8 damaging myths about learning the guitar
you should know today
by
Greg X
”You need to start from a young age to become a great guitar player”
➔ From my experience as a guitar teacher it will take up to 10 hours for a child
to learn something on the guitar- You will probably pick it up within an hour
long guitar lesson
➔ Children don't have the life experience. You do.
➔ Children don't know how to analyse and solve problems efficiently. You do!
I bet you have solved a lot of problems in your life before; as a matter of fact
you are trying to solve one of them right now!
➔ Children don't know how to study well - You do know that! I bet you completed some form of education otherwise you won't be capable of reading this!
➔ Children cannot focus on things for long enough to understand - I reckon that
you can! Have you read up to this point? Then you’ve focused up to this point
where a child wouldn’t have!
➔ My best students were in their 30's, 40's, 50's and 60's. I even had one 70 year old student that was a fantastic student - you are only as old as you feel! Age is just
a number, it's all about your mindset.
➔ I don't even accept children as my students for the reasons above - But you are very welcome!
“You need to have a natural talent to play the guitar”
➔ I am the best example that this statement is false. If I could learn to play
the guitar well then you can do it too!
➔ With life experience, the right training and effective practice you can become
a great player at virtually any age!
➔ Any skill such as playing an instrument, composing or song writing can be achieved. The magic ingredient to success is the desire to get there!
“All of those great guitar players must have an extremely high work ethic.
That is why they are so good”
➔ According to this statement all the great players must be more patient than we are, they are more intelligent and work harder than we do.... This isn’t technically correct!
➔ All people are the same and share the same weaknesses and strengths.
The great players that you admire are no different from you. These players will have times when they feel lazy, tired or bored just like you. These guitarists are more successful than you because they followed through with learning and playing
the guitar for long enough to get recognition for their abilities. Being completely honest the great players that you find in magazines and in the business more often than not have just made the right business choices, when you think about it there are plenty of sloppy guitar players that have been famous over the years!
➔ So the real key to success is to never give up no matter what and the payoff
for your effort is guaranteed sooner or later. Stay focused on your goals
and you cannot fail!
“You need to teach yourself to become original”
➔ I strongly recommend not believing in that myth. A great guitar player Paul Gilbert from Racer X and Mr Big mentioned on a number of occasions that he studied with
a guitar teacher and became a more creative and technically advanced player.
Don't believe that becoming a great player happens by coincidence or luck or if you do it by yourself. I can promise you that great success will never happen that way. I wasted a lot of time believing in that statement after reading an interview with my favourite guitarist who claimed he was self taught, but forgot to add that he came from a musical family! Some truly great players don't want you to know they were studying with a teacher so that you will believe they have some natural abilities you don't have!
“You need to become a well rounded guitar player”
➔ Name any guitarist you admire and ask yourself this. ‘Are they a well rounded player? Are they equally great at metal, blues, jazz, classical, folk music?
You name the genre.’ I am 100 per cent sure that your answer was no.
➔ Don't study things that you don’t need to achieve your goals. This is a common problem of virtually any guitarist on this whole planet. The myth of the well rounded musician will distract you and prevent from achieving your
musical goal faster.
➔ I met a lot of metal guitar players who went to study jazz hoping to understand music theory better. Unfortunately when you learn jazz you will never become
a virtuoso metal player!
That is why I suggest you to pick out something you really like doing and become
a master of that style.
“You need spend a lot of time practising in order to become a great player”
➔ I am not going to say that you don't have to practice at all to become
a great guitarist, However it’s not about the quantity of time you are spending
on the guitar, it’s the quality.
➔ If you are focused while practising and you know how and what to practice efficiently you definitely don't need to spend a huge amount of time practicing.
➔ It's all about being productive while practising not just spending time on it.
“You need to be able to read music from the standard notation”
➔ Of course this statement, especially nowadays is completely false. A lot of great players have never even looked at traditional notation in their entire lives! This didn't prevent them from becoming great musicians.
➔ You can play music from guitar tablature; a system designed to notate guitar
music that is much easier to understand and get to grips with.
➔ You can also read music using chord charts, you just need to memorise the chord shapes and learn some strumming patterns and have some basic understanding
of the rhythm (meaning -you know how to count to 4)
“It's easier to start on regular acoustic guitar”
➔ This is not true! The easiest instrument to start out with is the electric guitar due to its smaller size and lower action that the electric guitar comes with. This means that you won't have to press down on the strings as hard as you would have to on an acoustic guitar and makes the process of learning much easier!
➔ If your favoured music style is rock or metal you won't have a chance to sound anywhere near like bands you like to listen to. If you choose an electric guitar
you will be able to play some rock songs within a few weeks....
