Okay. If you're looking for a bunch of hot-shit guitar licks, you've come to the wrong page. This should be obvious to anyone who's familiar with my slowpoke "no note before its time" style (as Andy Ellis of Guitar Player has described my playing). My own aesthetic leanings aside, I don't think the Web is the most efficient medium for licks-oriented guitar tutelage, because there's no standard for how to present the material visually (music notation? tablature?), nor is there one universally preferred audio format (mp3? RealAudio?). In face-to-face, one-on-one lessons I can tailor the media I use to best suit the student, but in online lessons I never know who my audience is.

That said, I've been lucky enough to be on the receiving end of many great lessons - some musical, some simply practical - and have figured out a few things on my own. I'd like to pass along some of the wisdom I've acquired to anyone curious enough to check it out.

Lesson #1. Record yourself (gigs and rehearsals) and listen back to hear what you really sound like. You may think you know what you sound like, but most players are too focused on the mechanics of playing (or other things) to be able to objectively analyze their own sound while the music is happening. Just as most people are surprised by how their voice sounds when they hear a recording of it for the very first time, you may be surprised when you get to experience your tone, phrasing, dynamics, and sense of rhythm/time from this outside perspective. With a richer awareness of what you sound like, you're better equipped to decide what things in your playing need work, and to plan to organize your practice time in order to reach your practical goals.

Lesson #2. Have your guitar ready to play at any time. When you get home from a gig (or lesson, or rehearsal), take your guitar out of the case, tune it, and put it on a stand - or anyplace where you are bound to see it. If you're an electric-guitar player, don't leave your amp in the car after a gig (or lesson, or rehearsal). Bring the amp back in your house, plug it into the wall, and hook up a cable as soon as you get home. That way, you're guitar will be ready to play at any time. (Note: Guitarist Jim Campilongo gets credit for this lesson.)

Lesson #3. If you usually perform while sitting, practice while sitting; if you usually perform while standing, practice while standing. Why? Because the orientation of your fingers, wrists, elbows, and shoulders changes when you go from sitting to standing, or vice versa. If you spend two hours practicing with your body in one orientation, and then you change your orientation when you get to the gig, much of your practice time has been wasted. And who can afford that?

Lesson #4. Show up early to the gig. This took me a very long time to fully get - maybe I didn't appreciate it until a few years ago, when I began leading my own band - but it's one of the most important lessons I can impart. Showing up early isn't any harder than showing up on time or late. One reason for showing up early is, you just never know what last-minute problems may need sorting out when you get to the gig. Maybe you've forgotten an essential piece of gear; or the band you're playing with needs you to learn a brand-new song before you go on; or the electricity in the venue is poorly wired and you have to find a way to quell that awful hum in your amp. Even if you don't encounter any such problems, you need to be on stage and ready to play at the designated start time. If the band is late in starting, and it's your fault because you didn't show up early enough to be ready to play on time, that makes the band leader look bad to the club owner (or promoter, or manager, or mother of the bride, or whomever is in charge) and no band leader wants to be put in that position. Leaders have got many more important things to be concerned with besides "Where the hell is my guitar player?!?"

Lesson #5. Keep your guitar strap from falling off. Sure, you can buy hardware specifically designed to keep your strap locked on, but some such products can be a drag because you have to modify your guitar to install them. Thanks to guitar-tech extraordinaire Kelly Macaulay for suggesting a cheap, easy-to-use alternative that requires no alterations to your instrument: neoprene rubber faucet washers, available at any ol' hardware store for about 69 cents. The ones I use are made by the Danco Company of Concordville, Pennsylvania. The Danco stock number is 61805B - these are 1-1/4" in diameter, 1/6" thick, and have a 1/4" hole in the center. To get the washer over your strap button, use the first finger and thumb of each hand to grip it at the 9 o'clock position and 3 o'clock position, then pull in opposite directions. That'll open the hole just enough to get it onto your strap button. (Your strap should already be on the guitar first. The washers go over your strap ends.) Removal is even easier - grab the edge of the washer and pull it over the button and toward the opposite side, as if turning the page of a book.

Lesson #6. Maintain a practice journal. You practice, right? (If not, skip this lesson.) Every time you practice, write down what you worked on. For example, "Practiced G major scale in 2nd and 7th positions, steady 8th notes w/ alternate picking, at 72 bpm and at 104 bpm., 20 minutes," or perhaps "Transcribed measures 1-4 of Jimmy Page's guitar solo from 'The Ocean'; minor-7th arpeggios up and down each individual string, all 12 keys, quarter notes at 90 bpm," or "Discovered new tuning today: E-G#-C#-F#-B-D#, spent 40 minutes experimenting with voicings for I-IV-V in this tuning, keys of E, A, B, and F," or "No practice today, but I changed the strings on both of my guitars and polished them." The point of this lesson is not to tell you what to practice, but rather to encourage you to keep track of (a) what you practice, (b) when you practice it, and (c) how long you practice it for. The journal can be very useful for helping you pick up where you left off yesterday - or last week, or last year - and also in measuring your progress. "Ah, I see that two weeks ago I was only able to play the G major scale in one position, and only at 60 bpm. Now I can play it faster, in two different positions. Progress!" Oh, yeah - if you don't have a metronome, buy one today.

Lesson #7. Yes, you can get a good tone from a Roland Jazz Chorus JC-120 amplifier. If you're you've done some touring, you've undoubtedly had gigs where you couldn't bring your own equipment and were told that an amp would be provided for you at the venue - and when you get to the gig, they've got a Roland Jazz Chorus waiting for you. (These amps are ubiquitous on the jazz and blues circuits.) These amps are notorious for sounding, paradoxically, rich yet 2-dimensional. Avi Bortnick showed me a neat trick for getting a usable tone: turn the Treble control fully counterclockwise, turn the Bass control fully counterclockwise, and then use just the Middle control to dial in a satisfactory tone. This works like a charm. Really!

Lesson #8. Get out of the house, and go hear some live music. This one should be a no-brainer, but in today's busy world it's easy to forget the simplest pleasures. It's possible to spend so much time working on your job (or music career, or personal relationships, or what have you). If you play music, you probably like music, and shouldn't need any prodding from me to go out and hear great musicians playing live. This could be going to your local pub to check out the weekly Tuesday-night Irish jam session, or going to the music hall to see NRBQ, or going to the big sports arena to watch the Dave Matthews Band, or ??? Presumably, one of your goals is to play live and to do it well. What better way to be inspired and enlightened than to see how other players do it? You can learn from their triumphs and from their mistakes. You can see what kind of gear they use to get their sound. You can see how they communicate verbally (and nonverbally) with the audience. On top of all that, you can simply enjoy yourself and remember what it is that turns you on so much about music. (For extra credit: dance!)

Lesson #9. Don't look down. In other words, don't stare at your hands while you're playing - particularly your fretting hand. There are a few reasons for this. First of all, if you're interested in playing music, you're presumably interested in playing in front of a live audience; if your attention is fixed on your own hands, it's awfully hard to make eye contact with your audience. And, yes - you want to make eye contact. This is how you connect with your audience. This is how you exchange energy. Staring at your hands also prevents you from making eye contact with the other people you play music with. (Unless, of course, you're a solo performer.) Furthermore, it's not great for your neck to be locked in a twisted, downward position. Another word about that "energy" I mentioned a few sentences ago. When playing onstage, it's quite helpful to be able to project your attention outward - beyond your guitar neck, beyond your microphone stand, beyond the front row, beyond the end of the bar. Energy follows attention. This may sound like hoodoo, but I believe it to be 100% true. If you're fixated on your hands, your energy stays in a sort of feedback loop, from your eyes to your hands, hands back to body, body to head, repeating indefinitely. One aspect to being a more engaging performer is the ability to send your energy/attention anywhere at any time, from that attractive audience member in the front row, to the Exit sign at the very back of the club (or concert hall, or stadium), or anywhere in between. One final reason for not watching your hands is that your brain moves faster than your hands, and watching your hands actually disrupts the flow your playing process. Anyone who can type without watching their hands knows this to be true. One other illustration: It's an old waiter trick to not watch a hot cup of coffee as you carry it across the restaurant to your customer. Watching the cup, your conscious mind can't help but try to compensate for the slight pitch and yaw. Paradoxically, this often leads to spilling the coffee! Your mind and body know exactly how to keep your hands steady enough to keep the coffee from sloshing and spilling, but watching the cup puts the job in the hands of your conscious brain, which isn't really equipped for the job. I must confess, this is one lesson I still haven't mastered - but it's one of the most elemental and important. Don't look down, kids!

Lesson #10. Practice in all 12 major and 12 minor keys. The layout of the guitar fingerboard makes transposition easy. If you know how to play an F major scale, you can play an F# major scale — just move everything up one fret. The awareness of this ease of transposition leaves some guitarists thinking they don't need to practice in remote keys, such as F# or Db. But if you really want to go deep into the guitar — and, for that matter, deep into music — you need to explore these keys. No shortcuts, you dig? Things to practice in all keys: technical exercises, scales, chord voicings, progressions, songs, and so on. Anything worth practicing is worth practicing in at least a few different keys.

Lesson #11. Fly safe. If you're going to fly with your guitar, and will be checking it along with your luggage, make sure to take all the extra goodies (strings, picks, capos, slides, and so on) out of the compartment inside the case. Why? Because these days it's a safe bet that your case will be opened and inspected. If things aren't put back in the compartment just right, your capo might be free to roam about the case as it makes its way to your destination. A free-roaming capo can really do some damage. I found this out the hard way, flying home from Europe recently. A heavy brass slide poked a — well, a slide-sized hole in the side of my beloved old Martin 0-17 acoustic. Ouch! Don't let this happen to you.

Lesson #12a. Don't take the pick for granted. Are you a player who uses flatpicks? If so, buy some different kinds next time you're at the music store, and try them out on your main guitar when you get home. Trying different picks, you might find that one actually has a better sound and/or feel than the kind you're used to using. Even if you don't change to using a different pick most of the time, having a collection of picks can come in handy for recording sessions and live gigs too, when you need to coax some different timbres from your guitar.

Lesson #12b. Don't get too picky. Your pick is an essential part of your tone chain, and I encourage you to find a pick that feels and sounds just right to you. You might groove with an industry standard -- say, a Medium-gauge, faux tortoise-shell Fender in the usual shape. Or you might fall in love with some custom mail-order-only plectrum, carved by Natives in Kodiak, Alaska. The catch here is that you don't want to get too attached to a pick that's hard to get more of -- or else you'll be hosed when you're out on tour with your band and realize you left your favorites at home, and the only music store around is Salvatore's Brass & Woodwind House, and they've got nothing but Thin-gauge oversized triangle picks. This is one of those aspects of the musician's life where willingness to compromise is requisite. Artsy-fartsiness is great, but it's just as important to remain flexible and practical. If you feel you simply cannot play without your special pick (or strings, or strap, or cable, or whatever), you're setting yourself up for a rough ride. Ultimately, your tone comes from your heart and your hands. Hopefully you'll have those with you wherever you go.

More lessons to come....

If you want to check out some of my lessons from the archives of Guitar Player magazine, visit TrueFire.com and type "Adam Levy" in the Search window.