Learning to learn how to play guitar

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Oh, how it pains me to say this: I’ve been playing guitar for over 20 years.  But I can’t call myself a guitarist.

I have a pretty solid background in music theory and harmony.  I minored in music at UC Berkeley.  I can find my way around a piano.   Yet somehow, I never learned how to learn how to play guitar!  I never once took a lesson.

For the first five years or so, I learned just enough to be able to play the songs I was writing, and I even played and sang in a band.  I never learned more than the open chords, the E-form bar chord, and the note names on the first string.   Mostly I wrote songs by noodling on the guitar until something sounded good.  It was “art”.

For the next decade or so, I didn’t really learn much more.  I deluded myself into thinking that my lack of knowledge was a benefit.  Knowing where all the notes were would inhibit my creative flow!  Knowing what I was playing would take away the magic!   Mostly I wrote songs by noodling on the guitar until something sounded good.  It was “art”.

For the next five years or so, I dabbled in learning classical guitar, and some fingerstyle.  I worked with a few books.  But I still really couldn’t find my way around the guitar, and I mostly gave up writing songs.

It was so not “art”!

Why is it so difficult to learn the guitar??  Why, seriously, WHY did I not hear about “CAGED” until this year?  And the five forms of the major scale and the pentatonic, and how they all fit together so nicely?  Why didn’t some musician friend tell me?   Why didn’t I go find this information somewhere?   Where was Justin Sandercoe when I needed him?! 🙂

Ok, I feel like an idiot.   I wish I had started learning this stuff 20 years ago and taken lessons, rather than all that fine “art” I made 🙂  I still like some of the songs I wrote.   But I’d trade most of them for having spent the time to really know this instrument, and be confident and comfortable playing it.

So, I’m determined to focus on really learning my way around.  I’m going to set clear goals, and challenge myself to improve.  And maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to come back to writing a song, and actually know what I’m doing for a change!