String Love Guitar Lessons

Today I’ve got a guest post for you by Ben DeMeter.

Ben is a professional freelance writer and an occasional bar musician. When he’s not writing for The Huffington Post or Investopedia he can be found jamming out on his 1960 Reissue Burgundy Mist Strat, which he insists is maroon and not pink.

Without further ado, here’s Ben!

…

The next time you pick up your grandfather’s old Gibson, take a minute to check it out on the Internet before you start jamming out to “Smoke on the Water.” There’s a chance that the old axe could be worth twice its weight in gold.

America’s fascination with the guitar has spawned a generation of collectors who are willing to pay top dollar to get their hands on some of the rarest instruments ever produced. Consequently, anyone who happens to own one of these vintage production guitars could be sitting on a small fortune – without even knowing it. So before you start strumming away on the old six-string, check out this list to make sure you’re not actually abusing your retirement fund.

• The Original John D’Angelico New Yorker. John D’Angelico and his apprentice, James D’Acquisto, are considered by many collectors to be two of the greatest luthiers that ever lived. From the turn of the century up through the late 1960s, the two produced a number of archtop guitars under the D’Angelico brand that were unparalleled in quality and tone. Their flagship model was the New Yorker, which was modeled after the popular Gibson ES-125.To get your hands on a new D’Angelico New Yorker these days, you’ll need to go see the folks at GTRStore.com. The high-end boutique recently revived the brand and is offering the axes exclusively through its website. However, a number of the original New Yorker models are still floating around and if you’re lucky enough to own even a late-model edition, then you’re sitting on a treasure worth at least $35,000.

• The Monterey Pop Stratocaster. In 1967, Jimi Hendrix played a show at the Monterey Pop Music Festival using a red-and-white custom-painted Fender Stratocaster. During his encore, he set the guitar on firein what would become one of his most iconic moments. In 1997, to celebrate Monterey Pop’s 40th anniversary, the Fender Custom Shop commissioned artist Pamelina H. to hand-paint 210 reproductions of Hendrix’s hearts-and-swirls guitar.These custom-shop reproductions are now arguably the most-desired Fender production models in existence. A “Monterey Pop Strat,” as it’s known, is nearly impossible to find on sale, and when one does go up for auction it fetches well over $20,000. Not bad for a guitar that’s only 15 years old.

• The Original Martin D-45 Acoustic.Martin guitars are widely regarded as some of the finest acoustic instruments money can buy. Introduced in 1933, the D-45 was the company’s first true luxury model. Loaded with pearl and made of the finest spruce the company could find, the large, booming Dreadnought was priced at a level only celebrity musicians like Gene Autry could afford. As a result, only 91 guitars were made before Martin halted production for the war effort in 1942. As you can guess, the rarity and quality of the original D-45 model has made this guitar something of a holy grail for acoustic collectors.Each of the 25 authentic D-45s produced in 1942 retails for around $60,000. The earlier models are worth a lot more. For instance, Skinner Auctions sold a 1941 model last year for $219,000. At that rate of appreciation, selling one of the original 1930s D-45s would probably earn you enough to retire on.

• The Gibson Moderne. As far as guitar collecting goes, the original Gibson Moderne is the ultimate treasure. It is El Dorado and Atlantis combined. There have been entire books written about it, and some collectors have even offered a million-dollar reward simply for confirming its existence. The story goes as follows.Produced for the 1957 National Association of Music Merchants show, the Moderne was supposed to be introduced as part of a trio of futuristic Gibson models alongside the Flying V and the Explorer (then called the Futura). But what actually happened to the guitar remains the collecting world’s biggest mystery. Some sources claim the shark-fin-shaped guitar was presented at the convention but was so poorly received that Gibson scrapped the limited-production run on the spot. Others say the only production model was stolen before it ever left the factory.

  Regardless of what really happened to the original model(s) of the Moderne, the only thing anyone can say for sure is this: the first person to find and authenticate one will make a fortune far beyond their wildest dreams. Considering the fanfare and legend surrounding the instrument, even $5,000,000 seems to be a conservative estimate.

The most valuable treasures are always found in the most unlikeliest of places, so if you or someone you know has a few old guitars lying around, you should take a few minutes to look them up online. Most instruments probably won’t be worth anything, but there’s a slight chance that you might actually be strumming a gold mine. And even if you have no intention of selling your beloved hand-me-down guitar, just think how great it would feel to learn that you were the owner of a valuable piece of music history. Whether you picked up that cool vintage axe at a garage sale or found it in Grandpa’s basement, now’s a great time to figure out what exactly it is.

As a guitar teacher fielding questions from brand new guitar students, one question I get a lot is, “What’s the best guitar for beginners?”

In this article, I’m going to explain my answer as well as the key things you should look out for when you are looking for your first–or perhaps first decent–guitar.

Playability, Playability, Playability

When it comes to a guitar for a person who is new or at least relatively new to guitar playing, the key quality you want to look out for is playability. Is the guitar you’re checking out easy to play? Can you make notes ring out clearly on it? Do you have to struggle to press the strings down with your fingers?

Now, at first, you’re not going to be able to tell whether it’s your guitar that’s not playable or your fingers that don’t know how to play. So you need to plan for this as you scout out possible guitars to buy.

The only reason people compromise when it comes to their first guitar is the cost factor. If guitars were all free, every student starting out would have the perfect playable guitar on which to learn.

Yet, since guitars cost money (often a decent chunk of it), most beginning guitarists that I run into tend to have a guitar that is woefully inadequate for their needs. Specifically, most beginners end up trying to learn to play guitar on guitars that are basically unplayable. I would never in a million years want to get stuck trying to play some of these guitars.

Looks, the sound, the price–all of these factors are less important than playability.

Whether the guitar looks beautiful or not means nothing if you can’t play the thing and make it sing.

A guitar could sound like a million bucks, but if you find it impossible to play, you won’t be able to bring its potential to life.

Saving a few bucks on a cheaper guitar that’s unplayable is more likely to cause you to quit playing the guitar altogether. Wouldn’t you rather spend a couple hundred more and get a guitar that actually makes the process of learning to play the guitar easy and enjoyable?

The Quest for a Playable Guitar

Since I have plenty of students coming to me asking me what kind of guitar I recommend, I’ve been hunting far and wide for a guitar that combines the important aspects of playability, great sound, reasonable price and good looks. However, until just last week, I’d never found a line of guitars that I felt consistently good recommending.

A couple months ago, one of my Skype guitar students showed me her guitar and gave me the rundown on how it was designed to be playable above all else. It was made by a company called Zager Guitars. I was impressed, but since we were on a Skype lesson, I couldn’t exactly reach out and try the guitar out for myself.

This is where things got a little weird. A couple weeks after this student started up with me, I get an email out of the blue from the head of sales for Zager. He was writing to ask whether I’d be interested in spreading the word about their guitars.

Well, since I hadn’t played one for myself, I didn’t feel comfortable recommending these guitars. Not here on this site anyway.

But a couple weeks later, another one of my students who had been struggling to play on her standard newbie guitar (which was as cheap, bad sounding and totally unplayable as most of these randomly named plywood monstrosities tend to be) was ready to upgrade to a decent guitar. Given what I knew about her process of learning to play, I immediately thought of Zager guitars and figured it was time to go out on a limb and recommend them to my student sight unseen.

A couple weeks later, her new Zager ZAD20 guitar arrived.

(In a strange twist of fate, her old unplayable guitar actually tumbled off its perch on her bed and completely broke a couple days after she’d ordered her new guitar…how’s that for destiny, eh?)

When this student brought her guitar into our lesson, I was very excited to finally get to try out one of these Zager guitars. Since Zager only sells their guitars over the web, it had been shipped out from Nebraska and arrived in Nashville in one piece.

First Contact with a Zager ZAD20

So, how did this brand new Zager guitar play?

It was everything my Skype student had said it would be. It was as playable as any guitar could be.

Actually, it was even more playable than any guitar could be–this guitar redefined the meaning of “playability” for me.

If you’re trying to learn to play the guitar and are experiencing some buzzing frets when you play, then you should definitely try a Zager. It was amazing to hear the difference in my student’s playing with her old guitar and now with her new Zager. All those buzzing notes were totally clean and clear.

Moreover, I’ve never before played a Full-bar F Major chord and enjoyed myself quite so much. The Zager guitar makes playing bar chords way, way easier.

How Does a Zager Guitar Become so Playable?

I don’t understand everything about how Zager guitars are designed and constructed, but upon inspecting my students new ZAD20, I will share what I noticed.

First off, we all hear about the “action” on guitars, which is how high off the fretboard the strings are. On the Zager ZAD20, the action was perfectly set. Not so low as to cause frets to buzz like crazy, but not high at all either.

Another key component of a playable guitar is the shape of the neck. The Zager ZAD20 boasts an incredibly “fast” neck. It’s very thin, which means you can easily position your hand on the neck without having to struggle. It’s very easy to slide up and down the neck as well.

Next, Zagers come with light strings pre-installed. Where other guitar companies match strings to their guitars as an afterthought, Dennis Zager at Zager guitars has carefully considered the type and gauge of strings that works best to help a guitarist make music as effortlessly as possible. The strings that come on a new Zager are light and very, very playable.

There are, I’m sure, other aspects of the Zager guitar design that surely influence the playability of these guitars. I’m a guitar teacher, however, not a luthier, so I can’t completely speak to every dimension of this guitar’s construction. Suffice it to say that I have yet to encounter a more playable guitar, and that’s a huge thing for any beginner looking to pick up their first guitar.

Well, Is There Anything Bad About a Zager Guitar?

Lest you think I’ve taken the Zager pink kool-aid and can’t see anything that could be improved on the Zager ZAD20, there are some things I don’t like about this guitar.

My main gripe has to do with the sound. The ZAD20 sounds a little tinny and a little flat. The bass doesn’t boom quite as much as I’d like it to, and the trebles can sound a little tinny.

However, you have to keep in mind that the ZAD20 runs around $395. So, if you keep its price in perspective, the ZAD20 sounds unbelievable. It sounds way deeper and richer than comparable guitars at its price point, and it’s the most playable guitar you’ll ever find to boot.

The Zager ZAD20 Is the Best Guitar for Beginners

To summarize: if you’re a beginner looking for your very first guitar, or if you’re a beginning to intermediate guitarist with a guitar that is hard to play, definitely take a look at the ZAD20 from Zager Guitars.

You won’t find another guitar anywhere that sets you up for success as well as the ZAD20. This is a high quality, hand-crafted guitar designed to sound great and play well. I can’t say enough good things about them.

And if you’re looking for a higher end guitar, well, Zager makes those as well. Check out their ZAD80 and ZAD900 models.

If you want to pick up a Zager, by the way, you won’t find them in stores. They’re only available directly from their website. Click the banner below to check them out:

Recently, I came across a great website for anyone interested in classical guitar.

The Classical Guitar blog is run by Christopher Davis, who lives in Dallas, Texas where he’s a doctoral student in (you guessed it) music.

On his site, you’ll find articles, lessons, reviews, profiles and all kinds of other useful classical guitar-related information.

The thing that really distinguishes Christopher’s site from many of the guitar sites out there is the fact that he can write well. I really enjoy his writing and the way he ties stories and examples into larger guitar teaching examples.

Here is a great little article for you to check out about some advice Christopher picked up from one of his younger pupils.

I haven’t mentioned many other guitar websites in a while, but the Classical Guitar blog is absolutely worth a visit for all you classical guitar aficionados out there.

This is the story of Spencer Gottlieb. Spencer got in touch with me to take guitar lessons 10 weeks ago. He found my website and emailed me the following inquiry:

“Hey, I am thinking about starting to learn how to play the guitar. It’s been something I’ve wanted to do for a while now. I write the lyrics and melodies to country songs (my favorite genre) but I obviously can’t write the music to accompany it. I just want to be able to play the country music that I love listening to. I’m 22 and have never played before so you’d literally be starting from scratch. I wanted to see what I should expect — how much it costs, what I would need to buy, how much progress is typical, how much I would need to practice, etc. Thanks!”

I received his email and smiled–his questions covered all the bases that new guitar students almost always ask.

• How much does it cost to take lessons?
• What do I need to buy to play guitar?
• How much progress will I make?
• How much do I need to practice?

I get these questions all the time from prospective students. Here are my answers, which I emailed in response to the message I received from Spencer:

“Hey Spencer,

I hope you go for it with learning to play the guitar–it is such an amazing (and fun!) thing to be able to do.

So, quick answers to your questions:

1. How much it costs–I have more details on my site here, but the basic answer is I charge $60 for hour-long lessons, or you can buy lessons in packs of 4 and the price goes down to $50 per lesson. You can also do half-hour lessons for $30, though I recommend full-hour lessons for new adult students. Price is always one of the first questions people ask, but I do want to say–cheaper lessons with a teacher you don’t vibe with or who doesn’t understand how to help students learn might cost you more in the long run both in terms of wasted money and the frustration of having to undo bad habits. Just something to keep in mind as you look around for the right teacher for you.

 

2. What you’d need to buy–well, you’ll need a guitar for sure. Sounds like you’ll want an acoustic steel string guitar to be able to play country music that you love. You’ll also want a guitar tuner of some kind. And if you end up studying with me, then I always encourage my students to get a metronome to help them really develop solid rhythm. Other than that, the most you’ll absolutely need to buy would be a new set of strings every now and then.

 

3. How much progress is typical? Hmm…very tough to say, as it depends completely on how hard and how much you’re practicing. But I will say that in about three months, I regularly see my complete beginner students able to switch chords and strum through relatively simple (but still nice-sounding) songs. If you practice super hard, that timeframe could shrink. And if you’re really casual, it might take a little bit longer. But three months to get to where you’re comfortable switching chords and strumming through the changes is pretty typical.

 

4. How much you’d need to practice…another tough question, as it totally depends. But 30 minutes a day is a good target. If you could do 30 minutes a day 5 or 6 days a week, you’ll be able to move out of total beginnerdom and into a pretty solid playing level in that three-month period I just mentioned.

 
I hope those answers help you out. Just let me know if I can answer any other questions for you–I’m here to help.”

The Three Fundamental Areas of Beginning Guitar Playing

So that was our introduction. Spencer was a total beginner with zero guitar experience. He didn’t even own a guitar when he contacted me.

After I shot him back my response, he went out and picked up a great beginning guitar as well as a metronome. We scheduled our first lesson and away we went.

When you’re beginning on the guitar, there are three specific areas you need to focus on in order to be able to strum and play songs:

1. Proper Finger Technique for the Fretting Hand
2. Forming and Changing Chords
3. Strumming

When Spencer walked in my door, I began teaching him the fundamentals starting with #1: Finger Technique. In order to help him develop the best possible finger technique, I showed him the chromatic scale exercise and taught him how to use a metronome to guide his practice. I use many of the ideas and approaches taught in the fantastic Principles for Correct Practice for the Guitar. You should definitely get the Principles book and read it backwards and forwards if you’re serious about playing guitar well.

In that same lesson, we also started working on some of the best beginning guitar chords. I taught Spencer E major, A minor and a modified F major chord where you simply slide E major up one fret for each finger.

From there, I showed him the most introductory perspective on guitar strumming.

These three areas comprise the fundamentals of beginning guitar. If you know how to move your fingers on the guitar, how to make basic chords and (most importantly) change between them and how to strum, then you’ll be able to play simple songs in no time.

But how long does it actually take to learn to play guitar in the real world?

10 Weeks to Singing and Playing Songs on the Guitar

In Spencer’s case: 10 weeks.

He went from total beginner to strumming, playing and singing along with his playing in 10 short weeks.

Now, I want to emphasize something here: 10 weeks is pretty unusual. That’s why I’m writing about this here. I have students who take 20 weeks to be able to play through simple chord changes, and I’ve had students take many months before they could really sing along with themselves as they play.

So 10 weeks is pretty incredible.

How did Spencer get from being a total beginner to being able to play and sing a song (Troubadour by George Strait if you’re following along at home) in 10 weeks?

Spencer Gottlieb’s Strategy for Crazy-Fast Guitar Progress

After talking with Spencer a bit and teasing out the strategy he followed these past 10 weeks, here is what he did in a nutshell:

1. Find a Great Guitar Teacher
2. Take One Lesson a Week
3. Practice 30 Minutes a Day
4. Use a Metronome Religiously
5. Keep Detailed Notes of Practice Sessions

Let’s look at each of these steps in a little detail:

Find a Great Guitar Teacher

Now, I’m humble and don’t generally toot my own horn. However, I am extremely committed to the art and science of playing and teaching the guitar. And when someone comes to me to learn how to play guitar, I am committed to helping them achieve their guitar playing dreams.

Spencer hunted around the web a bit before locating String Love Guitar. When he found me, he read the information on my site, wrote in with good questions and listened to my answers. He then made his decision: he committed to learning to play the guitar by buying a guitar and signing up for a package of lessons right out of the gate.

A great teacher can make a huge difference in your dreams of playing the guitar. At the very least, a great teacher will cut the time it takes for you to learn to make music on the guitar. In the process, a great guitar teacher will ensure that you develop excellent playing habits so you don’t have to go through periods of intense frustration undoing accumulated ineffective habits.

You may not need a teacher to learn to play the guitar, but if you’re truly serious about making rapid progress, a teacher is invaluable.

Take One Lesson a Week

Here’s another key component of Spencer’s strategy for rapid guitar progress: he started off by taking a regular weekly lesson. We met Monday afternoons, and every Monday without fail he walked in my door and was ready for more to work on. Spencer is a fantastic student–he wants to learn, he applies everything I show him and he always comes in the following week with plenty of questions and lots of progress to show for his efforts.

I have noticed this time and again with the students I teach: the bi-weekly or less frequent students simply don’t progress as fast. If you want to get better in a hurry, then the positive pressure of your weekly lesson will keep you focused and clear about what you need to do to move forward.

Consistency is key.

Practice 30 Minutes a Day

Speaking of consistency, nothing matters more than daily practice if you want to get better on the guitar.

In Spencer’s case, he adopted a simple but powerful practice strategy: 30 minutes a day, every day.

30 minutes isn’t much. But it adds up.

Do you have 30 minutes in your day that you could devote to learning to play the guitar? I bet you do. And if you’re motivated, you can make it happen.

Here’s the thing, though: Spencer kept at it. He practiced day in, day out for 10 weeks. Those daily 30-minute chunks added up. After 10 weeks, all that practicing amounted to over 30 hours of time spent learning to play the guitar.

It’s far better to practice 30 minutes a day every day than to practice two hours a day a couple times a week.

Especially at the beginning, consistency is key. Get your fingers on the guitar every day, and move them in the right way so that you develop good finger habits, relaxed hands and incredibly powerful guitar technique.

Use a Metronome Religiously

This one is huge. And it’s another major thing that stands out to me between the students who make rapid progress and those who drift and end up taking much longer to reach their guitar goals.

A metronome is your biggest ally in learning to play the guitar well. By practicing with a metronome, you will develop incredibly solid rhythm. You will be able to see your progress extremely clearly. And you will have a very clear structure within which to move forward on the guitar. Most importantly, you will be forced to focus more intensely on everything you’re doing within your practicing.

The Principles of Correct Practice for the Guitar contains a powerful approach to using a metronome to chart and push guitar progress forward called the Basic Practice Approach.

I adapt the BPA to all of my students, and the combination of personal attention and this powerful practice framework *always* creates results. IF, that is, the student actually uses the metronome in their practice.

In Spencer’s case, he fully embraced the metronome even though it’s easier not to turn the clicking monster on.

When a student walks in for their lesson, I can virtually always tell within minutes whether they actually used the metronome in their practice since our last lesson.

The students who use the metronome regularly make vastly more progress in shorter amounts of time than the students who don’t use the metronome.

Keep Detailed Notes of Practice Sessions

Spencer is currently a teacher. He has to keep track of his students, and his hands-on educational experience as a teacher has helped him develop extremely good habits when it comes to learning.

More than any student I’ve ever worked with, Spencer has kept meticulous practice notes. Every week when he comes in, he has his daily practice charted with what he did, the metronome speeds he worked at and any additional things he wants to keep track of.

When I asked him how he managed to make so much progress so quickly, taking great practice notes definitely stood out to him as one of the most important things he did.

I’ve learned the hard way that most students aren’t interested in taking the time to write down what they did and how fast they did it at the end of their practice sessions. Even though I know that this is one of the most important things any guitarist can do to make major progress in a hurry, it’s very hard to get people to actually keep track of what they’re doing.

If you take good notes and keep track of your progress, you’re going to receive several major benefits:


1. First off, you will always know exactly what you need to work on in any given practice session. You’ll save time by knowing what to do, and you’ll get to spend more time getting better on the guitar as a result of just a little note-taking.

 

2. Second, you will be able to see your progress definitively, clearly. So much of learning to play the guitar comes down to psychology. Many would-be guitarists sabotage their progress by denying it. If you’re taking notes, you can’t possibly deny how you’ve learned new things and increased your speed, smoothness and capabilities. The combination of a great practice method, working with a metronome, having a great teacher who helps you know exactly what to work on plus taking notes of your practice sessions guarantees that you will progress. And that progress will be well documented.

What Kind of Student Do You Want to Be?

So that’s how Spencer Gottlieb went from total beginner to being able to play and sing one of his favorite country songs in 10 weeks. He’s the best kind of guitar student that a guitar teacher could ever hope for. He’s a super nice guy, conscientious, dedicated to the guitar and extremely funny. When I heard him play Troubadour this past Monday, I was genuinely blown away. If he keeps doing what he’s been doing, he’s going to go far in his guitar playing for sure.

If you want to play the guitar, and if you’re ready to follow the simple roadmap Spencer followed, then you can absolutely be playing fantastically fun music just 10 weeks from today.

If you don’t actually put in the right effort and follow the roadmap exactly, though, it’s possible that you’ll either take longer to get to where you want to be on the guitar or you might just quit in frustration altogether.

I hope you can see that this stuff is simple. It’s easy. It’s totally doable. And most importantly, you can do this. You can learn to play the guitar in no time at all. Like Jim Rohn used to say when asked why people don’t follow through on the simple process of learning, growing and expanding: These things are easy to do, but they’re also easy not to do.

If you’re ready to become a guitar player and want to get there in 10 weeks, then let’s work together. I teach Skype guitar lessons via webcam, and I also teach in-person guitar lessons in Nashville, Tennessee.

In this lesson, let’s look at the C Major scale in open position on the guitar.

This is one of the most immediately accessible–and useful–scales you can learn on the guitar. Working this scale provides a number of powerful benefits for your playing. I’m going to cover all of the powerful benefits you’ll receive as a result of putting in some consistent attentive practice on the C Major Scale, and I’m also going to discuss the crucial pointers you need to keep in mind if you want to receive maximum benefit from every minute you spend practicing this scale.

In this video, I cover everything you need to know to practice the C Major Scale in open position to take huge leaps forward in your playing:

I regularly encourage students to get at least this open position C Major Scale under their belts even if they have very little interest in soloing or doing intensive technique work.

There are just so many benefits to acquire from working scales like this open C Major scale. But here’s a quick word of warning–if you’re anything like most students, you’ll probably resist actually saying the names of the notes out loud as you work on this scale. But if you don’t etch the names and locations of the notes along the fretboard in your mind, you’re missing out on the best part of working this scale.

As you become more familiar with where the actual notes fall on the fretboard, a ton of different musical possibilities will open up to you. So put in the (very small amount of) extra work here, now, to learn the location of the notes of the C Major Scale on the fretboard.

And, as always, be sure to take your time at first and really work fantastic technique. Develop those good guitar habits from the outset!