No one right way

Both of the hobbies I've picked up since my move here are very flexible and encouraging of alternative techniques.

Knitting is like this. Since everyone learns to knit from their mother or grandmother, that's the right way, and everyone's is a little different. Some use a continental style and wind the yarn around their left hand, some "throw" like I do with their right, and in one class I took there was a lady from Mexico who did something different again, more like continental but sort of upside down. The thing is, however you get the string wrapped around the stick so it stays and makes cloth, that's the right way for you. Since it's a folk art, everyone is very much open to alternatives and sharing.

And I'm finding out that guitar is like this too. I had a crisis recently because I was working "Twist and Shout" which was on my list of "Open Chord Songs" as a CFG one. I was having trouble with the strumming pattern, mostly, so I went to YouTube and found the clip of the Beatles at Shea Stadium. But it was the left hand that caught me up - George was playing chords that were nothing I'd ever seen before, way up on the neck. What was he playing? And why had my teacher taught me the open chords?

I ended up posting to an online guitar forum and actually got some really helpful advice back. And then my teacher came back from vacation and I saw him today (see previous post) and he was able to explain it further - there aren't any right chords. What I learned from all these helpful more experienced guitarists is that it's the ratio between the chords that matters. ADE is the same as DAG because the distance between the notes on the scale is the same ratio. And then you can play A's and D's and what have you all over the guitar. And you can use different fingers to play them. And what I found out tonight is that you can even leave some strings out entirely, but it's still the same chord. What he said was that it's possible to find "open chord" tabs for every song out there. That might not be the way the original artist plays it on YouTube, but it follows the ratios in the same way. So, to practice open chord playing, which is where I am right now, I should look for those open chord versions in the online tab-o-sphere. And I should look for songs that include bar chords so I can get used to transitioning to them. And only then can I work on the rock chords that leave some the top and bottom strings out, and then I will have the option of playing Twist and Shout like George Harrison does on the Shea Stadium clip.

I have stunned respect for all guitar players now. When I played the cello in school, they just sat the notes in front of you and you played them. Guitarists have to understand chord theory and intervals and transposition and all sorts of theory stuff, just to understand the basic concept that there aren't "the" chords to Twist and Shout, there's technique, and ratios, and facts about how notes fit together, and then there is a universe of guitar players, and then there are a million different ways to do everything.