PRESENCE - Volume 72
Inspiration For Guitarists
There is a saying in golf — drive for show, putt for dough.
Nailing a 300 yard drive straight down the middle of the fairway is a sexy skill, but being able to sink 10 foot putts consistently is what wins rounds.
Guitar works the same way.
I once worked in a music store. A younger guy came to work there who was kind of a shredder — he had some chops on the guitar, and he knew it. He had learned a bunch of flashy licks, the kind that turn heads in a music store.
While working there he was also interning at a local recording studio. One day some of my more experienced friends needed a quick rhythm guitar track on a song. Just a Motown style rhythm part — short chords on beats 2 and 4 with the snare. You've heard this kind of part on countless recordings. They would normally call one of us more experienced guys for session work, but this was one simple track and they knew the intern played guitar, so they asked him.
They gave him the chord progression: 1 6- 2- 5. He didn't know what to do. It wasn't a language he spoke. He had spent countless hours perfecting fast licks but no time on the fundamentals — the skills that open doors to studio work, that let you adapt to any style, that make you a working guitarist.
The next day he did something really brave. He came back to the music store, acknowledged what had happened, and apologized for his arrogance. He realized he had spent all his practice time on things that looked impressive, and then when a real opportunity showed up, he couldn't deliver. I'm sure it was humbling. Maybe even a little traumatic. But he learned an important lesson the hard way.
I hope this story does that work for you instead.
That's really what the fundamentals are about — the Number System, the CAGED System, the Landmark Pentatonic System. No matter what style you play, these are the putts. Learn them and doors open. Skip them and eventually you'll find yourself in a musical situation, wishing you had.
-Dustin
P.S. The intern in that story wasn't a bad guitarist. He just practiced the wrong things. The Essential Skills Course is built around the three fundamentals I mentioned — the Number System, the CAGED System, and the Landmark Pentatonic shapes. They're not glamorous. But they're the skills that show up when the music gets real.