Cut Out All That Macho S**t and Learn How to Play Guitar
I’m learning to play the guitar. After wanting to learn how to play for most of my adult life, I’m finally taking John Mellencamp’s advice and learning how to play. It was about one year ago last week that I began lessons with a teacher here in Traverse City, and I would personally say that I have made moderate progress. (My wife would probably suggest that I have improved a lot, but she is typically very supportive of me, much more so than anyone else in my life at least. She may be right, though.) While my initial thought was to learn how to just strum chords to accompany myself when singing, my first teacher didn’t really take me in that direction; I mastered many of the basic “cowboy chords,” of course, meaning the chords shaped in the first several frets of the neck, but he never really focused on helping me pick up any full songs I could add to my tiny repertoire. Surprisingly to me, he also neglected to assign me any scales, and only showed me an E minor “Blues” scale he taught me, one that I’d already grabbed from an online teacher in another form a few months before. Now, I’m no musician, but I have some experience as a teacher, which you may already know, and one of the hallmarks of a good teacher in my mind is the existence of a discernible structure to the lesson plan. My guitar teacher—I’ll call him “Max”—didn’t seem to have any particular structure or lesson plan that he used. He taught me techniques, many of which I’m certain will be of great use to me as a I go along, and a few riffs that were fun to learn, but didn’t mean as much without learning the rest of the songs that they came from. Yeah, it’s “cool,” but I still don’t play “This Land Is Your Land” in its entirety, and I really think that I should after twelve months of lessons. “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” and “Alice’s Restaurant” should be completed by this point as well, and I believe I should be able to play all three songs from start to finish. I can’t, sadly, even though I have the basic chord progressions committed to memory. Finishing them on my own will be a priority over the next 3-6 months, but he never pushed me to complete them.
At the same time, I have mastered a rough version of Paul McCartney’s “Blackbird,” which uses finger-picking patterns and pinch chords, and I am currently engaged in learning how to sing along with what was a rather difficult picking pattern and arrangement six months ago. From my viewpoint, that demonstrates a much stronger skill level than merely being able to strum a few chords and sing a Woody Guthrie song—or even an Arlo Guthrie song—but it wasn’t Max’s idea for me to learn the whole song. He showed me some pinch chords from a sequence he was teaching me to practice the technique, used that practice to show me how to apply it to “Blackbird,” and then moved over to show me how they were similar in make-up to the intro of “Alice’s Restaurant.” All good, I grant you, but I still didn’t learn how to play either song. It was not until I went in and told him that I wanted to go back to it and learn it completely, well enough that I could pick it and sing it at the same time and do the entire song as a full performance, that he helped me finish the whole song. So, as a student, it is important to find the right teacher and even more important to speak up if you don’t like the direction it is going; if your teacher is willing to change course for you, great, but if the teacher doesn’t agree and it is important enough to you, find another teacher. That’s what I did. I found one or two people who had a presence on YouTube, and their teaching style was closer to what I was looking for. I use them for supplemental instruction, especially for learning new scales or how to play a specific song I want to play. (There are a wealth of guitar players on the internet, and many are willing to show beginners tricks or techniques that are very, very helpful. Some charge and some don’t, while the good ones offer some things for free and charge for a full-fledged course of instruction. Learning how to play guitar in this day and age seems infinitely easier than the origin stories of so many guitarists, many of whom claim to have plunked and picked and listened to master the songs and stylings of their favorites, rather than ready access to complete video recordings of exactly how to play that one song. It’s truly fabulous.) I’m not here to plug anyone’s site or inadvertently give any proprietary information away, but you can send me a message if you want any suggestions about the sources that I have used, and I will be happy to pass along the names of Paul Davids, Justin Guitar, or Marty Schwartz. (I know—I said I wasn’t going to do that. Hello, I lied.) There are some great books out there, too, both contemporary and classic titles that people have been using for years.
After deciding to part ways with Max, who also didn’t finish working through a song by the Man in Black, pictured above, that we started on, I went back to a couple of the online teachers I’d discovered along the way. I have picked up a lot of good things from several of them. Then I remembered that the man who had sold me my favorite guitar—a Taylor Grand Auditorium acoustic from their Custom shop, featuring a sinker redwood top and walnut back and sides, a real work of art—also had been teaching guitar for many, many years. He plays finger-style, which means that he finger-picks the notes using just his fingers, rather than a pick. He can strum, of course, but he generally finger-picks, predominantly using the Travis Pick style, and this is something that I wanted to learn. I’m not certain that I feel strongly enough about it to make this my sole method of playing, but it might be; I certainly enjoy picking the strings with my fingers—without a plectrum, which is the high-falutin’ name they use to identify a pick. Better with my fingers than with a pick? I don’t know yet. All I’m sure of is that I love the feel of picking the strings with my fingers, and using a pick is not as pleasant a tactile experience for me. That could change, I don’t know. I get the feeling that many guitarists use a different attack for a given song or style than they might for another; it is certainly true that we lose a pick every once in a while, so being able to fingerpick might turn out to be a necessity. Everything comes down to the sound as far as I’m concerned, and I don’t even want to try “Blackbird” with a pick. Beside the extra work that would be needed, I just love the way it sounds with pinch chords played with the fingers alone. I love learning how to play and right now am absorbing every style or technique I can get someone to teach me. There is no need to impress anyone with any macho crap—or any other kind of crap—I just want to learn how to play this guitar. Or that other guitar.
Guitar Doofus
Or even that other guitar over there. Yeah, I have some choices now, as I have become completely addicted to playing, to the point that I’ll be driving somewhere and catch myself wondering about a new song or a new guitar. And I don’t need a new guitar; I have six of them. Well, seven if you count the 12-string. And a bass. I mean, I think I have a problem! It’s not as bad as having a drug habit, I guess, but it could be. While I’m usually just kidding, I made the mistake of wondering aloud whether I might at some point accompany someone in church or jam with friends—even mentioning that I’d read that bass players are often few and far between, meaning I might be able to switch to bass if a band had a need—and my wife has taken to mocking me lightly with comments about next year when I start “going out on gigs.” I have thought about whether I could start giggin’ if I ever get good at it. Though I’m much more likely to be labeled as a “Guitar Doofus” than a “Guitar Hero,” I’ve heard of stranger things happening. Let me be clear: I’m not fantasizing about a record contract here. (There is an idea floating around in my head where a father who has been estranged from his son starts playing a guitar out of loneliness and eventually gets a record contract, but it really is just a story idea. Thought you should know in the spirit of full disclosure, however.) I simply might like to play in public at some point. With the cringey feeling I got listening and watching myself play my signature tune on a Facebook post, I sincerely doubt it will be anytime soon, if at all. Yes, I recognized the song. There were some kind comments. As I watched and listened, however, it was very hard not to judge my performance pretty harshly. There won’t be any more public postings for a while, but I’m also not saying that I’ll never post a recording of myself again; as an artist, I know that the comments and self-evaluation can be very important to the growth of the artist, even if there is no ultimate goal beyond being able to play along while I sing a song. Each day, I go through the various drills I’ve come up with for myself, and I can feel (and hear) myself get a little bit better at it. Still a long way to go, but I’ve been working on another song to add to my repertoire, and it is coming along, note by note and chord by chord.
The odd and wonderful thing is that every once in a while, I make a little mini breakthrough, and I find I can play something that I couldn’t before. In my most recent lesson with my new teacher, I told him that I really wanted to know a few more songs. He suggested that I find a song I really liked, track down the chord progression for that song, and then just start working on it with one of the Travis Pick patterns that he’s been teaching me. There are several of these, and he told me to use the one I learned first and feel most comfortable with, the Outside In pattern. After looking through the books and papers I have been accumulating for over a year, I came across the sheet music for “Puff the Magic Dragon,” and started using the pattern to play the first couple of chords. I was amazed to discover that I could actually recognize the song within less than five minutes and could actually start to sing along while I played. I was totally blown away. There is a chord that I don’t know in there, a B minor, and that will take some work to get better at the chord change to use it, but the notes are definitely there. Crazy. I’m not ready to take requests here, but if I can get the repertoire up to eight or ten songs, I think I’d feel more comfortable playing one of those songs for people, especially if it is something with which I can sing along. (For those of you counting, we are up to “Blackbird,” “Puff the Magic Dragon,” two different “Eight Bar Blues” melodies, another Bluesy passage, and parts of two or three more songs. There is still no way I can sing along on most of them, but I can do at least parts of the first two. That is progress for sure.) If I’m called upon to play a riff or two, Max showed me a few of those; I’m guessing they will mostly go unplayed.
Even though I have yet to play an electric guitar, I have acquired a number of acoustic models, most of which are steel six-strings. Two of my guitars have nylon strings: a vintage Gibson C-1 and a Taylor 214 CE. The Gibson is from the 60s, and while I probably paid too much for it, I enjoy playing it once in a while. It has a wider fingerboard and more of a classical tone to the sound that comes from plucking the strings on it; the frets are sometimes harder to reach on it, but there’s something timeless in the way it sounds. (That’s the one I’ll be playing as soon as I post this essay.) The Taylor has a much richer sound and a slightly narrower fingerboard, and I really like playing it. When I play a little too much on one of the steel-stringed instruments, my fingers can get a little sore, but I often want to keep playing. If I switch to a guitar with nylon strings, it’s much easier on the ol’ fingertips, but I can keep practicing for another half an hour or more. Again, the tone on this one is very different from the steel strings on my other guitars, but it is a really nice change. You see, I’m such a doofus that I keep buying guitars, even though I don’t play the first one well enough yet. Guess I’m making up for lost time; now that I’m nearly sixty, I’m trying to squeeze 30 or 40 years of guitar playing into whatever time I have left, so I see a 12-string and I think, “I wanna try that!” So now I have an inexpensive 12-string D’Angelico hanging from a hook in my study. (Man Cave? Guitar Room?) Do I know how to play it? No, I can’t even TUNE it. You know what, though? As soon as I feel like giving it a try, I have one in the house I can pick up and play. Same with the Hofner bass I bought after watching Paul McCartney play it—if I want to try playing a bass, I have one hanging in the bedroom!
I like that. I’m no hero, but this doofus at least plays the guitar.
Three Chords Six Strings and the Truth
You know what, Bono? If you need to know the truth, you need more than three chords. I mean, three chords will do you for a few songs, but there is a lot more to know than just three chords. And to which three are you referring? A given progression will use the I-IV-V chords, but is that enough? I think not. Even if you just want to use the “Heart and Soul” chord progressions of the 50s, three won’t be enough; you need the I-vi-IV-V if you want to play the “Duke of Earl.” Guess what? You need the same progression for “Viva La Vida” by Coldplay, too! Max started me off with the G chord, the C, the D major, and the D7, too. It took a while to get them all down, but if one opens a book to show all the available chords, there are pages of them a guitarist can use. (Remember the B minor I mentioned that I discovered was in “Puff”?) The good news is that once you learn them, you have them for the rest of your life, even if you have to refresh your memory from time to time. I mean, not every song uses the B minor in the chord progression: Use It or Lose It! The number of chords seems endless, whether I’m looking at majors or minors or 7th chords or power chords; I’m still trying to get the hang of barre chords, but those apparently use the same shape all the way down the fret board. That is crazy! Even one shape makes more than three chords. I don’t know if I’ll ever write my own songs. Maybe I can, but maybe I started so late in life that I’ll never have the ability; maybe I could play the guitar for fifty years and still never have the facility for songwriting. Who knows? I may have to settle for just re-writing lyrics of existing songs like it seems that Woody Guthrie often did, as did many of the groundbreaking folk and blues players. That seems acceptable to me. If I can’t find the truth in some hundred years of music, perhaps the truth is not worth knowing.
But I think the truth is in there somewhere. Even more than when I’m simply listening to music, when I pick up one of these guitars and begin to play, I feel peace and joy and simple pleasure. There are struggles as I learn a new chord, or a new pattern, or a new pattern on a new chord, but having something so simple and yet concrete to which I can apply my brain and my hands and my heart and my voice feels true to me; there’s a purity in the act of learning a new song or passage of music. In practice there is concentration and effort. There is an attempt at mastery. I may never master it, but each day as I continue to try, I get a little closer, and yet a little closer. In the endless noise of this world, there is tranquility in learning how to make music that “has charms to soothe a savage breast,” as William Congreve famously contended in “The Mourning Bride” in 1697. Now, I don’t know if Congreve could play “Puff the Magic Dragon” on his guitar, but he certainly understood that music has the power to grant us peace, expressed in the notes of a snatch of song. Shakespeare understood the power of music, too; Duke Orsino was both thrilled and depressed by the same piece of music, and I don’t think ol’ Will Shakespeare even knew any power chords.
Life without guitar would B♭.
