The School of Feedback Guitar Blog

No matter the ability level of a guitarist, he/she tends to learn music similarly. It's not a groundbreaking idea that we all start off kind of clunky at first with something brand new, nor is it surprising if at some point we learn it and find our way. It's definitely not a new idea either that if we are persistent in following up on what we had learned in the first place, we'll master it one day. I wrote about this process once before, but mechanics, flow, and mastery are important enough stages of learning that they are worth a refresher.

Mechanics are exactly what they sound like. After we start learning, there is a period where it just doesn't quite work yet. There's a bit of struggle, a bit of rebellion to this part. However, the clumsiness will sooner or later drop away. At that point, we get a whiff of where we could go. That's the goal of mechanics in a nutshell: You get an irritatingly small taste of mastery.

Flow is, well, flowing. The hands start working together, the fingers are moving elegantly, the brain and the body are all one. This moment can be really fun. "At last! I am able to play this strumming pattern!" However, this is precarious and potentially short-lived. The thing that is dangerous about flow is that one can just as easily move backwards (to mechanics) or forwards (to mastery). Overall, it's a pretty pleasant experience.

There is no better word to describe the feeling of really having a skill other than mastery. Mastery means one doesn't think about how to apply a technique anymore. It becomes part of the guitarist's being and the skill is not going anywhere. I love to teach people strumming because it is very natural for every single one of us on this earth to feel rhythm. We could be 90 years old, pick up a guitar, and probably strum a rhythm. Mastery is ingraining a skill so deeply that we can count on it when we need it.

There is some really great news too: With more experience, this process gets faster. It just takes less time. The more we play and walk towards mastery with the concepts we are interested in exploring, the more available guitar gets overall.

Possibly the coolest thing about blogging is that it's an opportunity to keep working on problems and seeing to their solutions.

"How do you learn a song and still love it just as much when you get done learning it?"

I'm still a little speechless. In the previous posts, I was exploring the philosophical sides of this question. However, there are some logical answers that I think might help someone out if they are having trouble with this question.

First, learning only the guitar part means that one learns only one aspect of the song. In lessons, I love rationalizing why I have the music turned down low while we're playing. Of course it's good to be nice to neighbors, but it's even better to force ourselves to really pay attention to the song. I like to help people even forget that they are playing guitar and encourage them to remember they are playing music. Same deal with the learning the guitar part in a song. If we learn it, we can pay more attention to the rest of the song.

Second, if you plan on learning a song, be prepared to let it go. I learned a difficult jazz solo one year in college, and I felt that I got it, but I also felt that all the mystery of the solo was drained. I still can't listen to that song, and it's too bad. It's a good one. The moral of the story is that if there is mystery and you don't want to lose it, try not to be tempted. In addition, why couldn't you save songs and decide to never learn them? I know this might sound odd, but it's an idea. There is a song that I absolutely love, but the truth is that I have never ever learned it. Why? Because it still is beautiful. Why would I want to spoil it?

Perhaps this still comes down to a major philosophical question that musicians must contend with. Which is more important: The Mystery or the Mastery? For me, mystery is far more important. I never want to lose my love of playing music.

If one reason why you want to learn to play guitar better but hesitate is because you don't want the love of it to disappear, then know you are not alone. Recently, a very creative pair of students posed a question that knocked me speechless:

"How do you learn a song and still love it just as much when you get done learning it?"

I still don't know quite how to do this! Perhaps this question is more of a philosophic one:

"Does the end justify the means?"

In other words, in order to learn a song, do I have to give up my love of it? Do I have to give up the mystery I feel when I listen to it? In order to attain mastery of the song, must I drain it of it's vitality? From what I can see as a teacher, this might lead to a nice simple re-arranging of priorities, and that is not an easy accomplishment.

Which is more important to you: The Mystery or the Mastery?

Most people don't understand that there are musicians out there who never knew a single lick of music theory. It seems odd, but most people consider knowing music theory as the barometer of a musician's mastery. Yet the most famous example of a master musician who had no music theory knowledge was Jimi Hendrix. He knew not a shred of music theory! I think Jimi must have found the guitar mysterious, something to explore, bat around, set fire to, play with his teeth. From the looks of it, it seems he was out to push the guitar and it's capabilities, and that to me speaks of mastery more than anything.

Attaining mastery over the guitar is something quite a few people are after, but does mystery have to be sacrificed in order to get it?  From my standpoint, from a guy who has spent years playing guitar, mystery is far more important. To me, a good song is worth letting go and not learning so I can feel good when I listen to it later. Perhaps losing the love of songs is part of attaining more mastery on the guitar. I don't know. If that's the case, then keep me in the dark please. Music is all I have, and if it's gone then I have nothing left to give.

Expect more blogging on this topic.

Pretty much everyone I know can imagine what a mother does for a baby when he is crying. She rocks him back and forth, and usually (although not intentionally) in a rhythmic manner. I can't prove it, but I really do have a strong hunch that the sensations we pick up on as children is directly correllated to the way we, as adults, perceive rhythm. That rhythmic motion is soothing to a child, somehow just as the beat or the rhythm of a song is soothing to adults. Just like a heartbeat, too. Therefore, as my hunch goes, breaks or gaps in the rhythm are far more distracting than playing wrong chords.

When it comes to playing guitar, again, I would rather hear someone play the wrong chord and the right rhythm, as opposed to the right chord and the wrong rhythm. One of the things that happens to people when they first start playing guitar is that they often will neglect the rhythm in favor of playing or in striving to play the correct chord. This is jarring. Yes it is important to play the right chord. Yes it is important to strive to play "correctly" (if that's the desired outcome, of course). But no, it's not so important to neglect the rhythm for the right chord.

Rhythm in music is soothing to adults like rhythmic patterns (like rocking, or hearing a heartbeat) are soothing to babies. So if the chord is wrong, I won't care. Just as long as the rhythm is there, my suggestion is to smile and keep playing. That's advice given to me from many dance teachers.

I was just thinking about how there is a pretty good way to discern the key of whatever song, and probably guess correctly. The cool thing is that this way doesn't really require knowledge of theory, scales, or even key signatures. Simply put: A good portion of songs start and end on the same exact chord. If the first and last chords were "G major," then you can bet pretty safe money that the key of the song is "G Major." Ditto for any minor chord too, like "B Minor." [Relative majors and relative minors make things tricky sometimes]

This nice cheat works a lot of the time. However, if you guess the wrong key of a song, keep this in mind: Music might be pretty boring if all songs always ended on the same chord they started with!

I chatted yesterday with another guitar teacher in Austin. We both have super-busy professional lives that we are thankful for, no doubt, but we also had one other thing in common: We don't have as much energy to write music since our focuses shifted to teaching and developing our "careers." We both felt that teaching was the easiest way to make a career in music start to happen. The mix between our professional lives and our creative lives has shifted as a result.

I've started to wonder about business and creativity. Do they really mix? Is this just another one of those "Artists are suppossed to suffer" kinds of things? I'm getting more and more disappointed in myself for not creating more music.

Its inspiring to read and follow the exploits of Hugh MacLeod, who has made a steady living off of his prints, the business he promotes, and now his book Ignore Everybody. He did all of this by refusing to act out what he describes as a drama queen moment. It's that moment a person just gives up their job in order to pursue their own work. I think his point is that the drama queen moment is not a well-founded attempt at preparing for a more creative, satisfying life. This doesn't mean I am not tempted to do it! But he started from nothing, and now he is doing great. Even better is that he did it all DiY style.

I really like Hugh MacLeod's book a lot. I sometimes wish there was a better boundary between my business and my creativity. This brings to mind the issue of creativity vs marketing, i.e. which one comes first. I think of how the major record labels develop crappy singers, aka the very best vanilla to promote to an already bored mainstream audience. It's a hope to strike gold once again. It is also putting marketing in front of creativity. The marketing (the dough, the moolah, the greenbacks, the SALES) is more important with this mindset. The product reflects this mindset.

No One Cares. The product is disposable.

The trouble with putting creativity first, like before the marketing, is that one has to really and truthfully follow what they are doing even if it takes them to the grave. Maybe this is why we like entrepreneurs and artists, people who never give up: They build totally from scratch. Most people are fond of using the Van-Gogh example. His creativity was off the charts, but no one cared about him or his work in his time period. The hard part when we mix business and creativity is how to keep them both alive once both are fully developed, or are still being developed. There is always the chance that a bad business decision could set me back a year or two. There is always the chance that I could dry up creatively to the point of never wanting to play guitar again. I hope neither happens.

I guess I just wonder what that balance is. If you know the answer, tell me.