Do I need lessons?

If you know many guitar players, you probably know most of them are at least partially self-taught, and the majority cannot read music. Guitar, and other plucked instruments like mandolin, dulcimer, banjo, etc. seems mostly to be handed down from player to player, from generation to generation. But if you don't have guitars in your ancestry, don't worry, I was the first guitarist in my family too, although I certainly wasn't the last!

So barring having Grandpa Walton or Andy Griffith around to teach you, what should you do? Do you really need a teacher? The answer depends largely on what you want to do with the guitar, and how far you are willing to take it. If you're hoping to pursue a career as a guitarist, studio work is a definite possibility, and being able to read music a necessity. If your desire is to be up on stage as a touring musician, reading music is handy but probably not necessary. As a songwriter or singer/songwriter, or as a member of a band sight-reading is next to useless, particularly if you can master the much easier guitar tablature.

My advice for the absolute beginner is to take lessons, at least for 4-6 weeks. Learn the 5 or 6 basic chords that make up 80% of all recorded music, maybe a few of the "walking down" chord forms you often hear between certain chords, and learn a couple of songs you really want to learn to play (not "Old Macdonald"!). If you've learned the chords and a few songs and don't know where to go from there, lessons that teach you to replicate a few classics note for note may be just what you need to restart your creative engine.

For anyone sure the guitar is their instrument, lessons are superfluous except insofar as they teach sight reading, a skill you may never use. And since private lessons are expensive, perhaps you should opt for an online course, of which there are myriad examples. These provide the advantage of being able to see the fingerings and chord grips in extreme closeup in addition to being able to ask questions like you would during a lesson in person. Big advantages are no travel time and the cost is a fraction of private lessons. You can afford a top notch professional lesson via skype for about what you'd pay the senior in high school down the block who gives lessons part time.

Or you could do what generations of guitarists have done: watch what the guitar player is doing whenever you see live music, then grab a guitar and try to duplicate it! Here is where the Net and youtube are invaluable. Say you want to know how to play "That's the way (it ought to be)" by Led Zeppelin. No problem: there are two dozen lessons on youtube ranging from stumbling beginner to absolute master. And if none of those fit your bill, there are several videos of Jimmy Page himself playing in clear closeup. And any parts that are not clear on video can usually be cleared up by referring to tablature, of which there are several hundred thousand examples available free online.

Of course watching will not make you a guitarist. Only practice can do that, lots of practice, although that will be limited at first by pain. Yes, playing the guitar is painful, at least until you develop some serious callouses on your fingers, but that doesn't take long if you're practicing 2-3 hours a week. As you gradually build those callouses you can extend your practice sessions, but remember to keep it fun - making music, even if it's your job, should never be drudgery.

So many guitars!

It seems like a logical question for an amateur to ask a guitarist: "Why do you need so many guitars?", but for the guitarist it may be a question he/she has never even thought about. Of course different guitars sound different, especially when you're talking about 6 string versus 12 string or acoustic versus electric, and there are many guitarists who have a favorite brand of guitar and will play nothing else, whether it's a Les Paul or a Martin D-28. For me and for a lot of experienced guitarists, the main reason is alternate tunings: you can keep one guitar in standard tuning, one guitar in Drop D, one guitar in double drop D, and one in open C. This way, you can switch from one song to the next by just substituting a properly tuned one, and not have to bother with retuning for every song.

While some of these tunings are simple (in Drop D for instance, you change only one string) but in some tunings, like the famous one for Led Zeppelin's Rain Song, four of the strings have to be retuned (there's a live tuning that requires only two strings changing, thankfully) and the open C tuning mentioned requires retuning three strings. Thats a lot of droning offkey strings being heard in between songs. Multiple guitars alleviate this problem.

Not to be discounted is the simple pleasure of owning a beautiful or particularly lovely sounding guitar (not always the same thing). I have a stunning Crafter acoustic electric that is just awesome cosmetically, and while a nice sounding guitar (and my only pluggable acoustic) it cannot hold a candle sonically to my super-ugly Alvarez 12 string, which can sound like angels singing when played.
And it isn't a matter of cost...I paid only $125 for the Crafter and $145 for the Alvarez, making them the cheapest guitars in my arsenal, yet possibly the guitars most often played!

Finally there is the possibility of collecting guitars for their resale value, which is a tricky proposition. If you have a Les Paul or an old Guild acoustic with a serial number in the teens, you could make a fortune (there was a very early Fender Strat that went for $350,000 on Antiques Roadshow), but most guitars don't greatly increase in value unless played by someone famous or used in a notable concert or recording session. Add to this the simple fact that guitarists do not like to sell their guitars no matter how many they may have. I have bought almost a dozen guitars over the years but sold only two of them - the rest were bartered away in the course of purchasing other guitars. I have in fact been offered three times what I paid for my Norman B30 (around a thousand dollars) but didn't even consider it, since I doubt I could find another that sounds as sweet for a grand.

Some will argue that these multiple guitars don't get used all that much, and that there is only one main axe that is irreplaceable, but I personally have played four of my guitars (and my mandolin) in the past week, and that is not at all unusual. For some, one guitar is enough and more than enough (I don't think Willie Nelson has put his down in 60 years!) while for others, there is no such thing as too many guitars. Count me among the latter! And by the way, would you be interested in selling that old guitar?

Music

I have read that music is closely tied to mathematics, but I'm no judge of that, as I have the musical gift but not the mathematical. When I took up music, it was 1966, so of course I chose the guitar. After almost 45 years it seems unlikely I will ever put it down. I am not a professional musician, although I have little doubt that I could be, were I so inclined. I've got mad chops, as they say, and I can duplicate almost any guitar part. What really turns me on about music however is the creative aspect, the ability to grab an instrument and make new music that has never been played before! It has always seemed like magic to me, this spontaneous production of new musical ideas, and while I don't think I've had any Bach or Mozart moments, it is pleasant to listen to and in fact you can listen to it here: http://www.reverbnation.com/#!/linfloyd or if you'd like a lesson on how to play Norwegian Wood, And You and I from Yes, Still You Turn me on, Rocky Mountain High, you'll find them here on YouTube.