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

As David pointed out in his recent newsletter, it’s going to be Bastille Day again before we know it. Before we let things get that far, I want to share my warmest wishes for this holiday season. Over the past year it’s been my pleasure to correspond with many Guitar Noise users - by email, newsletter, the forums and now this blog. Best wishes to all my online and real world friends.

It’s my belief that this is generally a good time of year for musicians. Not only do most people get a short break from work and school, but there are often more chances to spend time with family and friends. Those who can’t get together with other musicians and jam, may at least get a little extra time with their guitars. It seems that there are always a few hours to kill on Christmas Day between opening presents and carving the turkey. Past experience suggests that Christmas and New Year’s are the two busiest days on Guitar Noise. Perhaps some of you will be logging in to wish your friends all the best.

While I sincerely hope that each of you has a great holiday, it’s also that time of year to remember that not everyone in the world is as lucky as most of us are. There are plenty of people and organizations out there that make being charitable fairly easy and straightforward.

Fans of YouTube guitar videos may already know about Justin Sandercoe and his website justinguitar.com. This Christmas, Justin and his girlfriend are traveling to Ghana to volunteer in an orphanage. They are paying the entire cost of the trip with their own money but have been accepting donations through Justin’s site. The money raised will be used to buy musical instruments for the kids. Justin wrote to tell me that they have collected enough money for the instruments, and with the leftover money the’ll be able to make a real difference in the village they’re staying in. Any extra money they collect is going to be used to build a new well, buy beds for the orphanage as well as new medical kits.

If you’re feeling good this holiday season, why not stop buy Justin’s site, check out some of the free guitar guitar videos, and read more about his plans to spend Christmas in Ghana.

I got this note from Jim of Pennsylvania and thought I’d share it with you all:

My joy of music story is of a friendship that has bloomed from music. When I moved to central Pennsylvania I did not know anyone. As I got acclimated to my new job I met some people and eventually the subject of playing music came up. One of the guys invited me to his home to play guitars. The first time we played it was awful, my friend’s sense of timing and hearing a song made it very difficult to play together. Each week we would get together and play the songs and each week he just didn’t improve. It was frustrating but we didn’t give up. Our mantra was, we are here to have fun (knowing neither of us would ever be a professional) so we kept after it.

After a year of playing and not seeing any improvement I got frustrated and said you know this isn’t all that hard you just need to… Well, it was the one thing that finally turned on the light and since that time my friend has made remarkable improvement and we are enjoying our sessions greatly. He thanks me profusely for sticking with him and helping get him to where he is today.

That is not why I am writing this. As I thought of the joy of music, sometimes the music is just a vehicle for better things. As I think of the friendship we have enjoyed, the meals we have eaten together, the things he has introduced me to that I had never experienced, I think how blessed I have been and what I have gained. I have improved my own playing a hundredfold by practicing and playing regularly.

I didn’t what this to be a book, but thanks for making me think about what music has meant. A friend told me a long time ago, don’t ever give up playing music, when everything else is going bad it will never let you down. There is a lot of wisdom in that.

Thanks for writing, Jim! And our best wishes to you and your family and friends this holiday season!

Peace

Hello to all!

Even though we can certainly do it every day all year ’round, there’s something about this particular time of the calendar that makes us reflective. At Guitar Noise, we try to encourage everyone to share their music and their joy of music whenever possible. We even have a whole page devoted to stories on the Joy of Music that we’ve collected from our readers throughout the years.

This year, I’ve ask our readers to once again feel free to chat with us about their experiences and we’ll be posting them here on the Guitar Noise Blog as well as putting some in our newsletters. This one comes from Peter of New York:

Mr. Hodge,

In a busy and often out of my control world I find joy in little improvements. At night the wife and kids are asleep, and I strum and fingerpick and sing the songs I like. Few of the songs are anything I would want others to hear yet, but every once in a while I notice something gets easier, something gets better and it feels really good.

I change the key the song is written into the key I sing in, or figure out where the capo should go, the barred F chord doesn’t sound like pots falling out of a cabinet, my fingers find the right strings for the Bm chord easily after more than a year of struggling, a new fingerpicking pattern takes a song to a new level. I feel I am polishing the songs I sing and discover different facets as my skills/knowledge improve.

To me the joy of music is standing alone in my living room playing something and going “wow… that sounds nice”.

Thanks for “Margarettaville”, “For What it’s Worth”, “Bookends”, “Time After Time” and all of your lessons.

Take care…

Thank you, too, Peter for sharing with us!

And if you’d like to do so, please either post directly here on this thread or email me directly at dhodgeguitar@aol.com and be sure to include “Joy of Music” in the subject line.

We at Guitar Noise would like to wish each reader, not to mention his and her families and friends, a wonderful and safe holiday season. And thank you again (and always) for having us be a part of your lives.

Peace

Meeting a new student, or a new class full of students, is always a bit of a challenge. I want to make sure that we’re a good fit, and just like on a first date, there’s only so much you can know about each other after a few minutes. Taking up the guitar is adding another relationship to one’s life and, as we all know from experience, there are all sorts of different kinds of relationships. Even a single relationship, be it a friend, family member, loved one, roommate, workmate, playmate, bandmate or acquaintance, tends to go through a wild, wide spectrum of changes during the course of a lifetime.

Taking up the guitar is a relationship. Taking up with a guitar teacher makes it a three-way street. This adds an interesting dynamic and it’s (usually) up to the teacher to be the “wise” one of the group, taking the lead and guiding the student and the guitar through the often awkward first steps of getting to know each other.

So whether the student is five years old or seventy five, it’s important, to me at least, to give them one rule that should guide him or her throughout the entire relationship and this is:

Playing guitar is supposed to be fun.

Regardless of why one takes up the instrument (girls, prestige, artistic pursuits, pure competitiveness, wistful nostalgia), enjoyment of playing and enjoyment of music has to ultimately be the core reason if the relationship is going to continue. That may sound very simple and that’s for a good reason. It is simple. If you picked up the guitar because you want to impress someone (even if that someone is just yourself), if you took it up to meet girls, if you decided playing guitar might be your ticket to fame, if you simply want a way to unwind at the end of a day - these reasons will get you started. They might even carry you quite a ways. But ultimately they will run their course and something else will have to supply the motivating force behind your continued playing (and learning to play).

If you are playing for enjoyment, for the enjoyment of making music, you will never have a bad day. Even on those days when your fingers seem to be on holiday from playing, you’ll still have fun challenging yourself to come up with something halfway decent. And on the days when everything is clicking, when the timing and rhythm and picking and chord changing and riffs all seem to magically fall into place, you’ll be in heaven.

So have fun. And if you ever find yourself not having fun, take a break so you can ask yourself why. Quite often you’ll find that there’s something else going on. We all have lives, no? Take a little time to deal with your life and then you should find you’re back to having fun playing again.

And there’s more - by taking time for your own enjoyment, you might find that other people find you more enjoyable to be with. It’s kind of contagious that way.

Plus (and don’t stop me ’cause you’ve heard this one before…) - by sharing your enjoyment of music and playing with others, you will increase both your and their enjoyment a thousandfold. That’s some serious fun!

Peace

Whether you’re five or seventy-five, there is one factor that solely accounts for many people giving up on the guitar - frustration. And while this is not news or even mildly surprising, it is astonishing that in one’s lifelong adventure with the guitar the spectre of frustration often guides our actions or inactions.

Worse, a good part of the frustration is pure silliness. In our heads we know that the odds of sitting down and trying something for the first time and being so good at it it’s scary are slim to none. But that rarely stops someone from wondering, “Why can’t I play like (pick your favorite guitar idol and place him or her here)? I’ve been at this for all of two months now!” Laugh as much as you want, but I’m sure you’ve been there for a visit and you probably know countless people who are still living there.

But here’s a question few people ask themselves when learning: Why shouldn’t this be somewhat difficult, especially since I’ve spent (fill in the blank here) years of my life not playing guitar? If you’re starting guitar at forty, you’ve probably spent at least thirty-nine years of your life not playing. For those of you who like more of a perspective, that’s more than 98% of your life.

If you look at things in this manner, you’ll take all of the “young people learn quicker” out of the equation. Someone who’s starting at eighteen has spent more than seventeen and three-quarters years, 99% of his or her life, not playing guitar. It’s not about age or anything other than what you personally have to overcome. You’re trying to teach your hands, your fingers, all of you to do something that you’ve spent almost all of your life not doing.

But there’s good news, too. When I tell someone that I’ve been playing for thirty years, I’m truly lying through my teeth. Maybe I started playing guitar thirty years ago (okay, it was really thirty-three), but I certainly haven’t been playing all that time. With a lot of luck, not to mention a hazy memory and a wee bit of more lying, I might have put in about five to ten percent of that time playing. That’s how life is.

To play music, to enjoy making music, you have to be in it for the long haul. There will be days when you can’t think of a time in your life when you couldn’t be happier and days when you wonder why you even bother. That’s all part of the big picture.

And, again, this is something that you know in your head and in your heart. When you picked up the guitar you signed on for a trip, not a destination. If you’re only concerned about the end, you’ll never enjoy the trip. And learning should be a constant joy - just as much fun as playing and performing.

For more helpful tips on this subject, read the Guitar Columns A Question of Balance, Recharging Your Batteries, or any of the other many excellent articles on the Guitar Noise Practice Page.

You already know this, but it truly bears repeating - playing music, playing guitar, is a journey of a lifetime. Enjoy your trip. And be sure to write and post pictures!

Peace