As guitar teachers we are inundated with the same request day in and day out … “how do you play ‘insert favorite song here’.”
While there’s nothing wrong with learning your favorite song – I mean, let’s face it, we all started playing guitar because of some cool song we heard (it was ‘Back In Black’ for me) – but there’s a problem with the logic.
You see, learning how to play your guitar, and learning how to play a certain song, are not one in the same. In fact, they aren’t even close.
While there are things to be gained from learning songs, those things are best learned after you have the basics covered and you know what you are working with.
I’ll give you an example from some of my own students over the past couple of years….
I had one student, we’ll call him Steve, who wanted NOTHING to do with learning chord shapes or scales or anything like that. These things are the building blocks of all music, but the only way this guy would play anything at all was if it was a song that he chose.
Of course, I explained why that wasn’t going to be the fastest way to get to where he really wanted to go, but he didn’t care. He thought that if he learned enough songs, he’d be able to play well.
I have another student, we’ll call him Dave. Dave is about the biggest Clapton fan I’ve ever seen. And when we started, all he wanted to learn was Clapton tunes.
The difference between Dave and Steve is that Dave was willing to say “okay, you’re the teacher, and I believe you when you say that this is better.”
So I started Dave on my system, and Steve kept plugging away learning songs.
Steve’s been with me for over 2 years, and still can’t play a blues scale or a pentatonic scale reliably. Some weeks he can, some he can’t. He can’t name most of the chords he can play, which makes them useless in a jam session because if someone says “play a C7″ he needs them to show him which chord that is.
Forget soloing or improvising for Steve… without knowing what chords he’s playing over and how to play the scales even if he did, he’s unable to do any of that.
Dave’s been with me for just over a year, and has gone through almost my entire system. We’ve taken some detours along the way and learned a few tunes, but over the last few months I haven’t had to show him any tunes because HE CAN FIGURE THEM OUT FOR HIMSELF.
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STOP A MINUTE AND THINK ABOUT THIS
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Steve still can’t learn anything on his own, and Dave doesn’t hardly need me for that anymore. I have effectively taught myself out of a job… just the way I like it.
To be honest, Dave’s been able to jam over any Clapton tune he likes for a few months now. I’ve heard him just noodle over stuff when he though I wasn’t listening and he sounds awesome.
Dave still comes to lessons, but are working on more advanced concepts and things outside the scope of the traditional blues thing.
Oh, and Dave doesn’t practice more than Steve. In fact, Dave probably plays less than Steve. Dave is older than Steve and has substantially more family obligations that Steve.
As I said earlier, there’s nothing wrong with learning your favorite songs. But you need to keep your eyes and ears out for some certain things..
- Can you name every single chord in the song you’re playing?
- If you’re learning the solo, can you see what scale, and what fingering patterns the licks are from?
- Can you see what approach the solo the artist is taking?
In all likelihood the answer to these questions will be “no” and you will have not actually learned anything but the song itself. Not only that, but you’ll have taken way longer to learn it than you would have if you already knew the chords and the scales and simply had to recognize them when you heard them.
I transcribe things for my students day in and day out, 6 days a week. Many times I don’t even need to pick up my guitar, I just hit play and start writing. I don’t have perfect pitch, and although I took ear training in college, I was able to do this long before college (it was the one class I aced easily…)
How can I do this? Simple, I recognize everything I hear as a certain chord, scale, or melodic idea. I’ve studied many different approaches and I’ve learned something from all of them. I know, based on the style of music, what approaches are likely, what chords are likely, and what scales are likely to come up. I’m rarely surprised.
So if you’ve been playing for a long time and are not where you think you should be, maybe it’s time to try a different approach. Now, if you don’t practice, no one can help you. But if you spend 20-30 minutes a day on your instrument, and you learn your chords and scales, and you take the time to ‘noodle’ with the things you’ve practiced on that day, you will get better.
Remember, anyone can do this.
