​The apathetic teenager.

And learning how to play the guitar.

Every once in a while, a parent will contact me asking about lessons for their teenage son or daughter. I learned long ago that the youngest age I want to accept for students is around 12 or 13 years of age. I started my lessons when I was 13. It was a bit intimidating at first, but I eventually got used to my lessons. Early teens is a good age to start any instrument.

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It was 1976, when I took my first guitar lesson. I had no idea what to expect. All I knew was that I liked the guitar and I wanted to learn how to play it. My guitar teacher was a disheveled hippy who almost always looked like he had just rolled out of bed. Tony was cool, though. He and I got along great. I think it was important for me to connect with him early on. Within a few months of lessons, it was clear that where we were going with lessons, wasn't quite what I wanted to do. Tony allowed me to work on the things I was interested in as long as I did the lessons he wrote out for me. The 1970's was overflowing with thousands of great guitar songs. I knew what music I liked and was not afraid to try to learn how to play them on the guitar. 

I don't ever remember thinking that I didn't have to care about learning how to play the guitar. I knew that I had a lot to learn. Luckily, most of it came fairly easy to me. I know that at one point in high school, I needed to be brought back down a few notches from my band director. He straitened me out. I guess, it was just a different time then. I went to school with kids who either did well in school or struggled every day to understand why they had to go to classes. I was that kid. I hated school, but I loved any class that required artistic thinking. I always got "A's" in my art classes. I got straight "A's" in every music class I took in high school. It was easy for me, and I liked it.

I found my identity in the high school band. I learned how to play the bass guitar when I was 16 years old. I just so happened to sort of fall into the position because nobody else knew how to play the bass guitar. For me, it was an opportunity to grow and find out what I was truly made of. Music became my life almost immediately. There was no question what I wanted to do with my life. I saw myself as a future musician, playing in bands, doing shows in front of big crowds and becoming a rich millionaire rock star. The plan was clear. Some of those dreams actually did come true, although, I never did become a millionaire rock star. 

I'm telling you all this to give you a perspective about today's youth and their apathetic approach to learning music. As of 2023, I have been teaching kids how to practice and play the guitar for twenty-seven years. Honestly, I have never seen it this bad. I have only one teenage student now, who can actually play. He is an intermediate student who has been taking lessons with me for about two and half years. He is quite literally the only teenage student I have on my roster, who cares enough to continue learning his guitar.

The problem I run into most is when well-to-do parents call me and want me to teach their son or daughter how to play the guitar, then cannot seem to understand why young Johnny or Judy can't play like Taylor Swift or Ed Sheeren within a couple of lessons. There seems to be this existing penchant for immediate gratification without actually having to put in the time or the effort to get it. I don't think many kids today understand the concept of working hard for something then reaping the rewards for that work.

Is it the world, the school or the environment they live in that focuses entirely on the expedition of all things academic leaving behind all things creative? Is it the fault of our society or the education system? Is it the lack of honest parenting? I think that it has a great deal to do with the fact that there is no music industry anymore. Kids these days have no idea what they like in music. They don't know albums, they only know playlists. They don't know artists or bands, they only know songs. Music doesn't mean nearly as much to them as it did to me at their age. This generation of kids will grow up to be adults with no soundtrack to their lives. Can you imagine not being able to remember hundreds of important songs that remind you have places, people and things of your youth?

It seems that there are a select few kids out there who might keep the hope for tomorrow's musicians alive for a few more generations. What about the rest of them? Who are tomorrow's musicians? Who are the kids who will make up the rock bands of tomorrow? Who is going to teach the teenagers of tomorrow the origins and history of blues, rock and roll and jazz?

For several decades, music has become the soundtrack for countless generations of kids who went on dates and listened to love songs. They went out driving with their buddies and listened to punk rock in the parking lot. They broke up with the boyfriends and girlfriends to the singer-songwriter era of the early 1970's. They got in fist fights with their best friends while listening to 90's grunge. They learned the pain of heartbreak while listening to the blues.

Then one day, they stopped making good music.

My job as a guitar teacher is to pass along a lifetime of knowledge in music, to the next generation of wanna-be musicians. The student must want to learn, and have a reason to learn so that they stay motivated and unconditional in their progress. Much as I'd like to oblige, I simply cannot do the work for them. It's got to come from deep inside the student. There is no other way. Nothing worth while in life is easy. Learning the art of music is a lifetime endeavor that cannot be learned in a few lessons.