Rock The Six String
Learning to play the guitar should be fun. Playing your favourite songs, being able to jam with friends or playing at open mics without worrying if it will go well.
Music is integral to our lives; think about the songs that are so good that when you park your car, you find yourself sitting there with the engine off until the end of the song, rather than just jumping out. How about the times when you’ve become so immersed with a track you take a diversion as you walk home just so you can keep listening to it? Or you have no choice but to hit the share button and send it to your friends to hear.
These are the songs that we want to impress our friends with by being able to pick up a guitar and being able to play it. Their faces light up as they start to sing along, tapping their feet and asking you to play more. This is what playing music is all about: being able to entertain and bring enjoyment into our lives and the lives of others.
These are the reasons why so many people dream of learning guitar. I know that’s the reason I wanted to learn. I heard the guitar in songs, and I wanted to play like that!
I wanted to be able to pick the guitar up and without hesitation, start playing a song just like the musicians on stage do. No music sheets, confident in their musical ability and most of all, they seemed to be having an absolute blast while doing it.
Learning how to do such a fun thing should be, well, fun. Why is it that so many people seem to want to discourage you from playing by making it sound joyless and tedious with endless theory and repetitive non-musical technical exercises?
“You must learn the entire fretboard from day 1.”
“Play these finger strengthening exercises each day to build your technique up ready to learn a song in 3 months.”
“If you don’t learn when you are very young you’ll never be any good.”
Looking through YouTube, you would think it would be a lot better. There are thousands of videos on there, but do you ever feel that there always seems to be something missing? Plus, do you ever find that you start out watching guitar lesson videos on YouTube and somehow you end up watching something completely unrelated (usually involving a cat)? It’s excellent for procrastinating, not so much for learning the guitar.
It’s frustrating!
For people like you would care about their music, I’m sure it’s frustrating because you aren’t getting the answers you want. It must feel like people want to discourage you, sometimes quite actively, from learning an instrument by making it sounds joyless.
It’s frustrating for me because I believe that peoples lives are better from learning to play an instrument. I’m not just talking about the people at the very top of their game. Playing the guitar can be a way to wind down after a long day. It’s something we can share with friends and family (and let’s be honest, show off with in front of friends and family).
So we are going to be doing things differently here.
We are going to have fun! You’re going to learn to ignore all the things that aren’t relevant to you this second and focus on the things that will take your guitar playing forward quickly.
Common Concerns
“If you don’t learn when you are young you’ll never be any good.”
Throughout my time teaching, I have heard many peoples concerns that they have left it too long. Many times these same people have surprised themselves with just how wrong they were. Though if this is your concern, does it make sense to wait longer before you begin? As the says goes (and I’m paraphrasing here) the best time to start was yesterday, the second best time to start is now.
Do we need to learn every single scale under the sun before we can play along with a song?
No. We are only going to learn things that are useful to you right now.
What are these mode things people keep mentioning?
Basically, they are just more scales; you don’t need to worry about these right now, so don’t waste your time on them and focus on something else, like moving your chords faster instead.
The guy down the street said that he heard you had to learn to read music before being able to play anything.
I encourage my students to learn to play first and learn to read music later. That might seem the wrong way around to many teachers out there, but I do this for two reasons. The first reason: when you decided to learn to play the guitar, did you want to learn to play the guitar or read music? The second is you can apply what you know from playing to reading the music notation and absorb it much faster.
At Rock The Six String we cut through all the nonsense and theory that isn’t relevant at this very moment and keep it concise and straightforward.
Does that mean that you are going to play the guitar without any mistakes or practice straight away with these ‘magic techniques’?
Let’s be real: becoming a good guitar player takes work. You have to spend time playing; there is no way around that.
That doesn’t mean you have to play endless boring exercises that don’t even sound remotely musical. But if you don’t want to spend time playing the guitar, well, why do you want to learn to play the guitar? You’d be better off heading back to YouTube to check out more of those videos with cats in them.
For the ones that are still here, Rock The Six String is for you. I believe almost anyone can learn to play the guitar, but not everyone can become a guitarist. That’s what makes being able to play an instrument so cool; not everyone has the drive to do it. The ones that do get the payoff of being able to play any song that they want. They get to play songs while their friends sing along. They learn to write songs, and they get to start bands.
Here’s to your guitar journey, let’s make it memorable!
When you sign up to Rock The Six String you will receive information such as:
- How to blend your chords together seamlessly
- Supercharge your practice time so you’re not wasting time on things you don’t need
- Learn to play guitar by ear – meaning you can work out and play any song you want!
- Ways to become more confident and feel at ease playing in front of other people
- Creating your own solos and lead parts