Guitar Noise

Any teacher will tell you that teaching is a hard job. And many students will tell you that learning is also a hard job. In fact, the mantra “It’s hard…” is rapidly becoming the number one catch phrase with students. It’s almost as though simply saying “It’s hard” or “It’s confusing” is a free pass to moving on to something that’s not hard or confusing. Trouble is that in going this route, we’ve effectively taken our brain out of the learning process. And, pardon the pun, if you think about it, taking the brain out of learning doesn’t seem to be a very bright idea.

We spend out whole lives learning. Some lessons come very easily and become ingrained in our thought process. Four times six is twenty-four. Placing your hand on an open flame will burn it and will hurt a lot. The brain has this information down pat.

Other lessons are ongoing and might not have definitive outcomes. If I smile and say hello to someone, chances are good that I’ll get a smile and a hello in return. But it’s not one hundred percent certain. As far as this lesson goes, my brain is still working out an answer.

Learning how to play the guitar offers our brains no end of opportunity to learn. But, because it’s so easy, it’s tempting to want to just be shown something without going through any effort to dig out the information ourselves, even though the information is readily available. And it’s truly funny (in a sad kind of way) because we learn things a lot more complicated than music all through our lives. People can recite the lyrics of their favorite song but can’t tell you a G chord has the notes G, B and D in it.

A big part of learning is attitude. We dislike the word “work” and we want things to happen magically, totally forgetting that almost nothing comes that way. Again pardon the pun, but even eating and walking (not to mention reading and sitting at a computer) are things we had to take a single step at a time. Given the choice between commiting something to memory, no matter how simple it might be, or just asking the same question over and over again, many people choose the latter.

As a guitar teacher, I have a goal that seems self-destructive: I want my students to learn how to think so that, should they ever be in a situation where they have no teacher, they can still rely on their brains to get them to the point they want to reach. Oh yes, we need to work on the hands and the muscle memory and all that. But getting a student to realize that he or she has the capability to figure out a problem, almost any problem, has to also be a big part of the learning process.

So if all your learning is being spent on your hands, engage your brain for a minute and rethink things. If you’re not adverse to reading, you might want to take a look at an old column on Guitar Noise called If I Only Had… It’s a bit simple, but I think it gets the point across.

Peace