The reason I never learned to play the guitar for forty years was the fact that teachers tried to teach me the scales. I hated learning scales, and my suspicion is that it takes a certain kind of mind to enjoy them -- there is a kind of pleasure in their repetition, but they can seem frustrating and pointless when you are thirteen and want to just get out there and play. One of the great things about the guitar is that it can give you all these chords with so little effort.

I'm not against scales; I'm just saying that there is a difference between something being the foundation, and it being the first thing you teach someone. It looks as if "foundation" means you start with that; but I think it is a misleading analogy. In a perfect universe of course, one would start at A and go to Z; but that is not how the perverse human mind works....or mine anyway. Or did when I was thirteen.

yours,

Peter T.