3 Reasons Why You May Not Be Getting Big Results From Taking Guitar Lessons (2)

The Perfectionist”

The next type of student wants to master every little thing their teacher presents in a lesson (or that they discover on their own) before working on anything else. While on the surface this seems like a good idea, it is far from the most efficient approach to becoming a great musician. Learning music is best done in a non-linear approach, meaning that multiple things should be worked on simultaneously without stressing out about totally mastering everything in a linear order. Discover more about why the typical linear approach guitar players follow often fails in this video about how to learn and master guitar playing.

I like to compare learning music to baking a cake. You don’t make a cake by cooking one ingredient at a time and then finally putting them together when each one is ready. If you baked your cake in this way, it would take you a long time to finish and more importantly the cake would not taste as good as when the ingredients are cooked together!

The same goes for musical skills. If you waited until you became a great virtuoso master of technique before beginning to work on (mastering) music theory, then turning to songwriting, and then switching to improvising, it could take you many decades to finally become really good and your skills would not likely be integrated together. What I recommend to you is to follow a non-linear approach (as described in the video above). When learning a new skill, don’t wait until you completely master it; only make sure that you have the fundamentals down and begin immediately to look for contexts to apply it. Then work on integrating this new skill with everything else that you know how to do/play. Application and integration are unique skills that must be practiced separately. This key link will enable you to go from being "the student” who is able to "do lots of things” on the guitar, to becoming a great player who can use all of his musical skills to achieve complete musical expression.

This (non-linear) approach will also prevent you from getting out of balance with your skills and at any level of your musical development, you will be able to apply and integrate everything you know. It is important to note that a ‘non-linear approach’ is not an ‘illogical’ approach. So if you are looking for a systematic and logical approach to learning guitar, you should understand that this systematic, geometric (non-linear) strategy IS in fact the most effective, most efficient and most logical path possible. More info at http://www.cheapleftyguitars.com/.