HOW I WILL TEACH YOU A LANGUAGE - ANALOGY OF A MUSIC LESSON

Copyright  © 2007, 2008,2009 Mark A. Frobose 



A Guide Who Knows What You Need
   I play the guitar. I became interested in that wonderful instrument when I was a young
teen. That was four decades ago. I practiced regularly. I practiced diligently. I practiced passionately.
By the time I was out of high school I was pretty proficient. I didn’t know it at the time, but all those
hours with my favorite instrument were about to pay off.

My skill with the guitar and my ability to sing in different languages helped pay my way through
college in several foreign counties, including graduate school. I played in bars, clubs, and pizza
parlors in the US, France, and England. I gave guitar lessons from time to time. I’ve written many,
many songs, both the music and the lyrics. I have met a lot of interesting people as a result of my
guitar playing ability. Some of them became good friends. My guitar has been an important part of
my life.
   I can honestly say that I am a good guitar player. I’ve worked as a ‘professional’ in the sense that
I’ve been paid. But I will readily admit that I am not a professional ‘musician’ in the traditional, clas-
sical sense of the term. I am not a music theorist. I am not a musicologist. A musicologist is someone
who engages in the historical and scientific study of music; note and tone analysis, and all that. I
can’t even read music. (I’m proud to say that my eleven year old daughter can.) I’ve just never taken
the time or the trouble to learn. So while I am an accomplished recreational guitarist I would never
claim to be a world class, professional, orchestral style, classical musician or music theoretician.
   Nevertheless, I play the guitar ‘fluently.’
   If you said to me, “Teach me to play the guitar!” I would respond, “Great! But why do you want to
learn? What do you hope to accomplish?”
   If you are like most people your response would be, “I want to be able to play some songs for re-
laxation and enjoyment” or “I want to play for my church youth group” or “I just want to play along
with my friends.”
   Those are all good reason. So I’ll tell you what I would do. First,  though, I’ll tell you what I
wouldn’t do:

I wouldn’t throw you a three-inches thick textbook on tone theory and chord structure.
I wouldn’t make you memorize all the major and minor scales.
I wouldn’t insist that you learn how to transpose music from one key to another.
I wouldn’t drill you on the difference between tonic, dominant and subdominant harmonic functions.
We wouldn’t study the music measure by measure and count and identify the notes in every interval.
I wouldn’t insist that you learn to read, identify, and play dozens of different chords and identify all
their fifth, seventh, and ninth equivalents.
I wouldn’t ask you to trace the structural components of Western music through the Baroque,
Renaissance, Classical, and Romantic periods.
I wouldn’t even insist that you learn to read music.

Now, there is nothing wrong with learning all of that. To anyone who desires to take it to that level
I say, “Fantastic! Go for it! Good luck along your journey deep inside the complex and technical
world of music!” I applaud those who are interested enough and motivated enough to take that chal-
lenging plunge. I wish them the best.
   But most people just want to sit down at the piano or pick up the flute or the harmonica or the
guitar for personal pleasure and fulfillment; for the enjoyment of themselves and of their significant
others. That goal can be achieved without enrolling in Julliard or buying a $6000 musical instrument.
Here’s what I would do:

I would teach you about a dozen common chords.
I would teach you some simple strumming patterns.
I would teach you some basic finger picking techniques.
I would coach you in beat and rhythm.
I would give you some helpful tips about singing while you’re playing.

   The knowledge you would acquire with such instruction would not get you an audition with the
New York Philharmonic. You wouldn’t be accompanying Beverly Sills at the Met anytime soon. You
probably wouldn’t be asked to join an accomplished Latin combo, blue grass group, or experienced
rock band.
   But with some time and practice you would become ‘fluent’ in your guitar playing. Your newly
acquired skill would give you a lifetime of enjoyment. And if you someday decided to take it to a
deeper level…Well, send me an autographed copy when your first CD or music DVD comes out!
   I think – I hope – that the comparison between music and linguistics, between guitar playing and
language learning, is obvious: It is no more necessary to learn all the technical rules of grammar and
syntax to become functionally fluent in a foreign language than it is to learn all the technical and
theoretical aspects of music in order to become ‘functionally fluent’ on the piano or the accordion or
the guitar or the ‘whatever.’
   Like music, you can take language learning to a highly technical level if you wish to. There’s noth-
ing wrong with that. But that is not necessary in order to achieve fluency; fluency that will give you a
lifetime of enjoyment and a deep sense of personal satisfaction.

Language Guide as a Role Model
   It is not easy to identify with someone who has not experienced what you are experiencing.  You
need someone who has ‘been there and done that’. You need to find a role model who has suffered as
you have suffered, guessed as you have guessed, tried and failed as you have tried and failed.
   But above all, you need a language guide who, despite all the odds to the contrary, has risen above
the difficulties and become fluent in not just one but in a number of different languages; a guide that
will magically appear before you each and every time you use your digitally produced language
course.  You need a guide who will teach you a foreign language in your own language, showing you
the way, giving you tips, guiding you past the danger points, and finding the easy shortcuts that will
make your language journey a breeze instead of a torment. 
   For most of us, our language journey begins not in the jungles of Brazil, but in a ‘concrete jungle’;
in traffic, behind the wheel in our cars.