After months of consideration, I finally took the plunge and called about guitar lessons. These will be the first lessons I've taken since high school. I really don't know what to expect. I talked to the guy on the phone for a little while and he sounded very knowledgeable and personable.
I want to take lessons because I want more structure to my playing and practicing. Over the years, my practice sessions consisted of me banging around on my guitar for an hour or so. Maybe I'd play a song or two, maybe I'd go through some finger exercises, but it was never organized. Lately, I've been trying to force myself to have some discipline. I try to do finger exercises every day and I go over my CAGED patterns for a while, but it's still not as structured as I'd like. I'm hoping that taking lessons will force me to concentrate on specific aspects of my playing so I can become the guitarist I want to be.
This guy will be my fourth guitar instructor. My first one was back when I was 11 years old. I took lessons from a guy who, although a good player and teacher, I'll always remember for his prodigious phlegm production. He'd constantly cough and snort back snot like he perpetually had the flu. I remember going through the Mel Bay guitar book with my phlegmy instructor, learning "Jingle Bells" on two strings among other exciting tunes. At the same time, a good friend of mine also began his foray into the guitar world. We both took lessons at the same music store (although his teacher was the cool one, i.e. the non-phlegmy one) and we'd get together at his house and practice together. It was good fun, until that summer when he moved away. With my fellow guitar neophyte gone and with a typical 12-year-old's attention span, I soon stopped going to my lessons and pretty much gave up playing the guitar. (On a side note, when I met up with my friend again in high school he was a kick-ass guitar player, so I guess I was the only one with the poor attention span.)
My second teacher was by far the most memorable and the one who had the most impact on my playing. He was a hair band guitarist back when hair bands were cool. In fact, he's still kind of a hair band guitarist, he's just found a new outlet to channel it. I know this is a semi-anonymous blog, but I doubt he'd mind a plug for his latest project. Anyway, he was a very cool guy, just the kind of guy a 15-year-old budding guitarist would look up to. The things he taught me are still with me today. He's the one who taught me the pentatonic scale positions, which have been and still are the foundation for my playing. I still use them exclusively when I play my BS solos or I'm just messing around. They're also the basis from which I'm learning the CAGED major scale positions. Unfortunately, he went off to college and I was stuck again with no teacher.
The third teacher I had was, and I hate to say this, highly unmemorable. He was a nice enough guy and a fine guitarist, I just didn't learn anything from him. My lessons consisted of me bringing in a tape of a song I wanted to learn (this was before CDs were popular), him playing it and trying to figure out said song, then him teaching what he figured out to me. It was actually quite boring, especially once I found out that I could learn things by ear on my own and skip the middle man. I stopped going to him and started self-teaching, which helped make me the mediocre guitarist I am today.
I'm hoping for better things with #4. I enjoyed speaking with him on the phone and I liked his proposal for my lessons and how they would progress. I go on Sunday for lesson one. I'll be sure to let you know how it went.
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