use that?

In this issue:

== Finding a good teacher ==
== You can't always get what you want ==
== Triads ==

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== Finding a good teacher ==

Look in the mirror. No kidding: your best teacher is right where you are. It's you. Why? First, because no one cares nearly as much about your guitar education as you do. It's as simple as that. I'm not being harsh, just realistic. No one needs you to make music for him or her, no matter how good you are. No one will starve, go blind or become a monk based on your playing. But what matters is that *you* care about your playing.

Now, although you have the greatest emotional investment in getting better, you don't necessarily have the best self-teaching skills. And you definitely are not the most objective about your performance. The ability of the human mind to become blinded to something that's as plain as pie to the rest of the world never ceases to amaze me. What I'm getting at here is this: a teacher *can* help.

How do you find a good teacher? And once you find him, how do you get the most from the time you spend with him? Here are a couple of thoughts on this.

-- What to avoid --

Avoid teachers who don't believe in you, your skill or potential. I once made the mistake of taking lessons from such a fella. He was a terrifically skilled player. He had monster chops, solid gigs lined up in a big city, practiced six hours a day, and had been playing since he was in the womb.

During one practice session he told me, "No. You just don't have it." His tone, his body language, and everything else about him communicated to me his disbelief that I would develop enough skill to be a true player. He was coming from the mindset that there were "those who got it, and those who ain't."

When you're learning from someone, you're opening your mind and heart up to that person. If that person honestly doesn't believe you can turn your potential into skill, that doesn't mean it's time to shut down, pack up the amp, and trade your guitar for a moped. It just means it's time to open up to someone else.

Here's a related thought on the notion of "expert advice." Saying that someone -- like a pro guitar player -- is an "expert" in something is usually just another way of saying this: this person is an expert at looking at something from a certain, established point of view. It sometimes takes the passion of an amateur to reveal that this point of view is only useful in a small, limited context. In other words, sometimes amateurs turn the "impossible" into the possible.

For instance, did you know that the Wright Brothers were amateur inventors and aviation enthusiasts, not schooled scientists? Their passion and perseverance were what put their plane first in the air. Established, certified experts don't know everything. The only entity that does is that spark of possibility within you. Give that spark something to burn: a song, a new way of playing scales, or something else you love.

- Noodling -

The better you get, the more you like to play. Guitar teachers are no exception. They dig playing, and that can have a wonderful, tremendous impact on you, the student. Master Motivator Tony Robbins says to get around people who are doing something in an excellent way to get ideas for your own excellence. This means being in the physical presence of someone engaging in excellence. Not just listening to Eric Clapton on the radio. Not just putting up posters of Andres Segovia in your study, but observing excellent performers first hand.

Isn't it true that seeing a live performance of a so-so song is much more exciting than hearing that tune "canned," (on the radio or a recording)? Isn't it also true that, once you see a song performed live, you sometimes develop an appreciation -- even a love -- for that song that you didn't have when listening to its recording?

Of course, excellence is a continuum; it's not just an on/off, have/have not thing. You might have a friend whose comp skills are terrible, but whose overall feeling in his playing is fantastic. Get around this person as much as you can, and soak up the vibes his fingers, mind and heart are putting out. We take for granted how much useful knowledge we gain simply by being present at the source of that knowledge.

What this has to do with selecting a guitar teacher is this: simply being in the presence of someone with more skill than you presently have, and observing first hand what this person does, can boost your enthusiasm and your skill.

There are also negative aspects of being in the physical presence of a guitar teacher. Some teachers will go off on a tangent, and start playing for their own enjoyment, ignoring the student they're getting paid to teach. Again, students can still benefit from seeing a pro do what the student can't yet do.

Yet, if your teacher is spending most of *your* paid-for time noodling, you need to point this out to him. I know it's not easy for some people to assert themselves -- even when they're totally justified in doing so. But it's your buck, so pack all the guitar info you can into it. "Hey, Joe. I dig your playing. Could you show me how it relates to the scale pattern you gave me last week?"

Now, before you even get to that point of working with a teacher, you want to choose one wisely. This might seem like common sense, but it's important to mention these steps in finding a teacher who's right for you:

- Who's being recommended to you, and who is doing the recommending? If you ask someone in a music store to recommend a guitar teacher to you, they're going to tell you about who *they* have on staff.

- Whose playing impresses you? You want to hear a good dose of a potential teacher's chops to prove to you that the teacher not only teaches but *plays.* You're not buying donuts, here. When you're interested in buying a CD in a record store these days, you get to sample it. Yet, when you're interested in something immensely more valuable like learning an instrument, you're just expected to take it on faith that the teacher can deliver the goods as advertised? Oh, no, no, no. *Sample* and hold, amigo.

- Style. No, not what kind of jeans your teacher wears, but what kind of music he plays and teaches. If you're a rock fiend, be wary of those who claim to teach "all styles," yet spend most of their time playing classical, jazz, folk, etc. Then again, open your mind. Allow for the possibility that, as you learn more, you'll grow to appreciate and want to play different styles of music.

- Tracking progress -

One thing none of my teachers did which would have been immensely valuable in acquiring skills and motivation is progress measurement and tracking. Okay, those are two things, but they're related.

When you go to school, do teachers just throw a math book at you and say, "Here! Learn this!"? No. They give you specific homework assignments, as guitar teachers do, but they also give you tests, which many guitar teachers don't. A teacher truly committed to your growth is going to track and measure your progress, and show you how to do this yourself.

An example of how this might work is in order. Let's say you're up to the level of simple improvisation, and your teacher is comping while you solo. You get to a certain point in the tune, and then lose the "thread." Your teacher says, "Joe, that was terrific: you made it to bar 15 this time. Last time, you only made it to bar 12. Keep it up."

There are many ways a teacher can measure your progress. He can track how fast and cleanly you're playing scales, how many chords and intervals you can identify by ear, how many different rhythms you can duplicate by ear, and a heck of a lot more. Again, it's your buck; get the biggest guitar blast you can from it. A teacher who doesn't track your progress is a teacher who's not committed to your progress. Get another.

Now, you have responsibilities, too. You could have John Williams (the guitarist, not the composer) or Eric Clapton as a teacher, but you'll get nowhere unless you the do the work he assigns. This is a no-brainer, right? But your commitment to your progress goes beyond that. While you have your teacher in front of you, you must ask him questions. Lots of questions. Dumb and silly questions. Ask, ask, ask. Ask questions you *think* you know the answer to, and be surprised when you get a contrary answer.

"Hey, Bob, what are you doing with your pinky down there on the 13th fret?" "Yo, Sam: what's up with that D minor in bar 3? I thought the progression called for a G7?" "Hey, Mike: why does it always smell like some animal died in here?"

Ask questions. And write the answers. Studies have shown that when you write, you remember. And when you remember, you learn.

- Music selections -

I think a good guitar teacher should give you two kinds of music to play: stuff you like and are interested in, and stuff you don't like so much, but that's important for your growth. A teacher who gives a student nothing more than Angus Young solos to play, because that's all the student says he wants, is doing that student a great disservice, and is stunting his guitar growth.

Instead, the teacher should say, "Okay, Bo. I'll make you a deal. I'll give you this Angus solo. Learn the heck out of it. Then, I'm gonna give you something that's not by Angus, and you might not like it at first. But, I'm gonna give it to you anyway, because it will give you a whole new perspective on your playing." So, after the Angus solo is done, the teacher gives Bo a Sor etude. And Bo decides that Angus is no longer hip, and Sor, Segovia and Classical are the greatest things since chocolate-covered Twinkies. It could happen.

The point is, you ought not to always get what you *think* you want or need from your guitar teacher. You need a variety to grow, just like you need to eat your brussel sprouts before you can eat your chocolate-covered Twinkies, or meat before your pudding.

No matter which teacher you choose, remember what I said at the beginning of this piece: the best teacher is you, because no one cares as much for your musical growth as you.

== You can't always get what you want ==

At one point, I wanted to have Total Guitar Superpower. You know, total mastery of the fretboard; knowledge of all scales, chords, and arpeggios. I wanted to be a guitar superhero. I won't say that ideal image is dead, but it's relaxing in the back seat now, while another guy drives.

The driver isn't a superhero. He's a pragmatist, a realist, a scavenger -- and a super cool, laid back guy. This guy knows he doesn't *need* to have total guitar super power to *enjoy* playing. He doesn't have to know 20,000 chords or songs, and doesn't even have to know 20 songs. What he does need comprises a super short list. Here are some items on that list:

-Playing chord melody arrangements for all the tunes I love, in a smooth way, up to tempo.

-Knowing all the diatonic major chords for all keys, whose top note falls on strings 1 and 2.

-Learning new tunes by ear, and focusing on the many ways of playing a song, without necessarily playing exactly what's on the recording.

There are other goals on this list, too. But the point is, this list does not include every guitar skill that would be taught or required to be learned at Berklee. Also, I bet there are lots of skills that some teachers would claim are essential to have, to call yourself a guitarist, and that I've chosen not to acquire. I don't need these skills. I'd rather enjoy my playing and make room and time for other things I love.

Two sayings come to mind: "I'd rather be happy than right," and "You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you can get what you need." Did you every meet someone who would seemingly argue to the death over the smallest issue? A person like that needs to be "right," and doesn't care as much about happiness. I think most of us have at least a little bit of that trait in us.

I traded in my guitar superhero goals for happiness or contentment goals when I discovered one day that I did not enjoy what I was playing. Actually, this occurred on a number of occasions. It took more than one instance of feeling stress rather than satisfaction from my playing, to refocus my guitar goals from those requiring mastery to those producing enjoyment.

I was learning songs that I'd heard were "essential" jazz tunes: stuff by Charlie Parker and other cats. Confirmation was one tune. I'd struggle to learn the melody, which did provide some satisfaction. Then, after I'd gone on to another task, and had come back to review the Parker tune, I found that I didn't enjoy playing it, although there *were* other jazz tunes I did enjoy playing. I thought "Man, is learning to play jazz all about learning tunes you don't like?" I decided then to refocus my efforts mostly on tunes I wanted to make sound sweet.

If you get a similar feeling with some of the things you're practicing, be careful! Having a difficult time with playing a tune you dig is not the same as having difficulty *because* you don't dig a tune. In other words, ask yourself if the source of your frustration is resulting from just a temporary technical roadblock that you'll eventually work through, or does the entire exercise or tune seem meaningless or totally lacking in purpose? If the answer is "roadblock," then *stay with the exercise.*

Leavitt scales were more than a roadblock for me. I bought his Modern Guitar Method book, and starting working through some of the scales. Highly useful stuff. The fingerings that he teaches will get you through any melodic situation. Yet, some of the scale exercises in the book were boring me to tears.

I couldn't understand this, because I thought my goal was total technical mastery of the guitar. The Leavitt book had material that would definitely help me achieve that mastery. So, why was I bored? Because the goal I *thought* I wanted, total technical mastery, was making me feel like a robot: no control, just put your fingers where they're supposed to go.

I didn't want to be a robot, so I changed the focus of my goals to make *music.* Yes, I still study scales, but in the context of a musical framework that I designed.

Be aware that what you think you want is not what you truly want, when it comes to guitar goals. Your mind can trick you, by doing something like the following: while listening to a CD by a classical guitarist, you may hear a passage that grabs you, screaming, "You must learn to play like this!" So, you get some method books that show you how to play like this performer.

During your learning of the material in these books, a set of musical concepts even *more* engaging than what you heard on the CD grabs you. You toss the goal of playing like the performer, and commit to learning these new concepts. Now, before you had listened to this performer, you never would have learned about these concepts. Yet, the CD listening opened a gateway to it. In short, ya sometimes need to go the wrong way to get to the right destination.

This is useful material, I think, but I'm getting off topic. I wanted to stress the idea of economizing your learning curriculum so you get some sense of control, rather than trying to learn everything, controlling nothing, and eventually hating your practicing.

Let's say you enjoy listening to a particular Eric Clapton CD. In particular, you're listening to Motherless Children and thinking, "Man -- I *gotta* play this." Your passion to learn somehow makes you think you must buy and learn from every Clapton-oriented method book on the market. So, you buy all these books, get halfway through one of them, get totally discouraged because it's too hard, and give up. To top it all off, you can't even return the unread books because your dog vomited on 'em.

Rewind this situation back to its origin, and replay it with a bit more forethought and awareness of what you want: you hear the Motherless Children tune. You get totally excited at the thought of learning all about how Clapton plays. Then, a tiny, rational part of your brain says, "Okay, Mr. Hyper Diapers. You want to learn to play like E.C.. We can do that, but we're gonna take it slow and steady. Get the tablature for Motherless Children, and look on the Internet for advice in newsgroups on how to play it. Learn this one tune and learn it well. If you do, and if you have fun doing it, we'll *consider* learning another E.C. tune."

You come down from your high, listen to this little voice, then take a deep breath and let it all out: the little voice knows what to do. It'll keep you from burning out. It won't give you what you *think* you want, but it'll give you what you need, which is a sense of control and direction.

== Triads ==

Triads. The building blocks of chords. The DNA of harmony. The pepperoni on pepperoni pizza. The subject of my latest Special Lesson.

I know you thought you were going to get away this week without me giving you any homework in the form of tab. Nope, sorry. Can't let you get away that easily. Besides, I want you to understand the importance of triads and how to practice them in a way that's fun.

First, the wrong way to practice triads:

**SET YOUR FONTS TO COURIER OR COURIER NEW TO READ THIS. IF YOU DON'T, I'LL PUT THE NEXT ISSUE OF THE NEWSLETTER IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS**

|-1-5--8-5-|-1-4--8-4-|
|-1-6-10-6-|-1-6--9-6-|
|-2-5-10-5-|-1-5-10-5-|
|----------|----------|
|----------|----------|
|----------|----------|
  F maj       F min


|-1--4---7--4--|-1--5---9--5--|
|-0--6---9--6--|-2--6--10--6--|
|-1--4--10--4--|-2--6--10--6--|
|--------------|--------------|
|--------------|--------------|
|--------------|--------------|


  F dim           F aug

You have here all main triad types: major, minor, diminished and augmented. These are fun to play as is, and sound pretty cool. So, why is this the wrong way to practice triads?

Because you're not making *music,* man. The chord changes might appear in some song somewhere, but it would be a rare song that had such changes. You'll be more successful in applying triads to real music by putting your triad practicing into a 2-5-1 framework. Here's an example of that:

Play these as eighth notes.


|-1--h4-5-5-7--8-|-8---4-5-1----|
|-1---6---6-10---|-10--6---1-4--|
|-2---5---5-10---|-10--5---2----|
|----------------|--------------|
|----------------|--------------|
|----------------|--------------|
  F major

|-3--5-6-6-9--10-|-10--6-3---|
|-3--8---8-11----|-11--8-3-6-|
|-3--7---7-12----|-12--7-3---|
|----------------|-----------|
|----------------|-----------|
|----------------|-----------|
  G minor

|----3--6--8--|-12--8--6-3-|-1-----1----|
|-5--5--8-----|-11-----8-5-|-1-------4--|
|-3--3--9-----|-12-----9-3-|-2-1-2---2--|
|-------------|------------|------------|
|-------------|------------|------------|
|-------------|------------|------------|
  E dim                        F major

This tab will put 3 of the 4 essential triads under your fingers in a way that's musical: it's in a 2-5-1 progression, which is the most important in Western music. Besides that, there are blue notes in here, which make the tab fun as frijoles to play.

I think this tab speaks for itself in terms of illustrating an effective way of practicing triads. However, this tab is only the start. You'll want to expand on it by transposing it to focus on the A and C notes in F. This tab only targets the F note.

Remember the key thing this tab and this lesson are illustrating: it's important to be thorough when you're building your skill, but it's equally important to build that skill in a way that's musical and fun. I.E.: learn each triad, putting each note on top, and do it in a 2-5-1 context.

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Have a delicious week. May your fingers be nimble, your thoughts grand, your music sweet.