Electric guitar...

Slow and steady my friend, and above all, have fun. If you’re not having fun at the lessons, and you’re doing things that you can do without taking the lessons, then I would say not to go. However, always be on the lookout for someone who you will be comfortable with to take lessons from.

I bought my mom a mandolin for Christmas one year, and 6 lessons from my good friend who teaches out of a music store. When she didn’t take the lessons after a year, she told me to, but I took them on guitar instead. I went in with an expectation but Jarod blew right through that thought and elevated the lesson to parts unknown for me. What he taught me was not songs, but how to put together sections of soloing to use in songs. How to get in to a solo, how to fill the middle, and how to get back out, all while teaching me a song. Then he A/B/C’d me a list of different patterns within those 3 parts of a solo, and told me to mix it up, use part A from line 1 with part B of line 13, and part C of line 7, and such. It opened up my playing to a whole new level, and taught me how to improvise a solo, not by memorizing specific patterns, but to create patters of my own, or ones that he gave me. Patterns which when played in bluegrass sound one way, but fit in rock just as easy, because it is really about technique. And when we played at gigs, he would use something he showed me and give me a wink, like “you see how that works there”?

Find yourself a playing partner that you’re comfortable with, and can feed off of each other, next thing you know, you’ll be rockin’ in the free world…..so to speak!