The number one thing holding guitar players back

Want to be a better musician? This is how

When I was 5, my parents sent me for piano lessons.

No, I wasn’t a young Mozart, brimming with so much talent they rushed me to a teacher to bring out my inner prodigy.

I knew at a young age that I wanted to play guitar, but my older sister was already in piano lessons so my parents decided to send me there instead, to see if I would be as happy with piano as guitar.

I wasn’t.

But…

Even at the tender age of five, my piano teacher taught me music.

She taught me how to read sheet music. To this day, I remember the notes on the stave because of her.

She taught me how to memorise the keys on the piano - her method was to have a piece of card that had the note names written on them, and to line this up with the keys on the piano.

And she taught me how to play the music that I’d read.

So at age five, I would have my book of songs - all written in actual sheet music - and I would read the pages, transmit the information to my fingers, and play the song.

I started guitar at age eight, leaving piano behind.

And to my amazement, no guitar teacher ever taught me music!

Instead, we guitarists have tablature.

Guitarists don’t speak music, we speak guitar.

I no longer had to read songbooks and figure out that I was looking at the note C, decide whether it was Middle C or not, and subsequently where on the instrument I should play it.

Nope. Now I was in the land of shortcuts.

“This is an A chord. This is a D chord. Strum each one four times then play the next one.”

Later, when it came time to play single note phrases like lead guitar melodies, the method of instruction became even more basic.

“Play fret 8 on the D string with your index finger.”

Of course, we’re not told what note that is.

Likewise when it comes to scales, they were simply taught as shapes: “to play A Minor pentatonic, play fret 5 and 8 on the low E string, then 5 and 7 for the next three strings, then 5 and 8 again on the last two strings.”

No mention of the notes or their relationship to each other (the minor pentatonic scale uses the 1, flat 3, 4, flat 6, flat 7 and 8 from the major scale, if you didn’t know).

Band practices were interesting.

If I was playing with a bassist or another guitar player, we all understood this Guitar Language: “This riff is fret 8 on the low E string, then fret 8 on the A string, then a little run like this, and back to the low E string.”

But throw a keyboard player in and we may as well both been speaking different languages entirely.

“What note is that?”

“It’s the third fret on the A string.”

“So what note is it?”

“Erm, hold on. It’s an A string so that’s A#, B, C. It’s C.”

This is a guitar/guitarist issue: shortcuts exist that allow us to learn songs using tablature (tabs), and communicate without speaking music.

And while both of those things are fine to do, the problem arises when they’re the only things you can do.

Other musicians learn music, so they’re then able to speak the same language.

So what should you do?

I’m not suggesting you have to learn how to read music. You don’t.

But I do advocate learning more about guitar as an instrument.

Understand intervals - you’ll have greater understanding of the fretboard, be able to express your musical ideas more easily, and be able to communicate with other musicians.

Learn the notes of your fretboard. My piano teacher made me learn the notes from the start because she knew how important it is. It’s not enough to know the 6 open strings. Learn the notes of your fretboard - there are lots of ways, from simply memorising every fret, or choosing a note and finding each of its locations, or gradually learning the notes by learning chords across the neck.

These two things alone will enhance your abilities significantly.

And instead of being “a guitar player”…

You’ll be a musician.