process over product

Deep Roots by The School of Feedback Guitar

Learning is about growth.

Learning is about growth. When you think about what growth is, when you try to define it, what comes to mind?

If you’re like most people, growth happens upwards. Our economy grows upwards, our skills grow upwards, our financial well-being grows upwards (if we have the right attitude about it, of course).

AS a lifelong guitarist and a teacher for more than a decade, it seems to me that growth happens in many different ways. I think of it like trees:

Tree will grow…

  1. Upwards

  2. Thicker

  3. Downwards

Three Types of Growth In Guitar

Growth upwards is one the we are most familiar with, as guitarists. We grow to play faster, more songs, better technique, and so on.

Growth that is thicker is less familiar for most guitarists. This is growth where we look to learn different genres of guitar. Where we purposely challenge ourselves to learn a new style of playing, something that is alien to us currently. A good example would be a punk rock guitarist deciding to learn jazz guitar.

Grow that goes downwards is something that is incredibly unfamiliar for most guitarists. This is a different type of growth, and the type of growth I most concern myself with as a teacher and life-long musician. It’s simple: Growing deeper roots means stabilizing how we practice and how we approach guitar.

An example is this: If we wish to get faster at a certain passage, we not only try to learn the passage, but we learn the techniques of working on that process over time, we work on trying different ways of playing (or in my world, workflows).

It is my sincere wish for all guitarists to know exactly how fun it is to have deep roots, to be able to practice and learn anything, to be able to solve one’s own problems. We can always learn more stuff on guitar, but it’s learning how to practice and how to adjust our process where the real fun comes in.

How Hard is it to Learn Guitar? 5 Tips to Make Guitar Easier to Learn by The School of Feedback Guitar

2015 Fender Telecaster Classic 60s Baja FSB by Freebird, Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic

How hard is it to learn guitar? That's up to you. The most simplistic answer is to figure out how hard you expect it to be.

If you expect that it's going to be insanely difficult, then you are going to have an insanely difficult time learning guitar.

Expectations aside, there are ways that you can make guitar a bit easier to learn. These tips work because the most successful beginners to guitar do them without thinking about it. Ready?

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Do You Suck At Guitar? by The School of Feedback Guitar

Expression by Fe IlyaAttribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic

The critical inner voice is at it again! What is it? It's that malicious little brat of a voice that kicks dirt on your mental shoes, spits on your thoughts, and leaves a flaming pile of dog poop at the door of your mind for you to stamp out.

It's the ding-dong-ditcher that rings up at 3 am, wakes you up, and then quietly laughs at him or herself for fooling you. 

No matter where this voice comes from, or how it started for that matter, it's important that we engage the voice and try to get at the heart of the judgements it sends to us.

It might be saying that we need to work on some skills that have escaped our attention.

This means we ought to figure out what skills we need in order to change and get better at guitar.

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What should be my top guitar goal? by The School of Feedback Guitar

Airness by Dave, Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic

The top guitar goal that I recommend is this: Enjoy the process of learning guitar in order to enrich your life with music.  

Notice that this goal is free from judgement, comparison, achievement, deadline, or even a sense of urgency. This is definitely on purpose. If guitar is a hobby for you, this goal will help you learn it in a very satisfying manner without it taking over your life. 

Let's break it into two chunks, and get into why this goal is so helpful.

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