Preamble

Overcoming Plateaus#

Many musicians use the metaphor of “reaching a plateau” to describe a point in their playing from which they cannot seem to advance. The aim of this book is to address the commonly experienced plateaus of guitarists, providing strategies for advancing to new ones. It is meant for all levels, from beginners onward.

Navigating Plateaus takes an extremely pragmatic approach. The goal is to facilitate sounding good and making music, not learning technique for the sake of technique. As Pat Martino said, “To play guitar as an exercise is fruitless, but to utilize it as a mode of creative expression and communication is reaching its potential.” As such, this book is a functional guide with a specific bias toward helping other guitarists reach their potential based on the things I have figured out.

These are the plateaus I encountered, and how I made the leap to the next one. Having gone down lots of wrong paths and tried systems that didn’t bear fruit, my hope is that this book will save you time and get you to your sound sooner.

I have a love/hate relationship with guitar pedagogy. I’ve learned so much from books, magazine articles, and videos. Invariably, every book has something to offer, something to steal, even if it’s just confirmation that you don’t agree with the approach. That said, my biggest complaint with most books is that they are too complicated and too overwhelming. They present too many options, too many chords, too many scales, too many possibilities, and one can become paralyzed, losing track of the goal of making good music.

The Musical Journey#

We’re all on a musical journey. And we all want to be better musicians, better guitar players, however we personally define that. There is no clear path. There are so many different approaches to the instrument, all of which could be the approach for you. Ultimately, you have to find a system that makes sense to you and results in good music. Finding that system becomes your sound.

I would submit that you need a system, an approach, a plan. The guitar is just too unwieldy without one. You need some go-to licks, some go-to shapes, some go-to rhythms, some go-to patterns. In the end, you have to create your own system that makes sense to you. But we are all looking at the same six strings and the same 22 frets, so you don’t have to go it alone. Tons of people have come before you and figured this stuff out. There are known systems that work, known tricks that thousands of guitarists have used before you.

These are systems and techniques that are easily accessed, easily fingered. They take advantage of the guitar’s intrinsic nature and don’t try to make the guitar do unnatural things. I subscribe to what Joe Pass said: “I like the simple shapes. ‘The grips,’ I call them. If it’s hard, I don’t do it!” As such, you won’t find weird, painful finger stretches here, but rather systems that encourage playing the instrument. I use the verb play for a reason: playing music should be fun, like playing a game as a kid, where there is joy in the doing. The music should emerge effortlessly and, well, playfully — and hopefully provide some entertainment, relaxation, or satisfaction to whomever might be listening.

The approaches presented here aim not to lead you down a dead end, but rather open up possibilities that get you unstuck. The guitar lends itself to certain ways. If we stick with the navigation metaphor, there are many paths to the top of the mountain and some are easier than others. Navigating Plateaus embraces the methodologies that get you somewhere, eschewing the ones that are unnatural.