The Loud Business

Published: Fri, 04/22/22

One of my favorite guitarists, Mike Bloomfield, was once trying to explain how, for the first few years, he wasn't able to do much of anything. But then, around the time he turned 18, he says, "I got good." The simplicity of this is what moves me, not to mention the confidence. You can slice it dozens of different ways, trying to decide what to work on and how to work on it, but at the end of the day, this is all we really want as guitarists, as musicians: to get good.

Stanley Booth, in his book Rhythm Oil, recounts a moment in which Keith Richards, faced with a man employing a chainsaw on Richards' property while the guitarists' young son was trying to get a nap in, explains to said chainsaw man, "It's too loud, and I know something about that; I'm in the loud business myself." Nice work if you can get it; I seem to have found my way into the getting-good business, which is not a bad racket to find oneself in either, and the hours are a lot better.

Teaching often involves explaining some of the same things over and over, which, far from being a drag, provides a chance to endlessly reconsider and tinker with the way you explain those things in the first place. In that sense, teaching is a practice, something you get good at through constant iteration and refinement. About every six months, I take a week or so and present my three-part overview of the most important aspects of learning to play fingerstyle blues. I've yet to teach these lessons the same way twice, because if I'm doing my job right, in the six months since the last series, I've found new and hopefully more streamlined ways to talk about the same essential topics: groove, arranging, repertoire and improvisation.

Today's new lesson, "Learn To Play Tunes," is part I in a three-part series titled How To Get Good At Fingerstyle Blues. You can find it at the link below:

Learn To Play Tunes

As a current subscriber, you can download the tab for the series directly from the link below:

Download the Tab

If you've been wondering what to work on, how to work on it, or when you're going to start sounding like yourself, I hope you'll check it out.

More soon,

David