The Student: “I am very discouraged. What should I do?”

The Teacher: “Encourage others.”

The answer to this Zen query is significant to me concerning guitar playing, for a couple of reasons. Finding new ways to encourage my students is one of them: If a student seems to be uninspired, I start looking for ways to spark (or rekindle, as the case may be) their interest in playing the guitar. I ask them to bring in some songs they want to learn, and we pick from them. I demonstrate by playing my guitar along with the song as we listen to it. Other times I might show them something they didn’t know, or play them a song of my choice in hopes that they may try and learn it.

Another thing it made me think of was how recently a good friend of mine encouraged me to revisit the instrumental piece “Mood For A Day” by Steve Howe of Yes, so he could hear me play it again…it had been so long! I can’t tell you how glad I am he encouraged me to play it, because it has been great re-learning and playing this piece again!! And I can play it even better than I could when I was 16!

Some nice guitar playing during the lead part:

I grew up listening to the Jimi Hendrix version, but his was not the first:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hey_Joe

One reason this is a great song for beginners to learn is that it has all five open chords (E,G,A,C,D), one right after the other in a simple pattern: