George Lynch really regrets not learning the fundamentals and theory for his guitar playing

George Lynch really regrets not learning the fundamentals and theory for his guitar playing

Lynch Mob, KXM, Sweet & Lynch, The End Machine and former Dokken guitarist George Lynch was recently interviewed by Marcelo Vieira for the Brazilian website Marcelo Vieira Music. Lynch was promoting his first instrumental album Seamless, which was released via Rat Pak Records this past summer.

Vieira asked Lynch what tips that he had for those learning how to play guitar to which the guitarist replied: “I highly recommend that you learn and study theory. I never managed to learn, but not for lack of trying. Just recently I talked to one of the heads of GIT, an unbelievable musician, and he agreed to give me lessons, which never happened. I’ve tried this dozens of times in my life. I really regret not having learned the fundamentals and theory. The problem is, when you don’t know the theory, you don’t really know what you’re doing, except by your own intuition. For me, it’s a little stressful because every time I play, I’m not sure what’s going to happen, because I don’t have any theoretical backing, I don’t have any musical knowledge, “Ok, I’ll play that scale in that way;” I can’t do it because I don’t know how to do it. [Laughs.] I’m a pretender if you know what I mean. Stressful is having to rely on inspiration instead of knowledge.”

Vieira also noted that the press release for Seamless makes reference to Lynch “honouring the masters.” In terms of who are those “masters”, Lynch opined: “My first Masters of Music; singers and songwriters like James Brown, the blues guys, Aretha Franklin, the soul, and R&B guys… And then The Beatles also exerted a strong influence when I was young. After I got into rock, I became addicted to all the guys who are known as the fundamental guitarists in guitar history; I listened to their records and learned a lot from them and incorporated some of their styles. them to my own. For me, the big four are obviously Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimi Hendrix, these real giants.”

You can read part of Marcelo Vieira‘s interview with George Lynch at Marcelo Vieira Music‘s website.