The Best Music Lesson

This afternoon I have the best music lesson in a long time. The amazing Ms. JR is my current guitar teacher. I have wanted to learn electric guitar from a working rock guitarist for a while now. My prior teacher, Dr. JR, is mainly a classical guitarist with occasional excursions into pop and folk. He has taught me fingerstyle technique and music theory, among other guitar techniques, but I often feel like I'm learning Spanish from a native Portugese speaker-- related and mutually comprehensible languages yet still different languages.

Ms. JR teaches me classic rock and blues riffs that Chuck Berry, Jimmy Page, Angus Young, and Lenny Kravitz often use. After she teaches me these riffs, she plays rhythm guitar and tells me to improvise solos using the riffs she has just taught me. Later I play her a new guitar riff that I have recently written, and after she learns my riff, she tells me to improvise solos over my own riff.  It is both exhilarating and intimidating to jam with Ms. JR. The lesson makes me feel like a real musician.

The amazing Ms. JR:

http://janetrobin.com/biographyandbackground/