How I approach guitar playing
Without having taken a single guitar lesson ever.
I fell in love with music when I was 11 or 12 years old. In fact, I can describe the exact moment I fell in love with it — a story for another time. But long story short, from my love for rock and metal, was born my love for playing guitar. I should also mention that I used to take piano lessons when I was about 7 or 8. Though I really doubt whether those lessons had any bearing on my inclination to want to play music. I say that because I hated them and often cried out of frustration (and boredom) by the end of the class. Obvious cue for my parents to let my teacher go, who was actually a nice guy.
Due to my unfortunately negative experience with music lessons, I explored being autodidactic about learning guitar. And luckily, I was able to be one. Below are a few maxims that have helped me in my journey.
Think in numbers, not in notes.
Guitars have frets, and with fret numbers you can navigate the entire fretboard. If your guitar is in standard tuning, the open 6th string will be an E, the first fret will be an F, the second fret will be an F#, and so on. However, I don’t look at those notes as E or F, I look at them as 0, 1, 2, and so on, till 11. The notes repeat from the 12th fret onwards. Meaning, the 12th fret is E again. Okay, so here’s the interesting bit. For me, the 12th fret is 0, the 13th fret is 1, the 14th fret is 2, and so on. I don’t look at those frets as 12, 13, 14. This, in a way, creates a “universe” that just contains those 11 notes or numbers. This way of looking at guitar kind of eliminated the need of having to learn any notation. The downside of this approach is that it occasionally becomes difficult to communicate with other musicians. Because only I understand this “language”. Not a hurdle that can’t be overcome though.
Active listening vs passive listening.
When people listen to music, they consume it at an overall level, they listen to it in a holistic manner. And that’s important. However, to become better at guitar, what you need to do is to really focus on just the guitar parts. Try to decipher what’s being played, where on the fretboard would the guitarist’s hand be, and visualize it.
When you’re listening to music, actively seek the guitar parts. Try to recognize which note would be the 0. If you succeed, you will have found the “base”, allowing you to visualize and hear the numbers.
Listen to as much music as possible.
Goes without saying. Expose yourself to as much music as possible, as many different genres as possible. Watch as many live shows as you can — both online and in person. If you do this, your brain will calibrate itself to pay close attention to the guitar parts, further helping you to recognize frets, patterns, and numbers.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic!
I would also like to know if this was helpful to you in any way, and whether it brought any sort of value to you, or not. Until next time!
