LESSON 1

THE 6 MAIN AREAS OF MUSIC

It seems that everyone wants to play a musical instrument at some time
during their lives. But why do so few people stick with it? Is it because they
didn't have the TALENT? Did they not PRACTICE enough? That may be part
of it but it's mostly because they simply failed to get the SATISFACTION
that they were expecting for all their hard work and over time they just lost
interest. You don't want that happening to you...RIGHT?

SATISFACTION
A lot of it is simply INFORMATION. You have to understand what you're
doing in order to enjoy playing your instrument. That appears obvious. But then
again it seems that a lot of the people around you don't know much about music
or about the instrument they claim to play. So why should you? Well perhaps you
would like to play BETTER than them. Or perhaps you would like to become a
good player in LESS TIME than it took them. Most people waste DECADES
worth of time and many never get to where they wanted to in music. Often
times people resist learning about music because they have the impression that
it is a difficult or impossible subject to understand. That simply isn't true.
Music is a very simple subject to understand. It's just that the way it is often
taught, they give you the information in the WRONG ORDER so you never get
to see how it all comes together. You won't have that problem here!

THE 1st THING THEY SHOULD HAVE TOLD YOU ABOUT MUSIC IS THIS:

MUSIC IS A LANGUAGE !
We mean that quite literally. Don't you feel like you are being communicated
with when you listen to music? Doesn't it bring images and emotions into your
mind? Like any language, music has an ALPHABET. We select units out of that
alphabet and form them into PATTERNS. These patterns have MEANING and
are very much like "words". They have SPELLINGS.

YOUR GUITAR IS A TYPEWRITER !

It's just a DUMB MACHINE! When you move your fingers around on the
neck of your guitar, you are "TYPING" these patterns. Many people think that
all there is to playing the guitar is learning to move their fingers around in
these mysterious shapes. That is such a DEAD END! That would be like taping
on a typewriter without knowing what any of the words mean or sound like.
You don't play guitar with your fingers. You play it with your mind! You have to
understand the LANGUAGE of music before you can absolutely understand
guitar. The good news is music is a very simple language and easy to understand
if you get the facts explained to you in the RIGHT ORDER.