How I Learned to Play the Guitar

Learning Something New

I used to see this on other social media platforms. I never gave it a second thought until I tried something I was not good at doing. I could say that I have family members who are good at it, but I could not claim to be good at playing the guitar.

I was well into my teaching career when I had decided to take guitar lessons at a music studio. I have family members who are musicians. I know friends who play the guitar; I know colleagues who play the guitar.

At first, I tried teaching myself to play the guitar, but I never got past the “you suck level.” I took music lessons at a music studio from a musician for about four years.

I thought I would approach learning guitar from a math approach to learning. In my first lesson, I brought a notebook, pencil, and my guitar for the session.

Mr. K said, “Ok Don. Let’s see what you know.” I told him, “can you give me a minute. I need to write everything you say in my notebook. I am going to journal everything from the lesson.” His reaction, “what are you doing?”

He told me that day, “you are never going to learn the guitar by reading, or writing about it. You will need to start playing the guitar.” I was so bad the first several times I strummed my guitar. He said, “Here is a metronome. Use it.”

I thought that since I had taught myself some parts of the guitar, that I would already have a running start. It turned out that I didn’t know anything. He said, “just because you have family members who are musicians, that doesn’t mean you are a musician.”

After I settled down and humbled myself, I started playing the guitar and improved with each lesson.

Two Goals for Taking Guitar Lessons

At Close to the Four Year Mark of Lessons

At close to the four-year mark of taking lessons from Mr. K, he said, “you should start thinking about…

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