The way I look at things – Lerner’s philosophy of music and the guitar (Part 1)

I grew up in a family on the south side of Chicago where my parent’s were involved in the civil rights movement. Part of the movement was the folk music scene which my mother was part of.

Along with playing guitar and singing at marches and jamming with her friends in what they called “hootanannys”, she would sing and play my brother, sister and I to sleep at night. From that moment on I was hooked on the beautiful warm sound of her guitar.

Music was magic to my young mind and spirit. Since my hand was to small to reach around the neck of her guitar she thought I would get discouraged so she forbade me to use it.

Of course that made me want to play it even more so when she wasn’t around I would sneak away with it every chance got and have my fun. My first picks were poker chips. My mom taught me the basic chords and I started to write songs. Music was,and still is medicine for what ever ailed me.

Around this time my parents felt it would be a good idea to get some lessons for me so they hooked me up with a classical guitarist who lived close to us. It was one of the worst experiences of my young life.

He would have me play chromatic finger exercises with a metronome, which was to fast for me, and I remember being humiliated and frustrated.

Even worse, he viciously put down my hero’s Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, and Carlos Santana. He laughed and said they weren’t real musicians and what they played was not real music. It pisses me off even now, all these years later. I swore when I began teaching I would never do that to anyone.

I didn’t touch the guitar for months after that but finally came out of my funk and picked it up again, this time swearing off teachers. My teachers were the records of my hero’s.

I wore the grooves out of those records. I also learned from listening to the radio, and out of chord books I got to know a bunch of chords but knew them only as shapes that I could move around the neck and write tunes with.

I also had an attitude about capos. My mom and the folkies always used a capo to change keys and would always play the same few chord shapes, which I derisively called “cowboy chords” (actually I still call them that).

To my mind, a real guitar player should not have to use a capo but should know the fretboard good enough to play especially up the neck.

Thus began a life long quest to master the guitar fretboard. Ultimately though when I played a show that required a capo(Randy Newman’s rock opera Faust) I got in trouble cause at first I tried playing it without a capo, and the musical director came down on me and I realized, hey man don’t be so closed minded, sometimes the music calls for a capo.

Finally I learned the 5 fingerings of the pentatonic scale from a guitar player who played in a rock band that rehearsed in a couple of houses down from us. Man, what a revelation.

With my ear and these new forms I started to make sense of the patterns on the neck and could basically figure out most songs or riffs. I could tell when I was in the right key by using my ear although theoretically I had no clue why.

I went along this way for years until I made the fateful decision I wanted to dedicate my life to my first love, music. (Actually that might not be accurate. I think my first love was cheeseburgers and french fries).

I decided I would go for it and figured since I didn’t know shit but seemed to have some natural ability I had better get up to speed fast, and the fastest way was go to music school, which is exactly what I did.

The American Conservatory which was on Michigan Avenue right across from the Art Institute. It had one of the first jazz programs in Chicago. I studied jazz guitar, classical guitar, and composition.

It was there that I met 2 people who had a profound impact on my life. In the realm of improvised music I studied with someone who was not a guitarist but a brilliant pianist, Willie Pickens. And the man who opened my eyes and mind up to the true nature of the guitar in detail, Frank Dawson, who I called the Einstein of guitar.

Let me fast forward a bit. Through my fellow classmates and my teachers I began picking up gigs, and the way it works in music is that work begets work. If people hear you and like how you sound you get hired for more work and your reputation spreads.

That’s how it started for me and that’s how I’ve made my living for the last 40 years. I’ve continued to study and try to learn more about music and the guitar so I can keep bettering myself. I’ve alway’s wanted to learn from people who keep learning themselves.

The way I teach and what I teach has evolved over the years especially during my time teaching at Columbia College Chicago where I’ve taught since 1995.

However, I want to unequivocally state my way is not the only way, it may not even be the best way, but it’s been the way I’ve been able to make a life for myself based on my dream. I will share with you what works for me and hopefully it will help you and work for you and become a source of enjoyment for you and help you become better as a musician/guitarist.

Peter Lerner

Peter Lerner has toured with Grammy award winning pianist Ramsey Lewis and has played duets on NBC and CBS with acclaimed trumpeter Orbert Davis. Peter has performed with Bill Russo’s Chicago Jazz Ensemble at the Jazz Showcase where he performed with such luminaries as Lee Konitz.