Make sure your instrument is set up properly, practise time on an unplayable instrument is wasted time.
Know that it’s up to you. Your playing is not improved by lessons, it is improved by practising in between them.
Schedule your practising – assign twenty minutes a day rather than ‘When you feel like it’.
Layer your practise – separate your tone and timing rather than trying to nail both at the same time – it’s not realistically achievable.
Always practise to a rhythm. When practising scales count through them evenly, when you are practising a chord change do so within a count of four to encourage rhythmic rigour. Rather than speeding up the count add more strokes of each chord to reduce the time available for the chord changes in increments.
Avoid speed. Trying to play fast before you can play accurately will truncate your learning. Accuracy makes speed achievable, not vice versa.
Practise the passages which need practising. It is pointless to practise a whole piece of music if the same four bar section is consistently giving you trouble.
Take notes of points you are consistently struggling with and discuss these with your tutor.
Set yourself goals. Focus on a piece to improve the standard within a set timeframe if you can.
Keep it varied. Don’t keep going around the same few pieces. Even if you don’t get bored your brain will and you will stop improving.
Keep it interesting. If you are getting bored with your set pieces tell your tutor and seek alternative pieces. Play music you love.
Social media has noticed I’m a musician. It’s also noticed that I teach. So – as a thank you for my services – social media bombards me daily with dozens of posts advertising the latest guitar method which lets you ditch all that fiddly stuff like theory, scales and practise. I’m sure it’s out there for other instruments as well but for now guitar seems to pretty much have the monopoly on this particular brand of snake oil. They all have one thing in common – an underlying monetisation system that looks after the ‘teachers’ interests, not the students. Some of these people make frankly staggering amounts of money and a little cross referencing reveals a less than satisfactory track record.
Think outside the herd
Don’t be a sheep
Are you thinking about online courses? Are you seeing a lot of adverts for courses promising that you don’t need music theory or scales? That you are practising in the wrong way or too much? Are the people selling these courses telling you what utterly brilliant professional musicians with decades of experience? Are you seeing lots of comments from apparently random individuals agreeing that the course in question is utterly brilliant and the best money they have ever spent?
Wake up, sheeple. There is no way to properly know your instrument without theory and scales. Yes, they can be boring, but suck it up. You need this stuff. Structured practise is important, but are you taking advice about your personal learning journey from someone who has never had a conversation with you? Really? Do you think the ‘members of the public’ raving about the utter brilliance of this course or that might be plants or worse still paid to lie to you? Hadn’t occurred to you? Oh dear, you’re about to waste a lot of money.
Why am I teaching?
Why? Good question.
The most important question almost no student ever asks their teacher is why are you teaching. Because you’re passionate about your subject? Because you want others to experience what music has given you? Because you want to part gullible people from their hard earned cash?
I actually kinda fell into teaching by accident. I was running my own building firm and had been screwed so badly by so many people that financial ruin was around the corner and I needed an alternative. So I took employment as music tech at the local school as part of which I became a peripatetic guitar teacher. I eventually ditched the peri work and went freelance to teach people multiple instruments. I’ve always been very mindful of giving people good value for money and have never priced myself at the top of the local market.
I developed a way of teaching which is predicated on sitting in a room and playing together, so online lessons were out of the question for me. I did give these closer consideration while we were under lockdown thanks to covid but moved away from the idea. I also teach without a set curriculum. As a one to one teacher I have the luxury of treating my students as individuals and this is central to my teaching -I identify individual strengths and weaknesses and plot out lessons accordingly. It works. Not everyone I teach turns into a virtuoso, but everyone makes personal progress. A few students a year get very, very good and these are the ones who keep me going, the others can be a lot more effort.
Making impossible promises
What I do not do is make promises I can’t keep. I don’t tell my students I have the method that will turn them into a blinding musician. That part is in their own hands. I don’t try to appeal to peoples laziness by promising they don’t need theory, scales, practise or any of the other boring shite involved in actually learning an instrument properly.
If you wan to learn an instrument it will take effort. The more effort you put in the better you will get. There is no magic method to sidestep this. There is also no magic method that sidesteps knowing a bit of theory and technique. You need that stuff.
What is even worse about a lot of these online ‘tutors’ is that they will appeal to your laziness by telling you their method involves no theory and no scales. They will then present you with a package that has simply taken that theory and those scales and called them something else. The have rebranded? Why would they do that? Because they want your money and are less interested in whether you will actually benefit from the transaction. They are lying to you to get you to part with your money.
One to one tuition forms relationships
Probably the most important aspect of tuition is the relationship formed between the tutor and the student. Over the months and years the relationship which is formed is central to the process. Individual needs and wants are identified from musical preferences to learning needs the list of benefits is long. As a teacher I can identify the individual strengths and weaknesses of my students, I can learn to interact with their personalities, nurture their learning journey and produce lesson materials and scores to cater for their particular wants and needs. It is much harder to achieve this with online courses, and I would argue it is impossible to achieve these things with a set curriculum fated out by someone who has just worked out how to make as many people part with as much money as possible. If they are telling you otherwise they are lying to you, it’s that simple.
Make your own way
I’m not here to tell you online tuition is a waste of time. Plenty of people get good results on Youtube and personal tutors are not the only way. But beware of people making impossible promises, question their motives and know that, ultimately, how good you get is in your own hands, not theirs.
Idiosyncrasies aside this is roughly applicable to any instrument of the guitar family. Of course when working on shorter scales such as mandolins then the measurements quoted need to be decreased accordingly.
Guitar geometry
The above diagram sets out the most important elements of guitar geometry:
Guitar Setup Elements
Nut is the termination of the strings at the headstock, string height here is controlled by the depth of the string slots in the nut
Bridge is the termination of the strings on the body, string height (marked Height) here is controlled by saddle height
Scale is the full length of the string and the angle of the neck in relation to the body. This length is controlled by intonation adjustment.
12 is the position of the 12th fret which is half way along the scale and where action is measured
neck relief is the slight upward curvature of the neck towards the nut; this is controlled with the truss rod.
This may look like a simplification but there is not much more to consider when setting up a guitar. The only tools you need are a 500mm straight edge (a good quality engineering rule will suffice), a string height gauge or ruler with 0.5mm divisions, some feeler gauges and a set of nut files. You will need to be able to measure to 0.1mm. This is my process and the following assumes that the frets and neck angle are in good order and do not require levelling and the neck is fitted with an adjustable truss rod:
Guitar Setup Method
Fit strings and bring up to full tension
Lay the straight edge onto the frets between the D and G strings. Adjust the truss rod until the neck is as flat as possible – positive neck relief will show as a small gap between the frets and straight edge around frets 7-12, negative relief will show as a rocking motion of the straight edge between frets 1 and 12 – hold the straight edge around fret 12 and gently tap it above fret 1. If you can hear the straight edge tapping fret 1 then the neck has negative relief (is back bowed) and the truss adjuster will have to be turned anticlockwise until the neck is flat.
measure the string height at fret 12. A steel strung acoustic should have a range of 1.5-2.5mm, an electric guitar should have a range of 1.2-1.7mm. The top E should be proportionately lower than the bottom E. If the bottom E is around 1.5mm then the top E should be around 1.0mm. If the strings are too high the instrument will feel clumsy and unplayable; if the strings are too low you will hear fret buzz and choked notes. Electric guitars have saddle height adjustment screws for this, with a few exceptions acoustic guitars are adjusted by filing or shimming the underside of the saddle. Because of the geometry the adjustment at the saddle is twice the desired change at fret 12. If I want to reduce action at 12 by 1mm then I will remove 2mm (or just under to play it safe) from the saddle.
Check the string height at fret 1. This should be around 0.4mm under the bottom E and 0,2mm under the top E. If they are higher then the nut slots need to be filed deeper, if they are too low (causing string buzz on fret 1) then the nut needs to be shimmed up or remade. I don’t find feeler gauges very useful for this because they tend to push up the string. These measurements are intended as a guide only and I largely do this by eye. Another good method is to file the nut slots down until all the strings gently buzz on fret 1 and then to shim up the nut by a known amount; I like to use standard business cards which are around 0.25mm thick (check this with callipers), the right height adjustment for this. A small drop of superglue on the nut will help to hold it in place.
Test every note on the fret board. Don’t forget to use note bends as well as these require slightly more string height and relief. If any of the notes buzz then action or neck relief need to be raised.
the neck can now be tuned to a players style with the truss rod. More heavy handed players and those bending a lot of notes will require slightly more neck relief so slacken the truss rod in 1/8th turn increments until the desired position is achieved.
If it is an electric guitar intonation can now (hopefully) be adjusted. this sets the string length. I use an electronic tuner to ascertain whether I am getting a perfect octave on the 12th fret on each string, this may not be possible to adjust perfectly, especially on guitars that do not have individual intonation adjustment. More heavy handed players will get sharper notes by applying more pressure so intonation will need to be set slightly flatter. People talk about adjusting intonation for multiple frets but this is largely pointless as only one adjustment is available.
Some things to consider
It is valuable to understand how to set up your instrument but bear in mind someone who does 200+ setups a year will have an easier time achieving good results.
If you aren’t confident then work in increments rather than trying to achieve your adjustment in one hit.
The frets have to be in good order. If there is any amount of fret wear or any of the frets are sitting high this will seriously limit the achievable results.
Adjusting neck relief on a neck with no truss rod is a very complex matter and should not be tackled by a novice
Your setup needs to be changed if you change string gauges or tuning and no adjustments should be made without the neck being under tension.
If sufficiently low action cannot be achieved then the instrument may need a neck reset or belly repair to correct the neck angle.
Be prepared to adjust your truss rod regularly with changes in weather, especially for instruments set up with very low action.
Me learning my craft at a local session many, many years ago
I cut my musical teeth on the folk session scene. Everything I learned to play – guitar, mandolin, songs, reels, etc I learned by ear and this was the basis of everything I understood about harmonic theory – chords and melodies, and rhythmic theory – time signatures and such. I certainly could not understand scores and sheet music.
After over 20 years of playing I found myself as music tech at the local secondary school. Among the dizzying array of things expected from me for surprisingly little pay was the production of scores for student performances and classes, so I learned the basics of theory and scores on the coal face, producing scores on Sibelius software. It was a great introduction to theory – Sibelius being rather traditionalist does not allow you to set things out which are incorrect.
This job led me on to private tuition and the production of scores and lesson materials for my own purposes. I did, of course, need to get a proper handle on theory as I was the one now teaching the stuff.
Scores vs Ears
Learning by ear? Good luck.
So which is better – the organic oral tradition approach of learning everything by ear or classical rigour and sight reading. Well – neither. Both have their own advantages.
Playing by ear is a skill not to be underestimated. It allows me to decipher and learn (within reason) almost any piece of music in minutes. It allows me to hear patterns in melodies and chord structures and immediately know what is going on. Classically trained players are often amazed and mystified by what seems like a magical ability to someone who has been brought up to sight read and respond to the dots on the page.
But playing by ear has limits. The way we hear music is largely subjective. the result of this is that we hear certain highlights and underlying structures and immediately make assumptions about what we are hearing. It’s a natural and inescapable part of how we break down and process music we are learning by ear. Where this falls over is when a piece of music subtly changes time signatures or starts using less easily decipherable chords. Once things reach a certain level of complexity having an understanding of theory and what a score is telling you becomes indispensable.
On balance, I would say that I am now equally reliant on both as a musician.
Music Theory will stifle your creativity, man
Don’t break my flow, man
I’m not in the least bit embarrassed to admit I used to believe this, but it is fundamentally not true. Like having an understanding of science when looking at the world around you music theory gives you a framework which unlocks the finer complexities which you might otherwise miss. I can say from experience that learning music theory has been liberating and has done nothing but expand my abilities for writing music. A musician without music theory will always be limited. I learned this the hard way and I now understand that I would have learned music a great deal quicker had I not been restricted to oral tradition.
Music theory cannot describe everything
Describe everything you say?
Very true. The music theory we learn in Europe and America is very much based on the musical styles of 18th and 19th century European musicians and composers, so it is a very Eurocentric view of music. There is a tendency to use music theory to analyse and critique music in order to make value judgments about it which is verging on racism and white supremacy but the truth is that western music theory as it should correctly be called begins to break down as soon as you look at musical styles in the middle east, the Indian subcontinent, Africa and east Asia and the ancient music styles of aboriginals and native Americans as it is not able to properly describe the pitch and rhythm elements of these styles of music. Western music theory also struggles to describe rap and electronic music fully. It is important to not fall into the trap of making value judgments based on this. Western music theory’s ability to describe a piece of music is not the same as assessing its worth.
But this in no way invalidates the value of western music theory when growing up among western music. And if you grow up in Indian or Japanese music it is of course more useful to understand the theory underlying their respective classical music styles which divide pitch and rhythm quite differently to the west.
How much theory do I need?
How much?
I would be the first to argue that you do not need all of it. There is a limit to the usefulness of understanding baroque chord sequences and melodic counterpoints and the rules governing composition of a sonata when you are playing and writing songs with an acoustic guitar. But a basic understanding of time signatures, key signatures, scale degrees and chord theory is absolutely essential.
It is not that hard to understand how western theory divides rhythms and to understand the differences between 4/4, 3/4, 6/8 and 9/8. My students understand these principles within a few weeks of starting lessons with me. It’s not that complicated to understand the basic musical scales, scale degrees and how the major scale defines harmonic theory. It is also not that hard to extrapolate this and understand chord theory and how to build chords from scratch without needing to refer to a chord book.
It was exactly these fundamentals which I lacked in my early musical days. I could play a 4/4 or 9/8 rhythm but I cannot honestly say that I understood either. I knew what chords I could play in a given key to the point of coming up with 12 chord sequences, but I did not understand why. I could solo in various keys and had a feel for harmonising melody with chords but did not in fact understand how any of it worked so I was hobbled, limited by my restrictive understanding and these are the knowledge gaps which not form the cornerstones of what I teach my students because I want to make their musical journey easier than mine.
Unexpected benefits
Win-win
The benefits of being able to count a rhythm and decipher a chord structure are fairly obvious, but there are some less obvious benefits to a little theory knowledge.
I am a multi instrumentalist. Before learning any theory I taught myself to play guitar, mandolin, fiddle, bodhran, whistles and vocals. I was writing on all of these instruments but thanks to my ignorance of theory, I was doing it the hard way. Since learning theory I have also picked up piano, bass, bouzouki and 5 string banjo and it has been a much easier ride. Having an understanding of theory on your instrument gives you a transferable body of knowledge which you can use to decipher any instrument which adheres to western theory principles, making it much easier to learn.
I am massively into world music and do not slavishly adhere to western music. This has exposed me to some crazy time signatures and rhythms as well as chord work which I could never have deciphered without applying some theory to it and committing it to score. It has enabled me to learn pieces like the Stairway to Heaven solo which is a little beyond ear playing for most mortals. It has allowed me to produce transcriptions to set Moonlight Sonata to guitar and Brahms’ Hungarian dances to mandolin.
It’s just a language
Languages are for communication
The best way to see music theory then is not as a set of absolutist rules and value judgments but as a descriptive language which allows you to decipher the finer points of the music you play and hear and it gives you a vocabulary with which to communicate with other musicians. It is as important to understand its geographical and stylistic limitations as its ability to describe, decipher and communicate.
Whether you don’t think you need music theory or believe it is all that matters you are equally deluded and you are limiting yourself. Oral tradition and scores matter equally and are equally important elements to becoming a whole musician.
I’ve been a musician for over 30 years and I’ve been working on instruments on a professional basis for around 15 years. Something that never ceases to amuse me is the mythology that guitarists will buy into without even attempting any form of verification. I already know I will be shot down for some of this but trust me – my opinions come from actually working on instruments and playing them rather than googling for confirmation bias. But hey, people love a good myth. Here are some of my favourites. And before you start hurling vegetables remember my main motivation here is to save you money.
High end guitars are best
Gretsch Black Falcon
They just aren’t. Unless you’re a collector you’d have to be completely insane to favour Gibsons and Fenders over their Epiphone and Squier counterparts. I have worked on many guitars by the latter two that are really hard to improve on in recent years. The expensive headstock decals certainly won’t improve your playing so save your money. A good Epiphone with a decent fret dress and setup will play as good as any £10,000 Gibson, depending on how much value you place on eye candy. The acoustic market is much the same, you can buy a gobsmacking Takamine for a fraction of what Martin or Taylor charge for their flawed offerings.
You need boutique pickups
Harmony H75 Rowe Gold Foil Pickups
Not really. A pickup is a magnet wrapped up in copper wire, so there is not that much variation to be had beyond single coil vs humbucker. In my experience even active pickups don’t give much tone variation, and any differences are out of the window as soon as you crank the gain on your amp. Some of my all time favourite pickups are Epiphone humbuckers. As long as your pickups aren’t microphoning and hissing they’re perfect. The same goes for any of the electronic components – you can splash out on orange drop or bumblebee capacitors and high end pots if you like but don’t expect them to be superior to the market standard ones, which cost pence.
Tone woods
It’s pretty but can you hear it?
These are for acoustic instruments, not solid bodies electric ones. Unless all of your guitar work is done with pristinely clean sounds and no accompanying instruments tone wood is not a thing and even then you are better off learning to use an EQ than shelling out on a bog oak super strat; the end result will be much the same and much, much cheaper. Once you crank the gain the wood becomes so irrelevant your guitar might as well be made of egg noodles and epoxy. Remember that the most important components in your signal chain are the strings, pickups and speakers in the cabinet. Everything else is secondary.
Stainless steel frets
Not frets but close enough
People will tell you these last forever, and that they alter the tone of your guitar. What people do not realise is that hardness is not the same as wear resistance and whatever tonal differences you think you can hear are 100% subjective. A customer recently came to me for a refret after wearing an SS set out in under 5 months. Not immortal then. Once you properly research this you find that the chromium atoms in SS stick out above the surface and are easily dislodged which actually decreases wear resistance. Yes I’m sure they make for very smooth bends, but then any properly polished frets will. Your luthier will charge you twice as much to fit SS frets because they are a pain to work with and the main advantage you will see is corrosion resistance which is easily sidestepped by looking after your instrument properly. But you’ll be able to tell your mates you have stainless steel frets. Totally worth it. Not.
You can’t use furniture polish on guitars
What furniture polish will not do to your guitar
Au contraire, mon ami – guitars are similar enough to furniture for furniture polish to be absolutely fine. It will not attack the finish in any way, nor will the silicone build up spoiling the finish. The one likely issue can occur is when a guitar is not properly cleaned before refinishing but it’s nothing car body shops haven’t been dealing with for decades. Obviously exercise a lot more caution when cleaning anything with a shellac finish and keep the polish away from your electronics and hardware and you’ll be fine.
Lemon oil
Lemon? You bet.
This is one of the single most hilarious examples of snake oil in the industry. This stuff is literally lemon scented mineral oil so you might as well be wiping your unlacquered fret board down with engine oil, which is a lot cheaper. And it will dry out your fret board and encourage splitting and shrinkage because it contains almost no water and a wee bit of water is what your fret board needs to stay in one piece. I like to clean unlacquered fret boards with 0000 grade wire wool (which will not scratch anything) and micro mesh pads before cleaning with furniture polish and conditioning with a bees wax based furniture wax. This contains a bit of water so it moisturises the wood. Olive oil also works, neither one will cause the rancid build up you may have heard of provided they are applied properly and any excess is carefully removed.
You need to spend 1000s on lutherie tools
Neck jig image lifted from Strange Guitarworks. As impressive as it is pointless.
Not so. Every job that can be done with a router and expensive jigs can be done with skillful chisel work and patience. Guitar necks can be accurately processed with a £1000 neck jig, but it can be done equally well with a £10 straight edge and a pair of eyeballs. The work is about the knowledge and skills, not the tools. Don’t forget people have been making guitars for over 300 years and expensive tools are a very recent phenomenon. Don’t trust luthiers for having impressive tools, instead look for the results and recommendations they get.
Humidity, man
Lightly water damaged guitar
Now, I am speaking as someone living in a temperate seaside climate, but I often see problems like bellying acoustic guitars attributed to atmospheric conditions. If you live in Arizona your guitar may well dry out to the point of deforming and splitting. Wet season in Papua New Guinea may well murder your mandolin. But if you live in the UK where humidity rarely drops below 80% then drying out is less likely to be the cause of the belly on your Martin than the way it was built and what the torque of the strings does to the structure. I regularly repair bellies on acoustic guitars and humidity is never a consideration in my locality. Unless you live somewhere with an extreme climate like in the jungle or in a desert, both of which of course can cause staggering amounts of damage, all the humidity control gadgets out there are a total waste of money and a hard case does plenty to protect your instrument.
In conclusion, if you want to sound amazing then the best thing you can spend your money on is lessons and the best thing you can do is practise. Save your pennies and happy playing.
