Thinking about the continued progress I am making with guitar has inspired me to reflect upon the learning process. As I have previously written, one of the things which interest me about guitar is its foreignness and complexity - not having any prior knowledge or experience with it or music makes it a perfect activity for gaining knowledge of my own personal learning process.
At the current point of my development a picture of the steps required when beginning the guitar is coming into focus. I see that I was making progress during the difficult beginning months, but was blinded to most of it because I was unable to make pleasing sounds. One thing which intrigues me about the guitar is a person of average intelligence has to work hard for an extended period of time before anything resembling music can be created - it is a test of patience, will, and desire. When I see/hear an accomplished guitarist I have a high regard for their accomplishment because I have a sense of the trials they went through. An exception to this is the prodigy who displays unusual focus and clarity, unraveling complex problems quickly and with great insight. While I admire this quality, knowing the prodigy did not endure the hardships of the average person means that I look upon their achievement as something done by a power higher than human.
One of the qualities of my mind is its ability to break down a complex activity into simple steps. While it cannot do this quickly, with continued practice and reflection it gets ever closer to the goal. I have learned during this journey that it is better to work out technical/mechanical problems on my own. Reading an article about vibrato does not do me much good because the description of how to do it may make logical sense, but without practice it means nothing. Even the steps and insights provided are for the most part useless because each person's mind/body is unique. While there may be similarities in vibrato technique for all good players, I believe that each of those players went about it in their own way before ending up in the same place.
Rather than reading about vibrato, what I need to do is hear the sound of the vibrato in my head, and then try to recreate it with the guitar. When I finally am able to achieve the sound, the technique will have been established.
