Although I have been playing guitar for almost 25 years, I have never had a single lesson. That changed yesterday. And during my first lesson, which largely involved discussing my goals and trying to show my teacher a crash course of what I already know, I had a delightful, profound learning experience.
I’m not terribly surprised that it turns out that what I know is “quite a bit” and that I have a solid start. I had suggested we’d likely have to go back to the very beginning, since I assumed what I cobbled together had many holes. And while that is the overall approach we’re taking, only skipping one set of lessons really, my teacher was clearly excited– a ton of the bad habits people come in with and need to unlearn are not there. A lot of the foundational knowledge to build on goes… deeper than I even expected. I’d be the first to say “I don’t know music theory” but as we were talking, it turns out I could speak pretty fluidly about quite a lot of music theory. My challenge, which I knew and expressed, is fluidly connecting brain knowledge with body knowledge– it’s one thing to understand the book level stuff, it’s another to be able to practically and physically apply it while playing.
So once we got past that I know what notes and scales are (though I don’t have them committed to memory how I’d like) and the basics of chords and intervals (though again, somewhat slower than I’d like to be at that), and that there were small bits of technique advice to offer my hands but nothing that I have to unlearn, I brought up what I felt was my nemesis – keys.
You see, it’s quite common, and important, to know things like “what key is this song in?” Even a non-musician has heard someone say, “We’re going to play this one in the key of G.” Keys tell you about the chords and notes that will work in a portion of a song– that’s the simple version. And what I mentioned was how I really struggled to identify a key and what that fully meant, even though it felt like I had all the theory necessary to help with that. I’m always just relying on my ears and intuition (another thing I got some compliments on– strong intuition and a strong ear, knowing when things are wrong and how to find and transition to the right stuff, which I attribute to years of trumpet and playing and listening).
So as I’m rattling all this off and how the circle of fifths didn’t quite make sense to me, I said, “You know, I know from trumpet and stuff that like, F# is the first sharp, and then F# and C#, and then you stack a G#, and then I think D#, but how to translate those key signatures to a key is something we never learned. Although, come to think of it, I guess F# means G, because you need to go a half tone from the 7th to the octave, which I guess means C# is D, and G# is A, and D# is E– holy shit is that how that works?” And suddenly, I realized “Oh wait, G -> D -> A -> E are fifths, I guess that’s the ‘circle of fifths’.” This idea that had eluded me, this understanding I was convinced I don’t have, there it was.
This actually happened a couple of times, where explaining what I don’t know, and convinced myself I did not know for years and years, suddenly caused me to know it.
Fucking constructivism, which I think is so often wrong for kids, but is so beloved because its addictive to adults who get to have these moments of revelation after years of building up basic facts.
I’m excited for lessons. I’m excited for structured space to talk about what I’m playing, and why it works beyond my “knowing” it works by hearing it. And I’m excited to get pushed on technique and skills and connecting all these dots. I don’t know if my hands will cooperate, and I don’t know if my brain will keep cooperating, likely not at this pace no matter what, but already after one night I feel expanded and more capable.
Learning is addictive, especially when it comes after years and years of fractured accumulated experience. I’m excited for my kintsugi era of musicianship.