There are no shortcuts, there are no tricks.

Perfect practice makes perfect.

Aug 02, 2024

This article will be about me getting up in front of the class, as your teacher - and telling all of you that you need to practice “a whole lot more” than you already are. This of course, assuming that some of you even practice at all. I’m not pulling any punches here. It has recently come to my attention that summer vacation also means breaks from practicing your guitar. No, it does not. There are no breaks - ever. I am happy to say that a handful of my present guitar students practice faithfully, everyday. They know who they are. Unfortunately, I also have students who simply do not practice everyday; and they know who they are too.

Hear ye, hear ye! It is now time for me to preach as I stand upon this soapbox.

At the risk of shedding light on the obvious…what is something you excel at doing? Maybe you are really good at your job. Maybe you’re a great cook or chef in the kitchen. Maybe you’re just really good at organizing and planning. Were you always good at these things? Probably not. It took a while for you to find your way through whatever project or experience you were tackling. You had to allow yourself time to get better at whatever you were doing. It took patience, perseverance, tolerance and understanding. Getting better did not happen magically overnight.

The Bakery days

When I was 18-19 years old, I worked part-time as a clean-up kid at the local bakery in Racine, Wisconsin. I was just out of high school. I took about a year off to try to figure out what I was going to do with my life. The money I was making, working part-time, was just enough for me to do okay, but not enough for me to move out of my parents house and get my own place. I went in early every afternoon, mostly because I had nothing else to do. My boss liked that I came in early and got a lot of stuff done before the regular shift came in later in the afternoon.

I heard that one of the older bakers, Victor, was retiring soon, and that he would probably need to be replaced. One afternoon, my boss approached me and offered me a full time promotion to work with the bakers in the early morning hours. I took it. I got a pay raise, and I began working full time. It was the hardest I've ever worked in my entire life. Luckily, I was young and I could still do that sort of work.

Within a few weeks of working in the morning, I was told that I would be the new donut fryer guy. Victor had been the donut maker at that bakery for many years. Only a few of the other bakers knew how to run the donut machines. Before Victor retired, he tried to show me how to run the donut machines. Understanding his thick, broken Polish-English accent quickly became an exercise in futility. I was about as graceful as a giraffe on roller skates. I remember feeling upset and highly stressed because I just wasn't getting it. Then one morning Victor didn't come to work because he was sick. I had no choice but to make the donuts that morning - and do it mostly all by myself. It took me a few days, but I started to get the hang of how to move with the machines. It was literally a choreographed dance.

I had to learn the hard way by being baptized by fire - or in this case, frying oil. I ended up being the primary donut fryer for the next five years. Can you imagine the confidence boost that experience gave me? I went into it with preconceived notions of abject failure as a kid, but I came out of it knowing everything there was to know about frying donuts, by the time I was 24 years old.

Hard work pays off.

So many of my friends back then, went to college, got their degrees and ultimately got great-paying jobs. Me? I took the other path. I was never an academic - which is ironic since I have been teaching music for nearly thirty years. I had a chance to learn a trade. This was the 1980’s. Back then, I believed that learning this trade would always keep me from living on the streets, and that I would always have plenty of money in my pocket. I have worked several jobs over the past 36 years since leaving that bakery job in 1987, and none of them had anything to do with what I learned at that bakery. I spent 12 years of my life working in the airline industry. I have spent the past 38 years teaching people how to play the guitar and bass guitar.

I couldn't even begin to tell you how many students I have instructed over the years. I had to learn how to teach. I had to learn patience, tolerance and understanding. I also had to learn that not everyone is meant to be an instrumentalist. No matter what I did as a teacher, not everyone was going to "get it". Some people simply cannot be taught; and there are just some people I simply cannot teach. This is just human nature.

The confidence I learned as a kid at that bakery gave me the mental power and strength to push through and accomplish all of the goals I made for myself at every job I ever worked at since. I don't think that I am unique in this. I believe that given the right training and the opportunity to prove oneself, anyone can be good at anything they choose to try, but you have to work hard.

Being a musician.

In the years that I have played the guitar and the bass guitar, I have scaled many mountains and I have fallen into countless ravines. I have had to learn the hardest ways possible about being a real, working musician and teacher. Breakthroughs in what I have learned were inspired by many of my fellow musician friends, many bands, countless rehearsals, near and far away gigs and everything else in between. All I know about practicing, rehearsing, and wood-shedding is all second nature to me - just like it was when I made the millions of donuts at that bakery, long ago. There just was no such thing as a simple way, an easier way, a short cut or lazier way to do any of that. It all came from hard work, commitment, dedication and integrity.

As of 2024, I have been practicing and playing the guitar for 48 years. I sometimes have to try to remember what it was like those first few years as a practicing instrumentalist. Why did I want to play the guitar? Well, at 13 years of age, the guitar just made sense to me. It gave me a voice. It gave me an identity, and it gave me confidence. The guitar came fairly easy to me. I took formal lessons, but only for about two and half years. Everything else was learned by experiencing playing with other people in bands, groups or projects. I have no idea how many bands I've been in - and guess what, all of them eventually failed and collapsed. However, it was the experience that I learned in being in those bands that became my ultimate success. I played music with some top-end musicians too. These were the kind of people who expected the same level of professionalism from me - and I made sure I delivered it.

I'd be fooling myself if I believed for one minute that all the students I have instructed over the years, were even remotely capable of venturing into the life of the starving artist/musician. That's not to say that I haven't had some fantastic students over the years - because I absolutely have! I've had some students go on to teach music, some have put together bands and have gone on tours, and some have even become studio musicians. These to me, are all of the rewards I get to know about. I know that most of the people who take guitar lessons with me are doing it because they simply like to play the guitar. They want to learn how to play songs or maybe even write songs of their own. Again, this is all highly rewarding too.

Unfortunately, there is a huge difference between wanting something and working hard to get it. I'm 61-years-old, and I still practice my guitar every single day of my life. I write these articles nearly every day - which means that I have to study the material I write about. Lately, I have been on the path of learning deep traditional jazz theory. It is mind-boggling just how much mathematics is involved in music theory, but I really enjoy the learning of all of it. The more I know about it, the more I can teach to my students. This is the path I walk.

You’ve gotta practice. There simply is no other way.

Yes, there is the unwritten rule that you will only get out of something what you put into it. I have some excellent students now who know this first hand. They know it because I challenge them every time I see them. I am a diehard advocate in knowing that there are three categories of knowledge: “Things you know, things you don't know, and things you don't know that you know”. I like to reside unconditionally in the realm of the third category.

I do however, have a sometimes very difficult issue with students who have conjured preconceived notions about what they can and cannot, (will or will not) do during their guitar lessons or what they should be practicing in the lessons I give to them. It's been a challenge from the very beginning of my teaching career. I will never, ever tell any student that he or she cannot do something on their guitar. I sometimes find it appalling that some of my student think they know better than I do about what they can or cannot, will or will not do on their guitar.

I can guide you, I can show you new ways and perspectives, I can teach you nearly 50-years of my own knowledge and experience on just about everything I know on the subject of guitar music - but one thing is absolutely certain - I cannot practice for you. You have to do the work. You have to earn the right to play your guitar, everyday. Nobody else is going to do it for you. There is no magic formula to getting better by doing things an easier way. “You” - you have to do the work. You have to try to always remember why you wanted to learn how to play the guitar in the first place. You have to be resourceful, practical, inventive, creative, and above all - unconditionally committed. Aspire to inspire before you expire. Be stronger than your excuses. Find reasons as to why you DID practice this week. Believe me, I've heard all of the reasons why you didn't. Be the reason why someone else wants to play the guitar. Be so good on your guitar that teaching someone else how to play the guitar makes you even better.

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Dave