This site’s conceit is to take an engineer’s approach to teaching the instrument. It attempts to be an “Operator’s Manual” for the guitar, written by an engineer for other engineers.
Engineers can’t help themselves from asking “why” at every conceivable step of a learning process. Music is such a deep topic that it’s easy to get lost in the weeds doing this, but the only thing worse to an engineer than not getting an answer is getting a wrong one! If an engineer senses that a teacher is glossing over something, they’ll usually tune them out and try to research on their own no matter how accomplished the teacher.
Engineers like myself tend to jump to new areas of study long before we are ready. Because we generally understand complex topics quickly, we tend to move onto the next topic way, way, way too early. We think we understand something, when we’ve really just barely scratched the surface.
Most of the guitar and music theory material on the internet is (shockingly) written by actual musicians or music educators (sometimes extremely accomplished ones). I’m definitely not an accomplished musician! But, as an engineer, I know how we think, how we like to learn, and I certainly know what works for me.
Many musicians don’t know much about string resonance and overtones, for example, nor do they likely care. Many may even claim they don’t know much or care much about music theory at all. [This is usually completely untrue, by the way: they often know a lot about music theory, but they only know how to express and recognize it using their instrument and ears, not in words, diagrams, or concepts.]
Engineers want the theory. They like words, diagrams, and concepts! If you want to lose an engineer, just tell them to “keep playing this pattern of notes over and over this groove — eventually you’ll start to hear which notes sound best”. Watch their heads explode!
The hardest lesson about music for me personally seems obvious to normal people (non-engineers) but was contrary to all of my previous experiences with learning: Merely understanding something, just being able to answer a question or reason about something was almost useless! The sheer depth of understanding required, and the degree of drilling and repetition required after reaching the point of understanding utterly shocked me. Practice wasn’t just for improving manual dexterity, it was also for deep learning and internalizing. This was utterly new to me.
I distinctly remember thinking, “I’ll just learn theory first, then I can take my time practicing technique once I understand everything.” I wasn’t too keen on practicing any given thing before I understood all the whys (I suppose I was worried that I’d waste time practicing unnecessary things). I naively under-appreciated the degree to which I needed to understand each underlying concept.
I didn’t understand that practice wasn’t just for technique!
As an example, I clearly remember one of my first instructors (a jazz guitarist) teaching me triads. After one afternoon figuring out the three inversions on each string set, I thought I was finished with the subject! “Cool,” I thought, “what’s next?” (It makes me laugh to even think about this now. I honestly think I may spend the rest of my life studying some of the nuances of triads, )
Eventually, the penny dropped: rough understanding is just the start of the process, not the end.
It’s not enough to know how triads are formed. You want to internalize the idea to a profound degree. You want to instantly, effortlessly, almost without thought just KNOW that a C Major is the notes C, E, and G. That they are a minor third stacked on top of a major third. That three different close-voicings for C exist: here, here, and here on this set of three strings. That three close voiced triad shapes exist on each set of three strings.
You want to be able to know instantly where the C, the E, the G is within each of those 20 or so positions on the neck. That they interconnect like this. Then you want to repeat all this for the other three triad types (minor, diminished, and augmented).
You want to know all those triads as well as you recognize your families faces. You want to be able execute all of this in time without pause. Only then will you really know your triads.
Of course, only a lifetime of never-ending practice will let you achieve this degree of “knowing,” but more than anything else, this is the lesson I hope to impart to other engineers: mere understanding is nowhere near sufficient.
My background
My father gave me my first guitar in about 1973. I’ve been struggling to learn the instrument off and on since then. Even I’ll admit that I’m still pretty hopeless, but I’ve made more progress over the past year or two than the prior three decades.
I owe it to countless online videos, websites, ebooks, apps, in-person, and remote instructors (especially Josh at Fretboard Anatomy, Yaakov at Gypsy and Jazz, and Jeff McErlain at Truefire). I’ve distilled and synthesized a few things of my own from all those sources, and I simply wanted to share.
[As an aside, I distinctly remember discovering OLGA sometime in the early nineties, as well as my feelings when I looked over at the unsorted mess of tabs, chord charts and cut-out pages from magazines piled in my old pasteboard guitar case. Today we have YouTube and all the rest (and gig bags that actually hold together for a few years). It’s so, so much easier to learn the instrument today than it was when I started! Honestly, the challenge today has become not continually being distracted by the terrific source of training material!]
I’ve had many recent epiphanies. They were such a revelation that I want everyone to have the same experience. Despite my woeful skills, I still believe that some of the things that caused things to “click” for me recently might also help others. As they say: Those that can, do. Those that can’t, teach.
The site isn’t completely altruistic, either. I’m certainly still learning, and I fully subscribe to the theory that there is no better way to really learn something than by attempting to teach it to someone else.
Beginners like myself sometimes make good teachers because they benefit from what I once heard described as “new eyes.” (Full disclosure: my eyes aren’t exactly new — I walk into walls without my glasses.)
Experienced professionals often make terrible teachers precisely because they already understand everything about what they are attempting to teach. They sometimes forget what it’s like for a beginner that doesn’t have all the relevant background.
Guitar and music theory is such a deep subject that it’s likely impossible to organize lessons without skipping over some things, but I’ve tried hard to include the most critical concepts in each post, without making it hopelessly slow and dull. I’ve also tried to include the little nuggets that helped make it click for me.
Please let me know if you find anything on this site useful. Otherwise, contact my assistant and I’ll be happy to provide a full refund.