Perhaps a ramble. My first teacher would give me a exercise/song to do and a sheet of paper with what theory I would find in that paper.
I messed around on banjo until the band director told me that a guitar would fit better with what they did. So I bought an acoustic/electric guitar and ended up playing it in his band for the next fifteen years
Scales up and down the fretboard got my fingers moving and helped with where the notes were located.
Along the way I did study theory on my own. So I did understand what and why the chord charts we used did the things they did. This did not all happen over night.
I am a visual learner so the charts and patterns did make since to me. And I found that we deal in melody, harmony and rhythm. Most of the time I leave the rhythm to the drummer and just follow his lead. Hate it when he does not show up and I am the beat master.
That leaves me with melody and harmony. Harmony is easy as you follow the chords and play notes of the chord. Yes roots first, then the 5, then the 8 and then the correct 3 & 7 come last. Taken in order it is not a step for a stepper.
I leave the melody to the melody instruments, as they do a much better job of it than we can. I'm never asked to do a lead break, the electric guitar gets those.
So that leaves me with harmony and to use harmony I need to know the chords and how they fall in the song. I have for years used Google and let ole Google give me a sheet of fake chord sheet music on what I'm going to play.
After you learn how to play from fake chord, the rest is a piece of cake
My two cents, hope it helped someone
I messed around on banjo until the band director told me that a guitar would fit better with what they did. So I bought an acoustic/electric guitar and ended up playing it in his band for the next fifteen years
Scales up and down the fretboard got my fingers moving and helped with where the notes were located.
Along the way I did study theory on my own. So I did understand what and why the chord charts we used did the things they did. This did not all happen over night.
I am a visual learner so the charts and patterns did make since to me. And I found that we deal in melody, harmony and rhythm. Most of the time I leave the rhythm to the drummer and just follow his lead. Hate it when he does not show up and I am the beat master.
That leaves me with melody and harmony. Harmony is easy as you follow the chords and play notes of the chord. Yes roots first, then the 5, then the 8 and then the correct 3 & 7 come last. Taken in order it is not a step for a stepper.
I leave the melody to the melody instruments, as they do a much better job of it than we can. I'm never asked to do a lead break, the electric guitar gets those.
So that leaves me with harmony and to use harmony I need to know the chords and how they fall in the song. I have for years used Google and let ole Google give me a sheet of fake chord sheet music on what I'm going to play.
After you learn how to play from fake chord, the rest is a piece of cake
My two cents, hope it helped someone
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