Learning Guitar At Last

Comment from ken baldwin
Date: October 26, 2007, 12:15 am

Good on you Ben. Will we hear you sing too perhaps?

Check outr Morning Becomes Eclectic on KCRW http://www.kcrw.com/music/programs/mb They have an awsome achive of live in-studio sessions with pretty much any decent group you can think of.

Good luck
Ken

Comment from Dave Illig
Date: October 26, 2007, 2:32 am

Great work in a short amount of time. I am learning Spanish and found out you are playing guitar through your spanish learning website. It is a great resource. If you check out my web site, listen to my daughter on her page. Stephanie is a very accomplished guitarist for her age.

Dave

Comment from Tom
Date: October 26, 2007, 4:28 am

Very interesting video…it brings back memories of trying to get my fingers into strange positions myself after my first couple of guitar lessons Good luck - I look forwards to hearing that ‘Adalante’ (??) song next week!

Comment from jon hundt
Date: October 26, 2007, 4:54 pm

Ben - I am not at all convinced that you have the right guitar instructor. He may be a fine fellow and an accomplished player, he might be a great instructor… but you have to consider whether he is the right teacher for you.

First off - the Spanish have their own proud tradition of guitar playing, and they can play very well indeed. But it is a different tradition than, say, the American or UK tradition. You maybe noticed that when you bought your guitar. It’s not made in Spain, and it was more expensive than in other places. Spanish tradition is NOT about steel-string guitars. In a land where the guitar is practically a national emblem you can hardly find a decent reasonably-priced steel-string acoustic guitar. The Spanish tradition is firmly rooted in flamenco and classical gut- or nylon-string instruments.

And there’s why I question your match with the teacher. He has started you off on a typical classical guitar path, and a bit of an academic one at that. Did he ask you what you wanted out of the guitar? Did you ask yourself? I love Spanish guitar music - but that’s not what I want to play! Let them play it, I can listen and enjoy. Personally, I like old honky-tonk country music (like Hank Williams)… that has almost nothing to do with Spanish guitar music, at least at the beginner stage. The same can be said of UK/US folk music, blues, 60’s pop, etc. Much of what your teacher is already starting you on is not really relevant to these styles (at a beginner level)

I have seen lots of young kids who really wanted to play. I think most kids would love to play guitar. Then they get a guitar and their parents send them to lessons. With a teacher like you have, most kids will give up after two or, maybe three lessons. There is very little satisfaction or reward in learning a classical etude and doing endless finger excercises. Most kids want to play popular songs by artists they know. When I started out in the 60’s I wanted to play Bob Dylan, the Byrds, the Stones, the Beatles… that kind of stuff. A teacher who gave me homework like your’s did - well, that would never work! In fact I did it all myself without a teacher because I wasn’t interested in that approach when I was 12 years old.

Now, as a grown man who wants to learn the guitar, you have to think about what you really want to learn and what you want the teacher to teach you. And you have to talk with the teacher about that, and if he/she doesn’t ‘get it’, you would do better to find someone else. If I was trying to teach you, I would begin with this: “Ben, what guitar players do you like? Who are your favorite performers? Shall we try to learn a song by one of them today?. Then next week we’ll try another…”

Think about it, maybe you don’t want to spend a lot of time learning something that isn’t useful to you. Maybe that approach will drain your enthusiasm instead of fireing it. I have seen it happen many times.

And remember - living in Spain as you do, you could try as hard as you wanted to learn Spanish-style guitar, then the 14-year-old nephew will pick up your guitar and play it twice as better than you. But, if you play “Hey, Good-lookin’ ” and put on a big old Texas drawl, you WILL BE the life of the party!

Comment from Dave Hall
Date: October 26, 2007, 11:56 pm

This is fab! Good on ya Ben for taking on a great new challenge. Remember to let us all know when you start playing requests!

Comment from Ben
Date: October 28, 2007, 2:33 pm

Thanks for all the suggestions, encouragement and links everyone, really good stuff. Jon - I came to the same conclusion this weekend (while away from the guitar, out of town). I realised that if I just do the stuff he gives me like this, I’m going to get demotivated fast. Now he did have steel strings and electrics in his house, and when he tried my guitar he was playing clapton and Led Zep, so I think I’ll give him another try, but I’m going to explain cafefully what I want, and how I need to keep it fun, even if I don’t learn all the finger stuff so fast. So until the next lesson, I’ll practice his things, but keep on learning chords that will get me playing songs sooner as well.

Comment from marina
Date: October 29, 2007, 12:50 pm

Ben, jajaja, you got the order wrong “Do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si”;-)

Comment from Graham Tappenden
Date: October 29, 2007, 5:58 pm

@Marina - make him watch “The Sound of Music” a few times, he’ll soon learn the order

@Ben - you might have to explain “The Sound of Music” to Marina…

Comment from Gary
Date: November 5, 2007, 1:51 am

That D was an A

Comment from Gary
Date: November 5, 2007, 2:09 am

Get your elbow off your knee and get the ball of your thumb round on to the centre of the kneck - you can hook it over the top when you can platy a bit!!

C is hard cos youll need to learn the chord of F which is a B****rd when you are beginning. Learn A (you already have but thought it was D) the two chords that go with it (in a major key) are D an E7. Pluck the 6th string with your thumb and brush your fingers over 1-5 when you play E7,(sounds like “dum-ching, dum-ching”) pluck the 5th and brush when you play A and pluck the 4th and pluck when you play D. Armed with these 3 chords and that basic technique you can play “Blowin in the Wind”, “Tambourine Man” “Knocking on heavens Door” and most of Dylans Early stuff. If its waltz tempo ( 3/4 time) do dum-ching-ching….

Comment from Ben
Date: November 5, 2007, 8:56 am

Wow, Gary, I never knew you were such an expert! I think I’ve improved a bit since last week, another vid coming soon!

Comment from Gary
Date: November 5, 2007, 11:55 pm

On the road for 20 years, man… we seen it all …
(Imagine this in a deep Johnnie Cash sort of voice)