Thursday, October 15, 2009

The expert opinion

I want to mention an often overlooked area regarding the expert. In Malcolm Gladwell's (Author of 'The Tipping Point') latest book 'Blink' he talks about how often market research of the general public can be quite wrong and misleading. For example. When record companies want to know if a song will be a hit they send out a sample to a cross section of people in the general public who will give their opinion. They then tally up this feedback and decide if the music will sell. But there is a problem with this strategy. The people being asked are not experts in pop music. At first you might say the general public who will be buying the CDs are not experts either. But the problem is when they send the CD out to be assessed they are missing some valuable data. That is listening to 30 seconds of a song once is not a deciding factor to what makes a hit. A hit song has a tendency of catching us by surprise. It could be that the first time we hear it we don't even like it because its different but after a few listens it grows on us. Hasn't that happened to you?

There are also other factors involved such as the CD cover, or the video clip or the fact that the CD might first be accepted by a small group of people who force their friends to listen. I recall Pink Floyd being one of those bands with 'Dark side of the Moon' being the classic album. Weird and strange and certainly not full of hit singles. It was an album and it was one of those albums that charted for years and years but it wasn't an on overnight success. It took time to filter out to the masses.

Back to the expert. The expert is often overlooked. An expert is an expert because their knowledge on a subject is extensive. They are not fooled by their personal opinion or biases. They look at the facts based on their expert training. Look at the record producer George Martin (The Beatles). He could predict a hit song much better than surveying thousands of people. The reasons are many but his instincts were the result of spending thousands of hours honing in on the little things that make a hit song. Even to the point of finding a group of musicians who had no material but had the look and x-factor he knew would sell records.

My personal expertise is in teaching guitar. My years of experience in the business have taught me what works and what does not. The strategies I use are the result of working with thousands of students of all ages. The G4 GUITAR METHOD is basically a culmination of my life's work. The idea of structure for example hit me after many years of realising that teaching in an improvised way based on student requests is not what students really want deep down in the same way overweight people don't want to go to a weight loss consultant and be told to love your body the way it is. They want the cold hard truth even if it hurts and then a results based plan of how to succeed and reach their goals. It would be easy for me to tell you the guitar is an easy instrument to learn but its just not true. Guitar take practice and lots of it and a large portion of it will be boring so its best to accept that before you even start because it will be a few years before you reach a level worth bragging about.

Fact is the G4 GUITAR METHOD works but its not a magic pill. Its a method based on 23 years of teaching and research. Stick with us and you will be a great guitar player one day but there are no shortcuts.

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