B7 Chord Photos: High Resolution.

This B7 chord is often seen in songs that I have been teaching a lot these days. These songs include:

1. I Should Have Known Better - The Beatles
2. Pop A Top - Jim Ed Brown
3. And It Spread - The Avett Brothers

Need a little help making the B7 chord your own? Here’s a couple of pictures to help you out.

Need a little custom help? Come and book a lesson! I'm here to help you, and I would be honored with your presence.

When Not To Practice (and how to figure out when to move forward)

As guitarists, we are constantly subjected to a restless energy that pervades our personal, practicing lives: The need to always get “better” at guitar. As a result, countless people are burning themselves out from this wonderful instrument!

I have seen plenty of students make practicing guitar into a super heavy commitment. Anyone who is familiar with my teaching method knows that I only assign practice exercises that can be completed in under five minutes of practice each day. The result is this: We tend to get more momentum with smaller, more targeted amounts of practice.

Sometimes however, we have to be mindful of how we are practicing because in no other activity on guitar do we spend so much time relating to the instrument. Sure there’s performance, but how many beginners are interested in that? My point is, sometimes we take practicing guitar a little too seriously and we need to chill out!

The following are four situations where I think it would be a smart idea to practice less, or even not to practice at all. Let’s jump in!

Don’t practice guitar when life is overwhelming you

Do you need any reminder about this? Life is challenging enough without adding extra weight in which might complicate things.

When my father died, I didn’t bother to even think about practicing. Rather, I let it go and allowed myself to grieve naturally. When I was ready, I found myself back in the saddle and practicing with gusto.

Don’t practice guitar when you’re extremely tired

Again, we can say this is common sense. Practicing guitar is a mentally heavy activity. Why go at it when we are tired?

Lately, I’ve been getting into my studio early in the morning. I’ve found that I can get more done when I’m fresher and have experienced less in a day. There are times however when I just need sleep and I forced myself to get to the studio only to realize that I just wanted to take a nap! It’s better just to take the nap and come back later.

Don’t practice guitar when your hand, or any part of your body is hurting

Many times, we practice more and more and more for no good reason, which is misguided. That saying “No Pain No Gain” doesn’t apply to guitar. It’s the type of instrument that will punish you if you try to practice it and ignore pain.

As a graduate student at the Eastman School of Music, studying classical guitar, I often put in 6-8 hours of practice every single day. I would ignore pain, and as a result my body felt fatigued with practice. That experience came close to ruining my relationship with guitar, which I believe is far more important than “being good at guitar.”

Don’t practice guitar if you’re feeling a lot of tension in your body

One reason I love music is because it offers me a chance to just relax and enjoy the music I’m playing. Why on earth would I want to make that very enjoyable experience into a tension-filled one?

One student I worked with years ago often practiced with so much tension that she stopped feeling like it was fun anymore. She played with so much tension that she was unable to play without it. Technique on the guitar can be built on tension, but the problem is you’ll need that tension to be able to play what you practiced.

In conclusion

It’s not often that you’ll want to put the guitar down, especially after you get some momentum on the instrument! But sometimes, staying still and not approaching it is the best way to get better and to enjoy playing it.

How to Learn Guitar on YouTube

There are millions on guitar lessons on YouTube. Millions. How do you choose which one is best for you? How do you choose the best teacher for what you’re interested in? After all, learning guitar on YouTube is possible, but it can be a really difficult task if you don’t have some guidance.

Luckily, there are ways you can make it easier. Here are my tips on how to learn guitar on YouTube:

Know your skill level

If you know your skill level at guitar, then you know exactly what videos to look for. Not all YouTube guitar teachers are great at saying what level their video lessons are for, but if you can find one that is specifically meant for your skill level, that’s half the battle.

For instance, I like to give my YouTube lessons a rating from 0 to 10. When I rate a lesson at a 0, it’s meant for people who have zero experience, and 10 is for experts.

Know the style of what you want to learn

Many people are sucked into the guitar lessons that are interesting but not exactly what they want to learn. For example, you may want to learn indie-rock, but the guitar teacher on YouTube is showing you a pentatonic scale. Though that scale might be interesting, it’s not exactly what you want to learn, right?

Knowing the style of what you want to learn will make it a lot easier to find good content that’s relevant to your interests, and will keep you engaged for longer with the guitar.

Find teachers that are interesting and funny

Guitarists can be either really funny and a party to hang out with, or they can be a bit of a downer! There’s a little in-between that, but my point is to find a teacher that doesn’t rub you the wrong way.

I’ve always made it a point to make sure that my students are having an excellent time in their lessons with me. It’s important that you have a good time learning, that it doesn’t feel stressful.

If you get frustrated, seek real advice from a human being

The biggest problem with YouTube is that is doesn’t allow you to interact with the teacher in real-time. This means that you are at a disadvantage, especially when it comes to learning something custom. That is why I recommend not being shy about finding a local guitar teacher whom you like and can ask questions.

I will be honest: Many of my students tried to learn how to play guitar on YouTube and failed, so you are probably climbing an uphill battle. Be good to yourself if it doesn’t work out, because chances are that it will be a lot tougher to learn that way than to take lessons (but of course, I’m biased!).

Good luck!

Guitar Calluses: How long does it take to get them?

One of the questions that the majority of beginners I work with ask is “How long does it take to form guitar calluses?”

It’s a worthy question, considering that their new hobby is just starting, and they want to make sure it isn’t always painful.

The good news is that everyone will develop guitar calluses within two weeks of starting to play guitar. This is assuming you put in regular practice, and it’s my belief that five minutes a day is the perfect amount.

Good luck!

Micro-Practicing: The Most Underrated Way to Practice Guitar

One of the most commonly heard adages that guitar teachers are fond of is this idea of practicing "an hour every day." I think this advice is the product of an un-enlightened tradition of music educators who's ideas aren't in line with the expectations of who they are teaching.

What is really interesting to me is this ratio:

The amount of time you practice : How interested you are in the instrument.

What I find truly crazy is how guitar teachers will berate a student for not practicing an hour when he or she is brand new. What's completely insane is that guitar teachers haven't figured out exactly what that student must do in that entire hour anyways!

What I mean is this: Just because you practice five hours a day doesn't mean you're actually getting anywhere. Don't believe me?

Lessons From Graduate School Guitar Programs

In graduate school, learning classical guitar at the Eastman School of Music, I practiced no less than 6 hours per day. I taught beginners who were just starting to learn the instrument and I told them this:

As long as you come to your lesson each week, you'll get an A. If you skip one, you get a B, and so on and so forth. Attendance based.

The idea was to experiment with how much time they really needed to practice guitar and get more interested in it. This was at Alfred University, about an hour or so south of Rochester NY. Most of the students thrived with this format. There were a few students who found out they weren’t at all interested in guitar, but after they dropped the class I'm sure they felt a lot better.

I noticed a pattern: The more a student got into guitar and made it his/her own, the more time they spent practicing. The more we are interested in guitar, the more we'll practice it.

To expect a brand new student, someone who has never played guitar before but is looking to try it out, how can we expect them to create an extra hour of time for practicing guitar when even they don't even know if they want to continue?

This is exactly the reason why micro-practicing at the very beginning of learning guitar is absolutely essential. If a person's interest in guitar slowly grows, the amount of time grows naturally and organically. Best of all, I never told them they had to put in outrageous amounts of time.

In other words, five minutes of practice each day is totally doable.

Buy a guitar at a guitar shop, or buy online?

Buy a guitar at a guitar shop, or buy online?

Perhaps you've heard the call from local businesses in your area, "Support your local business." The greatest advantage that you have in doing just so with a guitar shop is that you can get a ton of perks that you won't get from buying a guitar online.

The most obvious perk you get is a reassurance that returning the guitar will not be that big of a hassle. Just drive back to the guitar store, and ask for a refund. It's never a bad idea to chck out the store policy on returning guitars. How long of a period do you have? Will you get a refund of cash/credit card, or will you get store credit? Get this in writing.

The less obvious perk is getting the guitar set up for you. I've rarely bought a guitar from a guitar shop without them offering to set up the guitar for me. They know that online guitar sales businesses can't really set up a guitar just for you, and in doing so they will likely earn repeat business. I can't blame them. Honestly, I have my favorite guitar shops that I go to because their customer service can't be beat. 

The other extreme advantage of going to a guitar shop is that the people who work there are full of information that they want to share with you. Ask them any question about guitars, and they will share. If you are a naturally curious person, you'll find that talking to guitar shop employees to be great fun.

The disadvantages, I believe, are far outweighed by the advantages. Since online guitar dealers tend to have massive warehouses where they can store a ton of guitars, amps, accessories, and because most of them try to have a worldwide presence without having a storefront, their prices are so much cheaper than local guitar shops. This one advantage cannot possibly compete with the experience of a guitar shop, a helpful employee, and a new guitar that since you held it you fell in love with it.  

My recommendation if you are a beginner to guitar? Buy a guitar from a guitar shop, and skip buying online altogether, at least for your first guitar.