Rule #1

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