Learning guitar

Another question frequently asked of me is, “What's the best way to learn guitar?” Now that's a tough question, and I guess there are as many answers as there are guitarists in the world, living and otherwise. I don't actually presume to know the answer because the “best way” for one will be the worst for another; it depends on one's talent and inclination as well as on the amount of time one is willing to invest in learning.

There are some people for whom playing guitar is natural, while the vast majority, yours truly included, have to work hard to achieve a even a low level of proficiency. The common denominator would be practice: even the best guitar players have to practice, and it's a discipline one must practice if one is to sound good. Not being a guitar teacher, I often end up telling advise seekers to just do that: practice.

To those who really press me for an answer I give my own struggle to become a guitar player as an example. As I've said before in this blog, I started playing guitar when I was 12 but didn't get serious until I was about 15. At 12 my brother Arnel and best friend Tito taught me some chords and showed me how to strum, but I always got laughed out of our jamming sessions because I, well, sucked.

At 15 something happened that made me turn to the guitar as an emotional outlet: my father died. I wanted to rebel but I also didn't want to be destructive, and God, although I didn't know it then, turned my attention to the guitar. I began to practice furiously, and as near as I can remember these are the steps I took:

1. learn chords – through the chord charts inserted in Jingle Magazine

2. listen to records – mostly Beatles and Apo Hiking Society

3. play along with the records – again, mostly Beatles and Apo

4. play songs published in the old Jingle Magazine, particularly the Beatles edition

Soon enough I was playing better than my brother and best friend (hah!). Two years of this prepared me for the next step, but that will be stuff for another blog entry. For now, let me finish this off by saying I don't recommend to others the path I took in learning guitar because it is too long and unfocused, and it's all too easy to learn the wrong things. I have a hard time shaking off bad guitar playing habits like wrapping my left thumb over the edge of the neck and positioning my right hand diagonally over the strings instead of vertically. What my friends at Windsong say is right: PRACTICE MAKES PERMANENT, and in my case what I have been practicing has been the wrong way of playing guitar, and that's what I've kept.

If I could live my guitar-playing life again I would want to take classical guitar lessons and use that as a starting point to learn other forms of music (kinda like what Ralph Macchio's character Eugene Martone did in the 1986 movie Crossroads). So in the end, that's what I tell those who ask me what the best way is to learn guitar: TAKE CLASSICAL GUITAR LESSONS.