Ask HN: How do you learn Spanish guitar?

If you're on HN, you've probably experienced the dopamine rush of encountering something new, understanding it well enough in short order, applying it, and seeing results; or building something that others engage with in the same way. Or being especially good at math, or science, or computers, seemingly without much effort.

Music is (for most people) not like that. For getting proficient at instrumental music, the skill floor is high, progress is slow, and only comes through hard boring work which rewires your brain. Teachers tell you to do boring things, and say things that don't make sense, and you will be frustrated. Eventually you realize that you can do things you couldn't do before.

There are whiz kids who don't appear to experience this, but I think they do; they are just wired to not hate it as much as the rest of us, and are doing it when their brains are nicely plastic.

When I say "getting proficient at instrumental music" I mean to differentiate from learning how to play Wonderwall or Louie Louie and having a great time singing along. That's absolutely valid, it's a great place to be, and that love of the instrument forms the basis of further progress.

This is a great answer.

The whiz kids might not even think to mention it, but they wanted it enough to drill scales & chords every day. You can make big investments into physical dexterity long before you understand what's going on, and it will pay off if you stay with it.

As a guitar player of 15 years myself, when I was learning to play, I never thought of the exercises as boring or tedious because I learned in order to play a specific song. Getting good at that song made me motivated enough to continue learning the fundamentals.

learning to play wonderwall gave me a lot of joy, and i actually didn't really find it to be trivial for a total beginner either. maybe i'm just bad but it took me like six weeks of practice to play the song smoothly.

For me, I plateaued. I didn’t think I had, because I was learning new material, but I wasn’t getting better. And I had kids and other priorities and so enjoying myself was enough. I then finally found a promising musical situation, admitted my stagnation and got a teacher (after decades without). My primary goal is to be a better musician, with instrumental skill a secondary concern. The grind I am talking about is mostly about this new learning phase for me.

Here’s an example of something that was unattainable for me before a whole lot of hard work. https://www.scribd.com/document/456430254/Groove-Merchant-Pn...