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Are You Ready For Success On The Guitar?

By Mike Hayes | August 1, 2010

Learning music on guitar is an interesting process there’s no
clear cut right or wrong way of doing it, when all is said and
done it all comes down to ‘we learn what we want to learn when
we want to learn it’!

Having had the opportunity over my 30+ years of teaching to observe people of all age groups, gender and social backgrounds setting out to learn the guitar one thing has become very clear ‘everyone learns differently’, they all learn best when they learn organically!

It’s vitally important to learn to work with your nervous system not against it.

Here’s a quick summary of what I’ve noticed about learning the
guitar.

1. We only really learn what interests us.

2. A teacher can’t teach anyone to play the guitar but people can
learn (think about that for a moment … a teacher can’t force
anyone to play the guitar but if the student has the desire to learn and is studying with a competent teacher they will definitely learn to play the instrument).

3. People only learn when they want to learn.

4. A teacher can teach the student what they want to play but
cannot teach the student ‘what’ to want to play.

5. All successful students possess two skills that allow them to
overcome all obstacles:

(a) clarity of intent

(b) force of will

When a student has ‘clarity of intent’ e.g., they have a crystal
clear picture of their goal and they are prepared to work towards that goal with the ‘full force of their will’ no matter what, they become unstoppable.

A word about ‘force of will’ I’ve have noted with interest that many people begin projects like learning to play guitar, tennis or golf etc., but how very few stick with it and consequently very few indeed ever achieve their goals.

As a rule people are very easily stoppable, if you understand
this you will have discovered the secret of musical success and
why every few people ever rise above musical mediocrity.

(6) Successful students are internally motivated; they want to
learn and get better not as ego trip but because music makes them
happy they can’t live without playing and learning about music;
it’s what they are about.

(7) Structured lessons are important to accelerate your
progress; however structured studies only work for those students
how can handle discipline. The advancing student must learn the fine art of “disciplining discipline!” Too much serious stuff and not enough fun will not work, therefore the student must monitor their discipline otherwise the motivation, and their inquiring mind will be lost forever.

Above all music should always be fun even when it’s hard work it
should still be fun and there should always be a sense of
adventure and discovery.

An essential part of learning music is the all important
interaction between other players at informal get-togethers called jam sessions.

The universal language at jam sessions worldwide is the blues, if
you can play the blues you can overcome all language barriers and
participate in the fun.

Progression #1:

C /// | C /// | C /// | C /// |

F /// | F /// | C /// | C /// |

G7 ///| G7/// | C /// | G7/// || C (last time)


Progression #2:

C /// | C /// | C /// | C /// |

F /// | F /// | C /// | C /// |

G7 ///| F /// | C /// | G7/// || C (last time)

Progression #3:

C /// | F /// | C /// | C /// |

F /// | F /// | C /// | C /// |

G7 ///| G7/// | C /// | G7/// || C (last time)

Progression #4:

C /// | F /// | C /// | C /// |

F /// | F /// | C /// | C /// |

G7 ///| F /// | C /// | G7/// || C (last time)

Progression #5:

Cm /// | Cm /// | Cm /// | Cm /// |

Fm /// | Fm /// | Cm /// | Cm /// |

G7 /// | G7/// | Cm /// | G7/// || Cm (last time)

Make sure you learn to play these progressions in the popular
keys of G, D, A, and E and don’t forget to learn them ‘off by
heart’ you will be glad you did!

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