I had an interesting situation arise in teaching. A friend came to me for guitar lessons. We had both started playing guitar around the same time as kids. But, somewhere along the line, he stopped playing for quite some time. When we were out of school, he started to regain interest in playing guitar again. He asked if I could help him get going. I was excited to get him started. He is someone who is a music lover. But when we were kids, he found playing guitar a bit challenging.

The Basics in Review

We began with open chords and power chords. These were things that began to come back to him. I saw that there was a determination in him to nail this material.  And he did! I would give him new material, and he would have it down within a lesson or two. Wonderful! We moved quickly to bar chords and scales. Again, he learned it all very quickly.

Signs of Trouble

He and I liked a lot of the same guitarists. He was very excited to learn how to become a lead guitarist. Once he had his scale fingerings down, I started to incorporate backing tracks into our lessons. These tracks are bands playing a basic chord progression in a rock style. There are no vocals. No solos at all. It is a blank slate for a player to learn to solo in a playing situation.

I would play a bit of something as a demonstration. And then I told him to try. He looked at me, completely puzzled. He tried. But he was really having trouble with this. He would kind of play the scale a bit. But didn’t really understand. It was not easy for him to wrap his head around. He didn’t see how what I was playing was tied to the scale patterns he was playing. Like he was on step one or two, and I was showing him step 200.

Not the Only One

This problem is something I have run into with students before. Some would get the basic idea. I would also show them certain types of patterns and licks to play. We call it vocabulary. Think of it as the best pieces of scales for the perfect situation. Like knowing how to say “good morning” or “thank you.” They are musical phrases that are familiar. And they work in various situations. Knowing the key the track is in, scales, some vocabulary licks, and some students would start playing away.

Others had the same problem as my friend. Another friend could also learn massive amounts of information and play it back. But would be reluctant to work on the more free-form aspects of this type of playing. These students were much more comfortable playing something that already existed.

Learning other people’s solos:

In a recent conversation, a student was reading an interview with a famous player that learned how to solo from figuring out a ton of other people’s solos. The issue here is we do a lot of that in lessons already. And it doesn’t always make students able to make up their own. Sure, they can play the song they learned it from. But not able to use it in a different context and make it their own. A lot of players in the past had to learn solos to get the idea. Guitar soloing wasn’t always understood the way it is now. It was possible there was nowhere to learn the things players were doing unless you learned it yourself. But today we have teachers who do know it. Books, online tab, online lessons, and breakdowns of songs. Sometimes, even educational connections to the players who actually did it. Like Patreon or online course bundles that one can download for purchase. These courses are broken down into two basic categories. The artist or instructor explains how to play a specific song step by step. Or they explain their method for how to play in a general sense. Specific licks or technical approaches to use in situations. This later concept with what students struggle with.

Hitting a Wall

“What do I do if I just go blank?” That’s a great question! And a scary one for players. If a player hits this type of wall, they tend to start thinking they aren’t talented, which is completely incorrect. They wouldn’t be able to play the things they learned if they weren’t at all talented. No, that isn’t exactly it.

Stay tuned for part 2 of this post to find out more about different types of talent, how they relate to creativity, and practical steps to improve.