How do I become a professional guitarist?

I often get asked what it takes to become a professional guitarist. I would begin by asking what your goal is as there are many options. Do you want to be a recording artist, a studio guitarist, a touring guitarist, a teacher, a composer and so on?

Guitar as a career can be very seductive. A career as a guitarist can seem like the dream life. Lets take the guitar hero idea. The fantasy of many young aspiring guitarists is that rock stars have a life full of excitement. Travel, adoring fans, fame and fortune. While this is indeed sometimes the case many of these young guitarists overlook the sacrifices that come as part of the deal. A life on the road may seem exciting at first but it should be understood that it is often hard work. I spent more than a decade playing the live circuit in it was no holiday. A typical day meant practicing in the morning, preparing for the gig at around lunch time, driving sometimes for hours to get to the venue, setting up the gear and doing sound checks prior to the venue opening its doors (before 6pm), doing the gig through till midnight or later, packing up and then driving home in the early hours of the morning. Most days were 12 or more hours.

Touring

If you do a tour you can expect an enormous amount of travel which is very tiring as you are sitting in buses, planes, trains or cars for many hours at a time on an almost daily basis. Don’t forget that as you become more successful you are constantly in the spotlight and much of your privacy is lost. I am not trying to put you off here but rather preparing you for it.

Becoming a pro-guitarist

The bottom line is you are a product and you need to develop and market your product. In other words you must be offering something that people want and you need to find your audience. Lets explore this in more detail.

Your skills - Developing means refining both your skills and your sound. Its important to keep improving the quality of your playing because it gives you more confidence and more options. Why limit yourself? In the G4 GUITAR METHOD we help students develop the 7 essential skills because these 7 skills are the basis to almost everything you will need as a professional guitarist.

Your sound - At the end of the day if you want to stand out you need a uniquely identifiable sound. When we think of Hendrix, Angus Young (AC/DC), Van Halen we instantly recognise their sound. Developing your sound means being the best you! Every player has role models and influences so don't be afraid to take your ideas from those who you admire but just remember to be aware of your own sound. We don't need another Hendrix. Jamming with lots of different players is also a good way to improve your own sound as each player adds a few ideas to the mix.

Marketing yourself - Try to audition and play live as much as possible. At first anything will do but as the demand for your services increase you need to be more selective about your gigs. Having a clear career goal helps you to navigate in the right direction so try to write down goals.

Teaching - I have always believed teaching is a great option because it is a way of giving back. If you do decide to teach avoid doing just for the money. If you don't actually enjoy teaching then don't do it. You are better off working in a supermarket. Apart from the fact that teaching is very satisfying your students often become your biggest and most loyal fans. They along with many of their friends will turn up to your gigs.

Hope that helps to get you started but feel free to email me any questions to david@g4guitar.com.au

David Hart - Program Director

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Buying a guitar (for beginners)

Buying your first guitar is not so scary. In fact its probably easier than buying your second because there are only a few things you need to consider. Here are the most important considerations ehrn choosing;

Type: A classic guitar with nylon strings is the best option for a beginner unless you are fixed on playing an electric from the outset. Electrics tend to be heavy for children but are fine for teens to adults. Steel string acoustics may be a bit hard on the fingers and hands for a beginner but if you think you are up to it you can give it a go.

Size: The guitar should be the right size for your age. Here is a guide. 1/4 size 3 to 5 years, 1/2 size - 4 to 6 years, 3/4 size 6 to 12 years and full size 11 years and over. The overlaps are really about your physical size. The guitar just needs to feel right.

Brand: If you go to a reputable music shop they will generally only deal in reliable guitars but just make sure you get a 12 month warranty. Almost all guitars are now made in China and many brands come out of the same factories.

Price: This is really up to you but there is no need to spend more than a few hundred dollars on your first guitar.

Advice: Being your first guitar you will probably not know a $200 guitar from a $2000 one. Its best to take a friend who plays so they can give it a test. At worst ask the shop for a 7 day return option so you can get your teacher to take a look.

There are quite a few website that offer more in depth information and here is an example if you would like to learn more.

*BUYING YOUR FIRST GUITAR.

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Why environment matters

If you want to play guitar or music or would like your child to play you need to consider your environment. Anyone can become a great musician given the right environment. Let us say you are an adult and you decide to take up guitar. You work 5 days a week, have an active social life along with a gym membership and a few other interests. You know you can spare 30 minutes a day to learn guitar so you book in your lessons but after a month you feel no real progress. Your motivation is waning and practice only seems to be happening on every 2nd or 3rd day. What is the problem here?

Design your environment

It would be easy to simply say you don't have time or the motivation but in a word the problem is your ENVIRONMENT. Your environment is not set up for learning guitar. Everything in your life is competing for your time and is actually demotivating you in your efforts to become an accomplished guitar player. Guitar practice quickly becomes a negative experience because you know you having pressing emails, phone messages, social commitments, work to be done and a gym membership that needs to be used. Your environment is literally working against you.

The solution

This is not easy but it is critical. Most successful people are the result of their environment whether they are aware of it or not. I  recommend you read a book called 'BOUNCE' which  explains the science behind this fact giving examples mostly in sport. If you truly want to succeed at guitar you need to set up your environment so your chances of success are high. When I was a teenager I did this firstly by surrounding myself with musical friends, committing to a band and later by becoming a guitar teacher.  I still had other activities competing for my time but guitar was obviously a high priority and family and friends knew it was my profession so respected the fact that I needed to practice.  

Its your environment that will make the biggest difference. If you are unmotivated or feel frustrated about your guitar progress than take a closer look at your environment. Consider how many of your friends share your passion, or try going to concerts more often, buying new music, taking lessons and so on.

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3 and 4 chord songs

On guitar most songs can be arranged in easy to play keys using a handful of chords. This doesn't mean the song will sound exactly like the original but in most cases it will do the job. In music there are 12 keys which are all identical except for the pitch. In other words any song can be played in 12 different keys. E.g. If a song uses the chords C and G this could be considered the 1st and the 5th in the key of C. If you use the chords D (1st) and A (5th) it would sound the same except it would be in the key of D and slightly higher.

Bands like The Beatles, ACDC, Rolling Stones, U2, Metallica, The Eagles, The Police, Queen, Green Day, Bob Dylan, Oasis and many more wrote the majority of their songs using only 3 or 4 chords.

The following is a link explains the 3 chord song concept.

Here are some examples of 3 and 4 chord guitar songs in easy to play guitar keys.

Knockin on Heaven's door. G, D, Am and C.
Let it be. C, G, Am, F.
Time of your life. G, C, D, Em.
Johnny B Goode. A, D, E.
You shook me all night long. G, C, D.
Yellow. G, D, C, Em.
Sweet Home Alabama. D, C, G.
Stand by me. G, Em, C, D.
Every breath you take. G, Em, C, D.
Wonderwall. Em, G, D, Asus.
Purple Haze. Em, G, A.

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Were you born to be a guitarist?

 
Musical talent and genetics.

In recent years there have been some major breakthroughs in genetic science. As with many scientific advancements the media tends to latch on to 1% of the details while leaving out 99%. This in effect causes misunderstandings or exaggerated truths. Much of what we come to understand about the 1% can then lead us to draw false conclusions about the other 99%.  One such conclusion it seems is the idea that our genes largely predetermine who we are and who we will become. In other words many people come to conclude that we are either born with musical talent or not. This is basically the 1%. Some people end up believing that if they or their child don't magically produce beautiful music in their first few weeks or months or even years their genetics are simply not programmed for musical talent. This of course results in a belief that even trying is simply a waste of time.

Environment matters

Many scientists now understand that the biggest factor in determining a certain behaviour is environment. It is actually quite obvious when you look around you. E.g. People who are born and raised in Italy are far more likely to speak Italian because of one simple factor. Their environment. In Australia there are many descendants from Italy who were born in Australia but cannot speak more than a few words of Italian even though their ancestry may date back over 1000 years in Italy. Dr. Robert Sapolsky Professor of Neurological Sciences at Stanford University uses an example of an experiment where a gene in mice that was found to be associated with learning and memory so when removed caused the mice to learn at a slower rate but when you put those mice into a more stimulating environment they completely overcame the deficit. Genes actually respond to the environment. Your genes may indeed respond better than others initially but this for most of us makes next to no difference if put in the right environment and over time. Lets be realistic here. In 2 million years of human evolution even those handful of people who come from a long line of musicians could only date back a few hundred years based on the musical scales we use today.





David Hart - Program Director

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Advice on being a creative guitarist

In the book Flash foresight written by American futurist Daniel Burrus he advises that to succeed you should try looking in the opposite direction. When you look in the same direction as everyone else you see the same thing.  Going in a different direction often leads to new discoveries and sometimes amazing breakthroughs. Google are a good example. They did something very different in regards to their approach to search engines. While most early rivals focused on trying to make money Google stuck to improving its search capabilities and it paid off. This idea resonated with me because I can see how we have applied this principal to some degree to learning guitar but you can also apply the idea to your own guitar playing. Here are some examples we have used at G4 GUITAR.

Networking

When I think of private guitar teachers or any music teacher for that matter I think of individuals teaching in a room with one student. Guitar teachers are isolated creatures that rarely come together to collaborate or share ideas. Going opposite meant collaboration and this is what G4 is doing differently. We even have a name. The G4 GUITAR NETWORK and we have teachers across Australia and even in Canada. Our teachers talk to each other, share ideas and resources. We have meetings to discuss issues about our challenges or to share our successes as well as bouncing ideas. Quite simply we have expanded our knowledge.

Structure

A structured method does not mean rigid. We want to give students a balance between the freedom to chose what they wish to play with some structure based on essential generic skills. Most teachers either operate with no method at all improvising from week to week or grab a standard guitar method off the shelf or if you are lucky the teacher has a library of resources they randomly pull out depending on your level or interest. At G4 we went opposite by creating our own method from the ground up and marrying it up with the official government music exams AMEB. The main difference with the G4 GUITAR METHOD is teachers are trained in how to apply it. When a teacher buys an off the shelf method the teacher receives no training and tends to interpret in their own way often leaving out sections. Most off the shelf methods are also 20 years or more old.

The future

Our next bold move will be to incorporate technology but not just for the sake of it. We will only introduce the technology that improves learning. Some teachers are going this way but overall teachers still operate like they did 50 years ago. The technology is here and many students have this technology at home (E.g. iPad) so get ready.  The G4 GUITAR METHOD is designed so it can also be taught to students online and we have a STUDENT SITE (please email me for the password) that will give students easy access to all the tools they need. Our goal is go opposite by providing the traditional teacher with online technology.


Conclusion

Be creative by thinking differently and start by looking in the opposite direction. You may be surprised what you discover.


David Hart - Program Director
david@g4guitar.com.au

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Apple release Apogee guitar input. It just keeps getting easier.

Apple Apogee have now released a direct input for your iPhone, iPad and Mac called Jam. I think this demonstrates how quickly technology is moving giving guitarists the ability to plug in and record anywhere anytime. It is pocket sized with high quality sounds. Works with GarageBand, Logic and MainStage.


For full details check out;

http://www.apogeedigital.com/products/jam.php

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