On a beautiful day like today, no lunch plans, don't want to eat lunch at my desk, I head off to Guitar Center to enjoy a nice breeze and sun. While I'm there trying out a used Heritage H530 and a couple Strats, this kid, maybe are 13 comes up to me a few minutes into testing a Strat. He asks if I know any Tracy Chapman... Just so happens I have one of her songs on my band list... I start to play Give Me One Reason... The kid starts nodding and singing to it... Cool... So back to trying out this Strat on my lap...
He comes around from opposite corner with a guitar in hand and asks me if I can show him how to play it... Sure, always fun to show someone a tune they want to learn.. I show him the chords, explain the positions.. He starts playing, or at least power jamming to it...Not listening to a word I'm saying about how to play a barre chord... He kept switch guitars, asking me to play the strings to tune up, complaining they aren't tuned right when he plays them... I told him, the songs sound funny because he's not barring his index finger across the fretboard... After 20 minutes, I finally got him to listen, he tries it for a second and then asks about just doing some sort of partial chord thing where the root note isn't touched. So I tell him sure... Then he starts asking how I do the turn around... um.. there isn't one, just a walk down of the I-IV-V root notes... I think I sprouted a couple more gray hairs trying to teach this kid that's killing my lunch time. After nearly 45 minutes, I tell him I need to head back to the office. I left him figuring out a ZZ Top LaGrange type rhythm.. I had enough..
I've come to realize guitar teachers today are very under-appreciated. It takes a lot of patience to deal with kids like this. The ones that want instant gratification, want to know how to do something, but do not listen and do not want to take the time to learn...
