Notes to students

Not just blues guitar lessons-Rhythm players all 

 The student will say “I’ve been working on that part for ten minutes now and still can’t get it to sound right”! The teacher replies: Don’t worry–“Do it for another ten hours and it will sound much better”.

The point–It is difficult for the student to realize how much practice (repetition) it takes to sound like the artists they listen to.

They “The Masters” are like Olympic gold metal winners, –they eat, breath, and sleep it. And even the most talented had to spend a lot of time learning to just go from chord to chord in “unbroken time” with no goofs or pauses.

(“Unbroken time”–pauses–I’m not talking here about getting up and grabbing another beer out of the fridge, (although a break might help).

You know what I’m talking about —-That “clock” organizing the sounds, — Organized sound — yes——MUSIC!

We all forget how much time and effort it took to learn how to walk across the room with out stumbling or falling back down. Or how much time and repetition we put into learning each word that built our vocabulary now used to speak in well formed and brilliantly articulated complete sentences. Is there any reason our musical language abilities should take less work? (Well –a–yes– in a way–I mean - you know - we sort a got like -you know-the hang of it.)

 Don’t worry about what you can’t play, just keep working at it. Take that which you can play, and make it as “musical” as possible. Put it into solid time! Develop the “groove”! Maybe just one note bopin’ along! Once you get the feeling of playing in time, it’s easier to plug in the new things you’ve been working on. In other words—

Build the foundation–the rhythm, then the house–then start hanging stuff on the walls.

Our minds are so ready to focus on the glittering details we may easily dismiss the simple elements that are holding the music together.

Rhythm is a function of time. Time organizes sound into music. The more you are “plugged into” the rhythm, the more musical your playing will sound. All good musicians are rhythm players. Even if you only know one chord, you should be able to get people movin’. Learning a thousand more chords and scales won’t help.

 ©2007 Stan Hirsch