Technique
Like so much to do with making music, developing technique is an open-ended affair. How much do you want or need? How far do you want to go?
If you’re a songwriter, with a distinctive voice and powerful lyrics, then strumming a couple of chords to accompany yourself may be all you need. If you want to be a soloist, whatever the genre, then you’ll be up for embracing a degree of complexity that can be quite demanding.
One of the many joys of guitar playing is the discovery that acquiring technique can be fun and fascinating in itself. Even exercises to develop dexterity in both hands can become improvisations with surprising musical results when you find a good mix of discipline and freedom.
Repertoire
Everyone has different goals. What do you want to play? Do you sing? Do you want to learn folk or rock classics? Blues? Jazz? Renaissance, baroque, or classical? Avant-garde? Devant-garde? The guitar can go in so many directions.
Aesthetic
Finding the right notes and the chords is the beginning. Then there is the question of interpretation—how you get to the heart of what you or the song wants to say. And how do you get the best out of your instrument? Learning its voice, its strengths, and its frailties is all part of creating an aesthetic in your playing that is distinctively your own.
I love music altogether, as it is the most beautiful language, conveying more meaning than words alone could ever do. And when a student studies guitar with me, we have a chance to share in a mutual discovery of creative possibilities. Whether it’s a famous contemporary pop song, a blues or picking tune, a renaissance piece from the sixteenth century, or a brand new improvisation, there’s a thrill to bringing the arrangement of notes on the page (or in your head) into living sound right now! What could give more joy than that? 
