For me playing music represents a sense of connection, and a creative pursuit that will always keep growing and evolving. Unlike some of my friends, I was never one of those people who knew they wanted to be a rockstar before they could walk. I just kept picking it up for some reason, and decided to be a musician because it was the most interesting idea I could think of at the time.

I’ve been playing guitar since I was 8 years old, and teaching guitar since my high school buddy asked me to give him lessons on our lunch break. Over the years since then, my relationship to the instrument has had a lot of ups and downs. Sometimes I learned new skills and made progress, but often I felt like I was just playing the same thing over and over. It’s a little hard to admit, but I spent years of my life wearing out the same riffs and not really getting much better. I won’t say that time was wasted, because it was still fun enough to keep going. I was also developing my dexterity and instinct for the instrument. But I certainly wasn’t achieving my guitar dreams, or making transformational progress.

Fortunately I was lucky enough to meet and study with a few great teachers who changed my life and helped me break out of my old habits. In college I studied jazz guitar, which is how I first learned music theory. Then I met my first flamenco guitar teacher, who helped me transform my playing technique and really understand rhythm for the first time. I also learned to see melody and rhythm in new ways by studying Indian classical music, West African percussion, music history, composition, and music theory with a number of amazing teachers and professors.

Finally I met my greatest teacher of all; a master flamenco guitarist who taught me to survive. He was not an easy teacher. I was his student, but also the rhythm guitar player in his band. He pushed me ruthlessly; criticized my playing, my personal character, and questioned my ability to succeed as a musician. I wanted to quit, but instead I decided to prove him wrong. I worked harder than I had ever worked in my life to learn all his songs perfectly and take my playing to a new level. We were bound for inevitable greatness of course, but that’s a story for another day. After everything we went through together, he has become one of my closest friends and brothers.

Why am I going on about all this? What I’m really trying to say is… there is always a path forward somewhere, or somehow. So many of us get stuck in a pattern, whether in life or in our guitar playing, and don’t know which direction to go in. I think first of all we need to just accept where we are and be at peace with that. To give ourselves credit for the fact that we still have that old guitar in our hands. Personal and musical transformation is about slow, steady progress. It’s about learning to enjoy the journey not the destination.

Also, there are so many great teachers and learning tools out there these days! I thought I’d share a few thoughts on guitar dreams, playing technique, and the path forward. I had no idea what I was going to say when I pressed record, so it’s not very polished, but I hope you find these ideas to be interesting and helpful.