Jim Bowley

Let’s play a quick game of make-believe, young rock and rollers!

It’s time to update your Facebook status, but that darn Mark Zuckerberg and his evil minions have “improved” your FB experience with yet another change. Now they will only allow you to enter one word – beginner, intermediate or advanced – to describe yourself…as a guitarist.

No song lyrics. No complaining about your neighbor, your co-worker, or what a bad day you’re having (honestly, no.one.cares. There, I said it.) No provocative one- or two-word phrases to make everyone ask, “What’s wrong? Hope you’re okay!” Just straight-up, honest guitar assessment.

So what level guitarist are you? Are you a beginner or intermediate? Have you graduated to advanced status?

Good questions.

As with most things, people have a hard time clearly and accurately assessing themselves and where – exactly – they stand. Folks often think they are:

• Stronger or weaker than they really are.
• More or less talented than they really are.
• More or less attractive than they really are.
• Cooler or nerdier than they really are.

As for me, I’ve come to realize that I am way cooler than I usually think I am. But I digress.

Granted, some of the above characteristics are subjective (like attractiveness or cool factor), but I think you get my point. Bottom line: we have a hard time keeping perspective when we are talking about ourselves. Our filter is a little out of whack. For instance, that guy over there is clearly an idiot, but that thing I just said/did = stroke of brilliance! See? Lack of perspective.

So where do you rank on the guitar scale? Are you still a beginner, even after 5 years? Or have you gone straight to intermediate in 9 months? More importantly, how do you know?

Thankfully, Dr. J is here to shed some light on the matter, while throwing down thunderous dunks with my crazy-cool ‘fro. (If you get that reference, you are at least 40 years old and I like you already.)

Time Is On My Side, Yes It Is

Guitar playing is skill-based, so we can easily set some objective criteria for beginner vs. intermediate status. It is also musicianship-based, so we may want to also include a certain base of knowledge into the criteria.

After playing guitar for 30+ years and gigging professionally (with all sorts of musicians) for 20+, I think I have a pretty good perspective on guitar status. As a full-time instructor, that perspective has only sharpened. And one thing I can say for certain: Your beginner vs. intermediate status has absolutely nothing to do with how long you’ve been playing.

I can feel people wincing as they read this, but deep inside they know it’s true. You can be “playing” for 5 years, but if you still can’t fret some basic chords without trouble…sorry pal, you’re still a beginner. That inner voice doesn’t lie.

Quality Over Quantity

Longevity is all well and good, but more importantly, what is the quality of the work you’ve put in over that time period?

One general criteria for excellence often cited nowadays is the “10,000 Hour Rule”. It was most recently and famously discussed in Malcolm Gladwell’s bestselling book, Outliers. Basically, the idea is that, according to most researchers in the know, it takes approximately 10,000 hours of subject-related work – in this case, practicing, playing, studying, listening – to achieve elite, world-class status. That’s 1000 hours per year for 10 years, bro. That’s a whole lotta guitar.

If we do the math for a year, that’s 1000 hours divided by 50 weeks (taking 2 weeks off for vacation)…carry the 1…wait, what? 20 hours a week!?! Dude, that’s like almost 3 hours per day…

Finally, perspective.

The Skills To Pay the Bills

Now you certainly don’t have to practice 3 hours, or even 1 hour per day. But as with most things, you get out of it what you put in. So if you’re practicing for 10 minutes during commercial breaks of “Saved By the Bell” reruns, then it might take you an awful long time to even reach intermediate level status!

We need to make sure we’re devoting a decent amount of quality practice time to the instrument in order to improve and progress. Duh. Quality practice time would be time spent actually thinking about what you’re playing – not just going through the motions – and having a goal of improving certain specific things. Practicing with intensity. Focus. Not with one ear on Screech.

I think we can separate beginner guitarists into the following two categories:

Early beginner, which is from day one until you can execute and show decent mastery over “phase 1″ fundamentals.
Late beginner, where there is clear mastery of “phase 1″ material, as well as decent mastery over “phase 2″ fundamentals. At this stage, you should be able to play in a way that “sounds like music” to the average person.

Below I’ve outlined what I consider to be “phase 1″ fundamentals – the minimum criteria – for passing from early beginner to late beginner status:

Know the basic parts of the guitar
Identify string numbers, finger numbers and fret numbers
Know the musical alphabet and explain the role of accidentals (sharps and flats)
Name the open strings
Own and use an electronic tuner properly and efficiently
Exhibit good basic posture
Demonstrate competency with the right hand when holding the pick, strumming chords and playing single notes
Demonstrate competency with the left hand when forming chords and fretting single notes
Demonstrate the ability to make a decent sound with chords and single notes (a by-product of the above two criteria)
Understand how to read and draw a chord diagram
Understand the three basic chord types – major, minor and dominant 7
Explain the term “root note” (or tonic)
Understand and interpret common musical symbols, such as treble clef, staff, bar lines, measures, and repeat signs
Understand and explain basic time signatures, such as 4/4 and 3/4
Understand and execute basic rhythms, such as whole, half, quarter and 8th notes
Demonstrate the ability to correctly form and efficiently change between these common open position chords: A, Am, A7, C, D, D7, E, Em, E7, G
Own and use a capo (not capo strategies, which is a more advanced application)
For those learning to read standard notation, at least 10-12 notes in open position

The Tip of the Iceberg

As you can see, there’s quite a bit of material here for the newbie! Guitar has a very wide range of skills to learn, polish, and keep current on, even for beginners. I recommend that you go through the list and make sure there are no serious gaps in your knowledge or skills, since each level of playing builds on what came before. And if you have questions about anything on the list, please share them in the comment section! Disagree with something? Let me know that too!

In my next installment, I’ll outline what it takes to move from late beginner to intermediate status. See you next time!