Nowhere Near Enough Thank Yous to Go Around

Hello to all!

Today, October 5, my latest book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Guitar, goes on sale.

While my name is on the cover, this book is actually the direct result of my answering a “help wanted” link at Guitar Noise over eleven years ago, in September of 1999. Paul Hackett (who created and owns and runs the place) was looking for someone to write an occasional guitar column. It could be about anything, really. He just wanted some good, creative and original content for his site.

And, hey, he accepted my offer to help. The rest, as the cliche goes, is history.

But history involves people from all over the world reading and, more importantly, responding to my articles and lessons. From the very first article that Paul put online on November 11, 1999 up to this very day, I get emails from people about my writing at Guitar Noise. Some are questions, some are suggestions, some are other writers and teachers and some are simply folks reaching out to chat with another guitarist. Since the first article went online I’ve tried, not as successfully as I’d like, to answer each email I get. I’m still trying to catch up with some of them!

And it’s the feedback that I’ve gotten from readers that led to more articles and lessons, that hopefully got better and better as I grew both as a writer and teacher. Our Guitar Noise lessons were eventually read by millions of people from all over the world, which led to writing assignments from Acoustic Guitar Magazine and Play Guitar! Magazine, which in turn led to my three books for Alpha: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Playing Bass Guitar, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Playing Rock Guitar, and now The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Guitar.

So at this point I have to say that there are two million or so people I need to thank for making this possible! I truly wish I could go around the world and thank each of you in person.

Who would have known back in 1999 that simply agreeing to write a little something about how to become better at playing guitar would lead to this? Or to getting to meet and know so many wonderful people? And to getting to meet some in person and to become friends?

One of the people I met through my writing is my good friend, Nick Torres, who wrote me last week to ask if I was nervous about the book coming out. Nick, by the way, does an incredibly superb job singing all the songs on the CD that comes with the book – just that alone is worth getting the whole thing!

In some ways I am definitely nervous. As always, I can only hope I did a good job as both a teacher and a writer to give anyone who reads this book a chance to make music throughout his or her lifetime. As always, I wish that I had had more pages, more words, more music examples, more songs to give the reader.

In some ways, writing for Guitar Noise really spoiled (and continues to spoil) me. Paul never set me any kind of limits when it came to writing articles and lessons, so if it took fifteen pages to explain something properly, it took fifteen pages. If I didn’t think I did a good enough job, I could keep at it until I was fairly certain that everyone got (or had a good chance of getting) whatever I was trying to explain.

Part of this, believe it or not, was because of what we didn’t have at Guitar Noise – for a long time we had no audio examples and, for the most part, we still don’t use video. It was important for me to make sure that I explained something as well as possible, knowing that our readers had only words (and maybe some music notation and tablature) to guide them. Thoughtful explanations and demonstrations of practical applications were, and still are, what sets Guitar Noise above most guitar websites.

Don’t get me wrong – audio and video are wonderful teaching tools. But they sometimes, often unintentionally, lure both the teacher and the student into shortcuts that undermine true learning.

To this day, one of the biggest compliments that I get is when someone tells me that reading one of my lessons is like having me right there beside him teaching. That’s precisely what I aim to do when I put together any lesson.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Guitar is probably the biggest lesson, or single set of lessons, that I’ve ever tried to teach. Yes, that’s more than enough to be nervous about!

Peace