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Hi Brian,
First and foremost Happy new year to you and all of my active melody colleagues!
I have been a member now for a bunch of years and have always loved your lessons , your skills and your wonderful taste and your thoughtful manner.While I have been a guitar player for many years, self taught like so many of us from the late 60s folk movement , I must confess I have always been frustrated by my lack of fluency , and a sense that I may have the ability to accompany myself on a song , play chords and a few not particularly creative licks but have never had any mastery of the instrument both from a technical and certainly creative perspective.
While all of us are aware of the old axiom that the only way to make it to Carnegie hall is practice, practice, practice, and are also aware that there are special individuals like Segovia, Eric Clapton, Robert Johnson , BBKing and others that have unique and special inborn talent ( who also spend or spent many hours practicing) .
I have found that I have enjoyed your lessons and have learned to copy your tunes. I am successful playing them but if I leave the guitar aside for a several weeks to a month or more, I no longer have the “finger memory” to play them. It seems as though all I have done is to memorize a particular tune which I can then forget.
So, the tough question I have to you from my perplexed perspective is how does one truly achieve independent creativity if not more mastery of this wonderful instrument? Should one turn to the basics, learn all foundational music theory, chord structure, learn where all of the notes on the key board are, how to play all major and minor scales, pentatonic scales ,chromatic scales ? Make all of this second nature in order to truly become independent and creative? Indeed is this the approach you yourself have taken to be able to play guitar by yourself, to perform , to play with others and to create your wonderful tunes and lessons?
I don’t know what my colleagues out there think and would also love to get their perspective. I must confess making substantive progress as a player is a serious challenge!
Many thanks,
BradReply
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