What Does It Mean to Be “Good” at Guitar?
My son started playing bass and guitar about a year and a half ago.
He’s already pretty good.
But like with many 14-year-old boys, the Dunning-Kruger effect is in full force. The other day he told me, “Hey, I’m already almost as good as you are.”
I’ve been playing for close to thirty years. I told him, “Well, I’m not sure I agree with that.”
I’d like you to understand something at this point: I’m not being egotistical. I’m not trying to keep him under my thumb either. And believe me, by the time he graduates high school, I do expect him to be better than I am. But today is not that day.
This interchange got me thinking — what does it actually mean to be “good” at playing the guitar?
Tabs and Rote Memorization
My son is really into metal. (I am really not.) He saved up enough money to buy a seven-string guitar, and he spends much of his free time chugging away on the thing. But because he is just learning, everything he does is based on practicing his favorite songs with tablature. It’s rote memorization: I fret the sixth string on the fifth fret here. I do a palm mute there.
I’m not knocking this by any means. Heck, I use tabs to learn songs all the time. It’s way easier than…
