As I said in my last blog (18 months ago!), to be a Songwriter you have to have something to say, and want to say it. I don't know if I'm teaching Songwriting, though, as much as I'm  helping it come out of the people it would have come out of anyway sooner or later. I've laid out sets of chords that go well together for lots of people, but these two new songs on this page here came out of something I didn't teach these students.

What I do is I sit with a student one-to-one for an hour, same as a guitar lesson - and focus with him/her on the tune, and the task of writing words and music, until you're happy with what you've created. Then we record it, right here, as part of the lesson. If it takes a few weeks, that's what we do until you're happy with your performance - and then I start playing with it. I add whatever you think the song needs, mix and tweak and stuff, and there you have it.

Bill MacIntosh is a stand-up comic who was taking lessons up until last week, and he came in here some months back with a story that he turned into a song. I showed him some chords, he wrote a song, and now it's here on my page - how cool is that? He wrote it, words and music, arranged it, sang it, and played the acoustic guitar. I played electric guitar, bass, sang backup, programmed the drums, and recorded it with him. It's called Dream Man, and his lovely wife, Mary, loves it. Bill is working on his next song from beautiful St. John's.

Jamie is a newish student - a couple of months new here - who took away a Chili Peppers tune one week and showed up the next week with the song learned, and his own song made up from the chords. Gobsmacked, I got up off the floor and put a mic in front of him, and we recorded 1,000 Times. Jamie played acoustic guitar and sang, wrote the lyrics and arrangement, and played the electric guitar intro bit and "colour riff" too. I played the djembe, the keyboard bass/percussion, and recorded. Jamie will be back in September; school's out!

So, can I teach you Songwriting? I can show you some stuff, yeah! I can also help you put it out there, but you have to supply the... umm... whatever it is. Spirit?

What is a Songwriter?  An "expert" (ie. successful) Songwriter Guy whose name I can't remember gave a seminar I attended - he said you don't know if you're a Songwriter until you've written 300 songs. He was talking about Professional Songwriters, of course - those who get paid. That's a legitimate goal for a Songwriter. It's one of mine, though it's not why I do it; I do it because it's healing, fun, and sometimes the only way I can express a feeling to my satisfaction - and because I can. I don't have great hopes pinned to selling songs, so I guess I'm a small-S songwriter. Success is measured by more than just bucks - pleasure, satisfaction, meaning, growth; these are potent, heady measures of success too. But that's WHY you might want to be a songwriter; the question was HOW? You'll need basic theory at least, for starters (See my previous entry on Theory).

Melody is most important, I think, and when you combine that with words, then you have something to say in two languages simultaneously, each drawing power from the other. Accompaniment (at very least, chords) amplifies and often shapes the mood of the song as a whole. The big question then is, how am I going to express this? Being able to sing is a gift; knowing how to play an instrument is essential (MIDI programmers - I like doing that Electronica thing too - will disagree with me no doubt). You only need to have something original to say musically, and the drive to say it, even if it's out loud only to yourself at first; you'll likely want other people to listen eventually.

During my past career as a psychotherapist I had the opportunity to design and run a Music Therapy program; I've also done Art Therapy with folks, and I believe that there's deep healing power in the creative process, regardless of how good you think you might be at it. Just getting what's inside you out, in the form of Art of any sort, is an excellent way of not only telling your personal story, but also of transforming it, making it into something tangible that honours and records your growth. Being able to see or hear your creation affects what's still inside of you, completing a circle and starting another one - so I figure creating even one song/poem/painting/whatever is life enhancing. Songwriting is my favourite means of self-expression, and teaching it is a special priviledge. I don't give therapy any more, though, so please don't even ask.

What I DO do is explain why and how certain chords work together, and their relationships with melodies; how the dynamics (peaks and valleys) of a song also communicate the emotional intention of the writer, and affect the listener; suggest how you might start, develop, refine, and/or finish a tune; record a student's creation right here in the studio, and either demonstrate how to make it sound better using digital software, or just do it myself to your specifications (your call). I may also even offer my own playing (bass - acoustic and electric lead, slide and rhythm guitar - blues harp - backup vocals - etc.) time permitting and if the spirit/spirit of the song moves me.

The rest is up to you; if it's inside you, you likely feel it; you might be a songwriter, or a Songwriter even, if you want to be... I figure the world today can use as many songwriters as it can get, saying how we really feel OUT LOUD!!!

~~~tod~~~

I believe that all learning in life is done in relationships; your relationship to yourself, to your Creator, to your environment and the people in it, to your instrument, to Music - and to your chosen Teacher. The relationship between you, Music, and your instrument determines your goals. The relationship between you, your goals, and your Teacher determines the quality of your PAID exploration of Music. A paid co-explorer isn't only a Guide; s/he is, in one sense, a lot like a Sherpa, taking you wherever you want to go because we know the route well and we travel it often - your destination is our living. You might want to climb Everest or go to the Lounge; we know where both are, and can show you.

The relationship between you and your Mentor is something else again. You seek to learn and your Mentor, ideally, seeks to do whatever it takes to help Holistically - that is, with all these complex layers of  relationship in mind - to achieve your specific goals, whatever they are. A Mentor is more than just a Guide; paid or not, a Mentor wants maximum learning and enjoyment for you on your journey... because s/he genuinely cares about you as a whole person. This doesn't happen in every Student/Teacher relationship (and doesn't have to), but when it does happen, it is ideal, special - uniquely rewarding for both people.

Your relationship with your instrument can range from nodding acquaintance to soulmate. Yes, an inanimate object can be your soulmate - when you animate it - when it gives you a wordless voice to sing with - when just seeing it, touching it, moves you deep inside - what would you call that? I call it intimacy, and I am intimate with my guitar - it feels like a part of me; a unique voice, a lifelong friend, a Guide and, yes, even a Mentor - because it has been my connection to Music, the sweetest of the Creator's many gifts.

So how can you be intimate with your instrument if you don't crave Music like addicts crave drugs? "Hey, lighten up and just have fun with it!" is an honest answer... "You'll never reach the peak otherwise!" is an equally honest answer. I never wanted to have to work harder than neccessary to have fun, but I've found that there's more fun to be had after some focused work. I tend to favour the Middle Road, myself - so those are the folks I'm best suited to. And what route did you have in mind?

~~~tod~~~

Finally, we get to the good stuff! This question swings both ways - what YOU can expect, and what I can expect. You first (as always):

You can expect me to do my best to "meet you where you are", starting right from the first lesson when I ask you to fill out my Learning Styles Inventory. If you're a beginner, this won't do much more than give me a running start at how to present the info in the way that makes most sense to you... if you're more advanced, you'll probably already know this, but I'll ask you to do it anyway so I know too - I figure it's worth it in any case.

I'll also ask you to burn me a CD of the tunes that mean the most to you, even if actually playing them is a ways down the road - this gives me a good idea of where you want to go (the only place worth guiding you towards), including which tune to aim for first. My assumption is that you want to be playing something you love asap - yes? This may take a while if you're a beginner - mastering the basics has to come first - but there's something unique to relationship-building in sharing your favourite tunes with anyone, and the quality of the Student - Teacher relationship is crucial to the process. More on that later...

As we proceed along your path, lessons become more and more individualized, therefore less and less predictable - maybe you didn't get time to practice since the previous lesson, and feel guilty, like you're wasting my time or something - not so! There's always something new to learn, whether it's going over the previous lesson in more depth, or winging it on something totally unrelated - I always start a lesson by asking you where you are, and we take it from there, wherever "there" might be.

From my point of view, I've learned to expect the unexpected - this isn't an assembly line, and I'd get desperately bored with a one-size-fits-all curriculum. It's kind of like improv - jamming - to respond to your needs in the moment. The most fun I have teaching is when someone is so driven to learn that they go above and beyond what I present and come back loaded with improvements and questions that challenge me to keep up with them, but realistically, most folks don't have the time to devote to such rabid pursuit of progress.

The most common fun I get out of teaching is when you get to the point that we can play through a tune, beginning to end, in time and together. I always sing and play along with you no matter where you're at, but the first time it's actually a solid tune is such a buzz for both of us that I've been known to jump out of the chair! Seeing that light go on for you makes my day... it's a major milestone, and cause for celebration - usually by doing it again!

And then there's songwriting and recording your tunes here...

~~~tod~~~

Yes. No. Maybe... all answers are right if you consider that you don't have to approach Theory in any sort of approved or "right" way. People have been exploring it since, as a species, we began to organize sound in pleasing, meaningful ways. To make your first chord is to begin to understand the mechanics of Music intuitively and viscerally (body memory, like the way you walk), as our ancestors have always done. Written record and scientific method are a recent development in the historic span of Humans creating Music - an attempt to preserve and refine what bubbles out of us naturally... how, when, and where is that useful?

Conventional Theory is as useful as your ability or desire to use it. This has everything to do with your learning style, where you are in the process, what your goals are - and what choices you have. Imagine a baby hitting the books to learn walking - now consider a runner studying his/her performance, attempting to improve it. Blues is an aural, intuitive tradition that needs no in-depth analysis or explanation, while Classical guitar could not exist without it. Illiteracy eliminates the possibility of reading or writing a language, but not of speaking it creatively and evocatively - Music is just another language. What and how do you want to communicate?

Guitar Tablature is all over the Internet, and for good reason - it's the written language that tells you where on the guitar fretboard to place your fingers to get the sounds you want to hear when you're learning music that other people have created; the most direct way from point A to point B. Some teachers may disagree with me that Tablature is Theory, but I believe it is only bypassing the complicated explanation to get to the actual playing, and that your hands and your intuition are absorbing Theoretical wisdom as you learn. They teach you what works without telling you WHY it does, and that's ok... there's plenty of time to learn WHY if you decide you want to.

Chord symbols are the other most common written language for learning guitar - again, they don't tell you much more than where to put your fingers to get the proper sound; they do name the chord, but they don't tell you WHY it has that name. You learn a song by playing a series of chords, so you discover that a particular group of chords work together, still without understanding WHY they do. You could build an entire repertoire of other peoples' tunes, and be the campfire hero without ever consciously exploring the Theory of what you're doing - you'd still be absorbing Theory intuitively and viscerally - and if that's as far as you want to go, go for it!

If, however, you are a dedicated, serious student of Guitar - if your goal is excellence in a lifelong pursuit of the accumulated science of the instrument - you'll eventually hit a wall. Theory will then be the only gate through the wall, because there's really no way around it... and once beyond that wall, a whole world of understanding will open up for you. What you absorbed viscerally and intuitively will suddenly begin to make logical sense - and the benefits to your musicianship will astonish you! I have to add a caution here, though... once you have advanced to this level, there may be no turning back! The learning is endless, addictive, and enormously rewarding; you may be left with no other choice than to become a Guitar Hero!

~~~tod~~~

To answer this question for yourself, you'd first have to know what your goals in taking Guitar lessons are - it's okay if you don't really know beyond "I always wanted to try it", and if that's your story, then try it, by all means. You'll have realized your immediate goal just by finding a teacher and taking the leap, and that's realistic.

Whatever your goals might be, it may be a good idea to have a realistic look at your lifestyle to determine if you have the time and energy to make a genuine commitment to achieving them. If you're driven to succeed, you already know this, and you're hard at it... so adding Guitar lessons should be no sweat, right? Maybe. Can you set aside time to practice regularly? Will the demands of your job (or your school workload) cause you to have to cancel lessons frequently? These are primary factors to consider IF your goal is to progress quickly - you'll only get out of it what you can afford to put into it. Expecting rapid progress without dedicated effort isn't realistic, and being billed for missed lessons is no fun either.

On the other hand, if you don't really care about how quickly you progress - let's say you have a 9 to 5 job you like, but that doesn't require much creativity, or that leaves you feeling stressed out - Guitar lessons could be the balance you're looking for. In that case, your goal might be just to have one hour a week built into your schedule where the pressure's off, the focus is completely different, and all you want is something more engaging than T.V. to do with your down time. Noodling on the couch to relieve stress and engage your under-used right brain is not only realistic - it's healthy too!

These are just three obvious scenarios among endless possibilities, including questioning the question itself; "Are My Goals Realistic?" Do they have to be? Are dreams real? Are goals destinations? Can the journey be the goal? Do you need a map? Do I know what I'm talking about? It's your call after all...

~~~tod~~~

This is a question right off my FAQ Page , to which my ever-persistent smartass self is tempted to reply, "One". Fortunately, I have that part of myself under control (mostly), and I know what the question is really about - beginners wanting to know when they'll be able to play something recognizable as music - and despite it's vagueness, it's actually a good question. UNfortunately, it's impossible to answer in any kind of a general way.

The learning curve is pretty steep when you start with guitar, and there are many factors involved. I guess the most important one, though, is how much time you devote to practice, and there's a limit to how much a beginner CAN practice. It takes time to develop enough callous on your fingertips to be able to tolerate extended practice sessions, and pushing it can result in blisters that can stop you cold... and when they break, you're down several layers of skin; in other words, 3 steps back, and you can't resume practice until the blister heals. I suggest 20 minutes every other day for the first few weeks, or until your fingertips are hot and sore (but not TOO sore). Callous is dead skin, so "hot and sore" is a good thing; it means you're killing skin cells and building your callouses, which will accumulate, allowing you to practice longer per session and, eventually, daily - if you're that motivated.

Motivation is another big issue; lessons merely supply info, so virtually ALL your progress will be a result of your practice. If you have a life, there will be a tug-of-war between your obligations and your motivation, which is where self-discipline becomes an issue, so perhaps you're beginning to see why answering this question is so complicated and impossible to generalize. I have to laugh when I see ads telling you it's possible for anyone to be playing your favourite tunes after a one-day seminar... maybe I'm missing something, but given all I've said so far in this post, I think it's highly unlikely. There is no short cut around strong motivation, disciplined practice, and the gradual building of strength and stamina - and it's a different timeline for each of us.

One last thought... I've found that the highest motivator is aiming to play songs you like, and the quickest route to doing that is starting right in playing chords, which will build your hand strength at the same time as you're developing callous and getting into making practice a priority. That's how we do it here.

~~~tod~~~

It may surprise you to hear a Guitar Teacher say this, but I believe the answer to this question is, in some cases, No. Why not? The answer to THAT question isn't easily explained, but I'll give it a shot. Seeing as we are each unique, as I keep stressing, and learn in a way that may be as individual as our fingerprint, those who are strongly Auditory (see my Learning Styles Inventory) have a distinct advantage. If you can listen to the tune, melody, solo, etc. that you want to play until you can sing it or at least hear it in your head, then search it out on the fretboard and KNOW that you have it right, you've been given a gift. You shouldn't take this lightly. It can take you a long way in your learning, and if you score highly in the Kinesthetic/Tactile area as well, the guitar itself can tell you if you're developing self-defeating habits that slow you down - it was built for the human hand, after all.

I ask all my new students to fill out this short questionnaire because it helps me to present individualized lessons in the way that makes most sense to them. Most of these folks don't score as highly Auditory, and over the years I've realized that this is likely because if they did, they would be busy learning on their own, not looking for help. I suspect this is the case because I've never had a Guitar lesson in my life - I'm totally self-taught because I'm a strongly Auditory learner. To become a good guitarist, though, I still had to develop my weaker traits to bring them up to speed, so to speak, and the same is true for those who do come to me... it's called Ear Training. To become a Good Teacher, I had to learn things I used to think weren't important - Theory is the best example; I made a living in bands on the road for 15 years, and even wrote original songs with only a rudimentary theoretical understanding. No teacher can teach what s/he doesn't know, and although I don't believe theory is the best place for most people to begin learning, a serious student will eventually have to go there.

I call it the "Why?" question, and even the most Auditory learner will want answers to it to progress. I finally had to pay close attention to Theory so I could explain it to my students when I began teaching... I never needed to know "Why?" until then, so I saved myself thousands of dollars in teachers' fees as a lifetime student of guitar. I did pay a price of another kind, however; I have a hunch that I'd have progressed faster if I had paid someone to explain Theory to me - it's essentially only Math (which I hated), and a short dose of it can go a long way. A longer dose can be infinite, and for some, infinitely rewarding.

Approaching learning intuitively, as I did, is a path I don't regret - Blues, my first love, lends itself well to the Auditory learner, and I may have gone down another path with too much Theory too early. Blues is, after all, a tradition passed down by ear, not by writing (a Visual learner's need), and understood in the heart more than in the head. Actually, that statement is somewhat misleading; when I say "heart", I mean Right Brain (intuition), and "head" is Left Brain (logic)... but I'm getting ahead of myself; again, that's a whole other post.

The choice to take lessons or not is yours; I hope this post helps you make an informed one.

~~~tod~~~

I'm going to pass on what I've heard from some of the students that I've had over the years - horror stories? - I'll leave that judgement up to you.

A high-priced private Guitar teacher who plunked a page of one of those Hal Leonard textbooks down in front of the student, and then... left the room??? Got on his phone and started doing business within earshot of the student, and didn't return until it was time to end the lesson. Was he intentionally trying to get rid of this student? Was he nuts? I'll never know.

A high school-age student who couldn't stop calling me "Sir" even after I told him it made me uncomfortable, and he should just call me Tod - said he couldn't help it, force of habit, he was schooled by nuns (!), that it had been so strict that a rap across the knuckles with one of those pointer sticks with the rubber tips that they use was no big deal. He actually didn't see anything wrong with that! I think he left because I didn't have a pointy stick.

A woman who SCREAMED! at her student in Russian when she made a mistake playing through a Classical piece on the piano... not just once - repeatedly! Apparently this was part of her teaching style, and I assume she though it was an effective teaching technique - nurturing with terror - probably because that's the way SHE was taught, and her teacher before her. Yes, this kind of crap was considered normal four decades ago when I was too small to question it. I question it STRONGLY now that I can. It took this student quite a while to realize that I wasn't going to SCREAM! at her.

A teenage girl who took lessons with me for more than six months, who refused to play guitar in front of me, and barely spoke or made eye contact the whole time. Her mother told me the girl had extreme authority issues, and a high level of anxiety - all my efforts to help her failed to gain her trust, and I have no idea if she benefitted in any way from our time together.

These are just four examples among many that students who've shown up at my door have shared with me (verbally and otherwise) about previous exposure to Teachers. There have been positive stories told as well, to be sure, and these were experiences that I could help them build on, but that's not the slant I'm talking about here. I could speculate endlessly about what motivated these "educators" to behave the way they did, but frankly, I think that would be pointless. Bottom line: I just don't get it. As I said before, "If it ain't fun, what's the point?". None of the above stories sound like fun to me, and I'd be interested to hear from anyone who endured such treatment and came out the other end believing it helped them.

I will describe my teaching approach in a future post, but for now, I'll just say that it resembles none of the above.

~~~tod~~~

So, you found yourself a Guitar teacher. "What next?" you wonder as you eagerly await your first lesson. As an informed consumer, the next question you'd be well advised to ask yourself is, "Is this teacher going to be right for me?". Why? Because all teachers are definitely NOT created equal, and teachers of any kind have a HUGE impact on you, especially your first teachers. Your education began with your parents, and I can't tell you how many students have told me, with absolute certainty, that they have a "tin ear", "can't hold a tune in a bucket", or have "absolutely NO musical ability". (If so, why even bother coming to me? I think something deeper in them is at work). Where did they get such low musical self-esteem? Parents? First teachers? I don't want to point fingers, but if you believe these kinds of things about yourself, think back to where you heard it. I can tell you this; in many cases, these students proved themselves wrong!

In large class situations (virtually ALL education systems, public or private), a teacher's workload is ridiculously unrealistic. They just don't have the time to give you essential individual attention that, no matter how smart you are, you'll at least occasionally need. We're all unique. Each of us takes in information in a unique way, relying on the sense, or combination of senses (Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic) that is strongest in us, that works best for us (See my Learning Styles Inventory ). In school, the teacher you remember as your favourite probably had found some way to present the curriculum in a way that covered the broad range of learning styles, and, like Mr. Holland (see my previous post), was willing to devote extra time and attention focusing on students who still weren't "getting it". In all my Primary, High School, and College experiences, I can recall only two teachers who were that dedicated - of course they were my favourites!

What these exceptional teachers passed on to me wasn't so much information as it was enthusiasm, the love of learning for its own sake, and the sense that they really did care about ME. They made learning fun, and let's face it, "If it ain't fun, what's the point?". Yes, learning is also work, but when work is fun, it seems to just almost magically get done (and if it's your job we're talking about, the paycheck becomes gravy, not the only reason you're there). Fun is the key, and any teacher who can help you make learning Guitar fun is probably going to give you more than your money's worth, and definitely more than you expected to get out of it.

BUT: A teacher can't know everything; no teacher, even the exceptional ones, can teach you what s/he doesn't know (or like), so you have to audition the teacher (s/he WILL be working for YOU, after all, and it's good to think of it this way) and maybe try a few until you find one you feel is feeding you well... even if only to get the best bang for your buck, which can get pretty pricey over the long haul. You don't always "get what you pay for" in the real world; would you buy a car if it didn't suit your needs? Trust yourself, and... good hunting!

~~~tod~~~