My First Guitar Practice Session
I remember my very first guitar practice session almost as clearly as I remember my first guitar lesson.
The instructor told us to practice for 30 minutes a day.
So naturally, I went home and practiced for three hours.
That seemed perfectly logical to me at the time. If 30 minutes a day would make me a better guitar player, then surely three hours would make me three times better.
I was about 9 or 10 years old, and my parents had signed me up for beginner guitar lessons at Schmitt Music in Northtown Mall. My first guitar wasn't even mine. It was a rented nylon-string classical guitar that came with the lesson program while we figured out whether I would actually stick with it.
The class was a mix of ages. If I remember correctly, I was probably the youngest person there. We got our lesson books, learned a few finger stretches that I promptly forgot about, and then learned our first two chords: A7 and D.
I still remember those chords because of how the instructor taught them.
The A7 chord only required two fingers, and he showed us how to play it using our first and second fingers. From there, transitioning to a D chord was incredibly easy. You simply shifted those fingers down one set of strings and added your third finger to create that familiar little triangle shape.
It was a clever way to introduce chord changes without overwhelming beginners.
And apparently it worked.
Because as soon as I got home, I grabbed a towel from the linen closet and draped it around my neck.
Why?
Because I was preparing to become the next Elvis Presley, obviously.
In my young mind, I was about to spend hours practicing guitar, and that sounded like serious work. Serious work meant I might sweat. Serious musicians wore towels around their necks. Therefore, I needed a towel around my neck.
The logic was flawless.
Then I sat down and spent the next three hours switching between A7 and D.
Over.
And over.
And over.
Most people would probably find that boring.
I didn't.
Not for a second.
Looking back, I think that's because I wasn't focused on the two chords themselves. I was focused on what those chords represented.
They were the first step toward becoming the kind of musician I wanted to be.
The chord changes weren't the goal.
They were the path to the goal.
That distinction matters.
One of the things I appreciate most about those early lessons is that they were built around actual songs. Every new chord or technique led to music almost immediately.
The books included songs like "This Land Is Your Land," "Clementine," "Blowin' in the Wind," and "Leaving on a Jet Plane." They weren't necessarily the songs I was most excited about as a kid, but they were real songs.
That made a difference.
I wasn't learning isolated exercises with no purpose attached to them. I was learning skills that immediately connected to making music.
And I think that's one of the reasons I stayed engaged.
Years later, when I started carving out my own teaching philosophy, I realized how important that lesson was.
Beginners need wins.
They need to feel like they're making music.
They need evidence that they're capable of doing this.
The faster someone experiences that feeling, the more likely they are to stick with it.
That's one reason my own beginner course takes a slightly different approach.
Rather than starting primarily with chords, I introduce melody first.
Most people naturally latch onto the melody when they hear a song. It's usually the part they're humming in their head afterward. It's also simpler for a beginner to play because it's one note at a time, one finger at a time, one string at a time.
Very quickly, a new player can experience the feeling of making recognizable music.
Then we build from there.
The funny thing is, I couldn't tell you exactly how long I practiced the next day.
It was probably still a lot.
But I definitely didn't continue practicing three hours every single day.
My enthusiasm settled into something more sustainable.
What never changed, though, was the desire to keep going.
I kept learning.
I kept practicing.
And most importantly, quitting never even crossed my mind.
Looking back, I don't think it was the three-hour practice session that mattered most.
I think it was the excitement.
The lessons connected me to real music, and real music kept me coming back.
More than four decades later, I still think that's one of the most important lessons a beginner can learn.