Stages of Learning

I'm currently learning the 1st Guitar book for Rent (School Edition), which I'll be performing with Act3 Productions in early November. When I played trombone, it didn't take long to learn my parts for an opera or a musical. I could usually play the music at sight, and then it was just a matter of learning the cues so I didn't have to count hundreds of measures of rests between entrances. I've found that learning a guitar book for a musical is a lot more involved. First of all, I'm not as good a guitar player as I was a trombone player (yet!), and second, the guitar plays almost constantly, so there's a lot more music to learn. There are specific stages I go through when it's time to tackle the guitar book for another musical.

1. Disbelief. I receive the book in the mail, peruse it, and wonder how I could possibly learn that much music.
2. Despair. Playing through the book for the first time, I conclude that the music is impossible.
3. Denial. I put the book away for a few weeks.
4. Acceptance. Looking at my calendar, I realize I'm going to have to learn the book sometime, so I dig it out and start learning the part.
5. Hope. On the second reading, I realize that I can already play most of the music, and that the rest of the music is difficult but not beyond reach.
6. Enlightenment. I listen to the soundtrack for the first time and realize "Oh, so that's how it's supposed to sound."
7. Diligence. I practice the book almost every day and make steady progress.
8. Mastery. A couple weeks before the show, I can finally play everything at performance tempo and keep up with the soundtrack.
9. Panic. The first rehearsal is in three days. I redouble my efforts.
10. Arrogance. I start thinking I sound good.
11. Disillusionment. At the first rehearsal, I realize I don't sound as good as I thought I did. It's always different playing with a live orchestra.
12. Elation. I make adjustments, and I'm happy with my playing again.
13. Disappointment. The tricky section I've spent so much time practicing gets cut.
14. Panic returns. Opening night.
15. Joy. Opening night is over. It's smooth sailing from here. I kick back, enjoy the show, and repeat the pit player's mantra, "Don't mess up."
16. Relief. Closing night. The show's over, and thank goodness I don't have to play that book again for a while.

I'm currently at Stage 7: Diligence. My first rehearsal with the cast is in about 8 weeks, so I'm way ahead of the curve on this one. Opening night is November 4.

On the Right Track

As I continue jazz guitar lessons with Charles Williams, I realize I have a long way to go, but at the same time, I feel encouraged.

On the one hand, I have a lot of work ahead of me transcribing famous solos, learning licks, and broadening my knowledge of music theory. At the same time, I have to learn to incorporate all this into my own jazz vocabulary. This will take years of practice.

On the other hand, I sound good now, and each new concept I'm learning will only help me sound better. What's most encouraging is that every new thing I'm learning makes sense. It's all just an extension of concepts I'm already familiar with. This is comforting to me, because it's a sign that I've been on the right path all along. So far, there's never been a moment in a lesson where I've felt like I've had to start learning the guitar all over again. It's more like I'm on the same road Charles is on. He just happens to have traveled the path longer than I have, and he's helping me out with directions.

For current and prospective students, fear not! I've been giving you good information. The fact is, no matter how good you are, there's always something more to learn. That's the beauty (and frustration) of being a musician.

Getting It All Down: Transcribing Solos

I'll be constantly learning new things about the guitar, music, and myself until the day I take my last breath. The past few years, I've grown quite a bit as a guitarist, but lately I've felt that I was in a rut. I felt that I had learned about as much as I could on my own, so I began taking lessons last week with Charles Williams, one of Atlanta's finest jazz guitarists.

After less than a week of working on my lesson material, I already have a sense of how Charles will help me grow. The main thing Charles is helping me with is growing my musical vocabulary – my bag of tricks that I can use for improvising, comping, and arranging. (Comping is a common jazz term for accompanying. If you're playing in support of a singer or another instrumentalist, you're comping.) The main way I'll be improving my vocabulary will be through transcribing solos of great jazz musicians.

To transcribe a solo, you choose a recording, listen to the solo over and over, write it down, and figure out how to play it. This takes quite a bit of time and focus. I'm not very fast at it, although I expect to get better at it over time.

As Charles put it, "I don't know any good players who don't transcribe solos." Transcribing solos is something I've been putting off, not because I wasn't aware of the value of it, but because it's hard and I was a little scared of it. Now that Charles has pushed me in this direction, I can see I didn't have anything to be frightened of. Yes, it's challenging, but I can already see the benefits. When you transcribe a solo, you're retracing the steps of a master. As you reconstruct a solo and learn to play it, you gain a gradual understanding of how that particular musician approached the guitar. By practicing the solo, you learn new licks, which you eventually learn how to incorporate into your own style of improvisation. In a sense, this is like learning a language. At first you mimic what you hear. Eventually you learn to use words and phrases to tell your own stories.

We're starting lessons with two guitarists that are at the root of all modern jazz guitar playing: Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt. I'm looking forward to this new musical adventure!