Guitar magazines often dive deep into specifics, from blues scales to exotic tonewoods. While these details are interesting, it’s easy for guitarists to miss the broader view of what it means to be a musical player. This involves developing a solid foundation in musicianship, understanding how melodies, chords, and rhythms intertwine, and fostering a healthy relationship with the guitar itself. Think of it like focusing on individual brushstrokes versus appreciating the entire Picture Of A Guitar masterpiece.
To gain insights into this bigger picture, we consulted several prominent guitarists and educators: Corey Christiansen, Fareed Haque, Molly Miller, Juanito Pascual, and Lauren Passarelli. Their diverse backgrounds offer valuable perspectives that can enrich your daily practice and elevate your overall musicianship.
Beyond the Tab: Cultivating Musical Literacy
Many guitarists rely heavily on shortcuts like tablature. While tab can offer quick results, it can hinder long-term musical growth. Learning a complex piece like Robert Johnson’s “Hell Hound on My Trail” via tab might seem faster than analyzing its musical structure and notation. However, a deeper understanding of music theory and notation is crucial for becoming a well-rounded musician. It’s like looking at a picture of a guitar and only recognizing the strings, instead of understanding how they create music.
Fareed Haque, a jazz and classical guitar instructor at Northern Illinois University School of Music, critiques the overemphasis on quick fixes in guitar education. “There’s a whole guitar-education cottage industry that attempts to circumvent musicianship in favor of what’s most expedient—like 20 Jazz Chords You Must Know Now! There’s an emphasis on spoon-feeding little bits of information that end up just cluttering the brain and the musical personality.”
Consider this: can you instantly name a note beyond the seventh fret without hesitation? Many technically proficient guitarists struggle with this basic skill. “I’ve been teaching at NIU for 30 years, and I still have students—even grad students—who, when they first come to me, look at the ninth fret on the B string and can’t tell me what note it is. It’s just crazy,” Haque remarks.
Knowing your fretboard intimately is essential. You should be able to identify the note at the 9th fret of the B string as G#/Ab, and visualize that same pitch at the 13th fret of the G string and the 18th fret of the D string. This fretboard fluency is fundamental to the bigger picture, regardless of your musical style. Imagine a detailed picture of a guitar fretboard in your mind – that’s the level of familiarity you should aim for.
Close-up picture of a guitar fretboard with focus on fret markers, emphasizing the importance of fretboard knowledge for guitarists.
Numerous methods exist for learning the fretboard. Haque recommends studying the major scale in various positions, both in one- and two-octave configurations. This approach, detailed at fareed.com/lessons/playing-scales-on-the-guitar, emphasizes understanding scale patterns across the entire fretboard and the relationships between keys, applicable to all musical genres. It’s about seeing the complete picture of guitar scales across the neck.
While fretboard note recognition is crucial, understanding standard notation elevates your musicianship further. Tablature is convenient, especially given the multiple locations of notes on the guitar. However, the broader benefits of reading and writing standard notation—from learning diverse musical pieces to composing and collaborating with musicians outside of guitar—are immense. Think of standard notation as the detailed blueprint compared to a simplified picture of a guitar.
Developing sight-reading proficiency takes consistent practice with varied scores. Resources like William Leavitt’s Reading Studies for Guitar or apps like Sight Reading Mastery can be valuable starting points. Haque emphasizes the ultimate goal of sight-reading: “You have to work toward being able to analyze in real time what you’re looking at, so that you’re not always sitting there counting lines and spaces. You have to look at a vertical structure and be like, ‘Oh, that’s a G minor chord,’ rather than a bunch of different notes.” It’s about instantly recognizing the musical structures, not just individual notes on a picture of guitar sheet music.
Recognizing a G minor chord in notation and playing it rhythmically requires fretboard knowledge, notation skills, and basic music theory. The notion that music theory stifles creativity is a misconception. Instead, theory empowers inventiveness by allowing you to visualize various ways to play a G minor chord across the fretboard, beyond the standard barre chord. “There’s no way you can do the work and not get the results that come from knowing the fretboard and how it ties in to music theory,” Haque asserts. Music theory provides the framework to understand the complete picture of guitar harmony.
The Power of Listening: Developing Your Ear
A well-developed ear, capable of identifying intervals, chords, and scales, both in isolation and within musical contexts, significantly enhances your musicianship. (Explore ear training further here.) Learning songs by ear, rather than solely relying on written music or online tabs, fosters a deeper understanding of musical structures and informs your overall playing. It’s like hearing the nuances in a live performance versus just seeing a static picture of a guitar player.
Lauren Passarelli, a Berklee College of Music guitar professor and a pioneer as the first woman to graduate from Berklee’s guitar program in 1982, honed her ear out of necessity. Finding accurate transcriptions of her favorite songs was challenging. Instead of searching for tabs, she learned to dissect recordings.
Passarelli explains, “My awesome teacher, Lou Sabini, taught me how to listen for the bass notes of the guitar on a recording and work from there to figure out what the guitarist was actually playing. It thrilled me to play it like the record, because I knew I was understanding what was being played, how it was being played, and I worked on [playing it on guitar] until I felt the same emotion the record had. I learned guitar language, and my original music benefitted tremendously from this because it stretched me in so many ways.” She wasn’t just copying notes; she was understanding the musical language, going beyond a simple picture of guitar notes.
Even beyond transcription, deep listening provides significant benefits. Streaming services offer vast musical libraries, but this abundance can be overwhelming. Intentional, focused listening to a smaller selection of music can be more impactful.
Corey Christiansen, a renowned jazz guitarist and professor at Utah State University, expresses concern about students’ listening habits. “Much of the time, they’re listening on their iPads or phones through inferior, $10 earbuds, to music that’s streaming at a highly compressed level. I’m in favor of listening deeply to a non-compressed version of a monumental recording, over and over again, on a different level each time. That way you come away with a better understanding of how things like different rhythmic feels, articulations, and dynamic controls work; you focus on micro-level things that you then bring to your own playing on a macro level.” He advocates for truly hearing the music, not just a compressed picture of the sound.
Developing the ability to critically listen to your own playing, whether solo or in an ensemble, is another essential skill. Self-assessment can be challenging, as we may be unaware of our weaknesses or underestimate our strengths. Recording yourself provides an objective listener’s perspective, revealing tendencies you might miss while playing. For example, you might realize you overplay in a guitar duo, prompting you to become a more sensitive musical partner. It’s like getting an honest picture of your guitar playing from an outside perspective.
Finding Your Community: Playing Together
For many, guitar playing is a solitary hobby. However, music, particularly genres like folk and rock, thrives on collective expression. Participating in a musical community enhances your musicianship and expands playing opportunities.
Guitarists who solely play alone may unknowingly develop rhythmic deficiencies. An unsteady sense of timing and groove can negatively impact your music, regardless of technical proficiency. Joining a musical community, or even forming a band, especially with a solid bassist and drummer, can profoundly benefit your musical growth. It’s about being part of a musical landscape, not just a lone picture of a guitarist.
“Building your community of other players to play with teaches you volumes in a fun way,” Lauren Passarelli emphasizes. “It’s also great to find [a fellow guitarist] to practice with. It’s so much easier to jump in and learn how to read together, play duets, find harmonies to sing on each other’s songs, and come up with sweet guitar parts to complement each other.” Playing with others expands your musical horizons beyond your individual picture of guitar skills.
Haque, with experience across jazz and classical music communities, notes, “Having a career is as much a social endeavor as it is an artistic one. I can’t tell you how many talented musicians I’ve come across who didn’t want to hang—whether at the club or on the internet—and it didn’t work out for them, career-wise. And the more that you move around in communities, the better chance you’ll have of finding a niche where your skill set can be monetized—for lack of a better word.” Networking and community are vital in the broader picture of a guitar career.
To find a musical community, attend local gigs of musicians you admire. Molly Miller, head of the guitar department at Los Angeles College of Music, who has played with artists like the Black Eyed Peas and Jason Mraz, advises, “When you follow the music that you love, you’ll naturally find a community. If you love Adam Levy’s guitar playing and you go to his shows, you’ll find a community there in a way that’s organic—and leave feeling inspired and wanting to practice. It’s super important, where the big picture is concerned, for musicians to be out in the scene, supporting and admiring each other.” Being present in the music scene helps you become part of the larger picture of guitar music.
Preparing a repertoire of standards is crucial for engaging with a musical community. Whether bluegrass, jazz, or another genre, knowing common songs facilitates collaboration. The more songs you learn across genres and eras, the more you’ll understand musical connections, learn new music faster, and become a more complete musician. A diverse repertoire paints a richer picture of your guitar musicianship.
Close-up picture of a guitar fretboard with focus on fret markers, emphasizing the importance of fretboard knowledge for guitarists.
Body and Mind: Holistic Guitar Playing
During periods of rapid musical growth, it’s tempting to practice for extended periods and ignore physical discomfort. Juanito Pascual, a flamenco virtuoso and teacher in Los Angeles, initially embraced the “no pain, no gain” philosophy until injury forced him to reconsider his physical relationship with the guitar.
In 1991, at 18, Pascual’s intense practice and performance schedule in Spain, often involving 10-hour days without warm-ups, took a toll. As a dance accompanist, he frequently had to play forcefully to be heard over dancers’ footwork. “I had this attitude that if I just threw myself in and went for it, that’s how I would get better,” Pascual recounts.
On his 20th birthday, severe pain stopped him. Picking up his guitar felt like his thumb was tearing. He took six months off and rebuilt his technique, learning to identify and alleviate tension. “I used Feldenkrais therapy and the Alexander Technique as part of the healing process,” he explains. “Plus I read books like Eugen Herrigel’s Zen in the Art of Archery to work on my mindset as well, and negate all the panic that came with the injury.” This experience taught him that the picture of a healthy guitar player includes physical well-being.
Caring for your body and mind is as vital as honing your guitar skills. Just as warming up before exercise is essential, warming up before practicing or performing is crucial. A personalized warm-up routine, perhaps including gentle hand stretches and slow scale practice with minimal pressure, is recommended. It’s about preparing your body for the physical demands of creating a beautiful picture of guitar music.
Avoid prolonged static positions during practice. Periodically let your hands relax and move around, similar to breaks in an office job. Set reminders to take breaks after completing a section of practice or at regular intervals.
Yoga can also be beneficial, releasing tension, improving concentration, and promoting breath awareness, which Pascual identifies as key to injury prevention. “Hand injuries are often closely related to tense breathing,” he explains, “so I’ve learned to be very attuned to my breathing.” Yoga helps create a balanced picture of a guitar player’s lifestyle.
Mental tension can also hinder progress and increase injury risk. Incorporating meditation, even for short durations before practice or performance, can reduce stress and enhance clarity. It’s about achieving mental focus to create a clear picture of guitar performance.
Instead of anxiously tracking everything you should be doing, appreciate the privilege of spending time with the guitar. Molly Miller recalls a lesson with jazz guitarist Bruce Forman: “One day I went into a lesson depressed about how I sounded. Bruce threw down his guitar and said, ‘Molly, what the hell are you doing? You should be honored every time you pick up this beautiful instrument.’” This perspective shift allows you to appreciate the entire picture of your journey with the guitar.
