I’m seeing one potential guitar tutor for a trial lesson on Monday and another on Wednesday, which means there is - inevitably - at least one mildly-difficult phone call in my near future.
My underlying problem: playing the guitar is saturated with intangibles. Hand and wrist angles. Finger placement on the fretboard. Optimal chord shapes. Moving the left hand up and down the fretboard while the right hand tries to just get on with it.
None of this is easy to infer from books or videos: no feedback.
Being self-taught in my youth has left me functional but clumsy. Everything feels improvised, provisional, unstable. I’ve found myself explaining to prospective tutors that this awkwardness is precisely why I’m knocking on their door. What I need is not so much inspiration as correction - and, just as importantly, a contextually-structured plan of advance that gives shape to practice and motivates me.
I’m open to the idea that classical guitar might be the best road to technique. I like classical music well enough, and if disciplined right-hand work and clean left-hand mechanics are the price of admission, that's the plus. My real motivation remains modern blues: more informal, more visceral.
Perhaps the longer way round is the way to get there?
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