About Me

Hello! I’m Brandon, the owner of Thrive Guitar!

I created this website to pass on what I have learned in my 25 years of playing the guitar. I know there are already hundreds of instructional guitar sites and sources out on the web. However, I want to share my unique ideas in hopes that you can take advantage of the lessons I have learned. I’m still learning every day and want to share my journey with you.

The main mission of Thrive Guitar is to help you become as great of a guitarist as you want to be. Several years ago I became obsessed with mastering the instrument and learning how to play like the virtuosos. If you’d like to play the guitar at a high level of proficiency, I invite you to join me so we can reach our goals!

My Background

I remember when I got my first guitar. I got it for Christmas when I was seventeen. It was an Epiphone acoustic and came in a case. I remember opening the case and lightly brushing my fingers across the strings. Two distinct feelings came over me as I heard those notes ring out: excitement and intimidation.

Excitement

First, the excitement part. I was in awe of the wonder of what I was looking at and hearing. There, in front of me, I had an object that had the power and potency to influence people. I had a device that would allow me to play many of my favorite songs, which influenced me and brought me good feelings.

Entire political movements have been built around the songs that are played on the guitar. I knew if I could, somehow, learn how to play this thing, I could have the same type of potential.

Of course, I had no desire to start a political movement and still don’t. But I loved the idea of being able to play my favorite songs around my family and friends.

Music can tap into our emotions and influence us. It’s often therapeutic for me to listen to and play music. Music has gotten me through some rough times in life. I was excited about the possibilities that the instrument was about to open up for me. I hope that excites you as well!

Intimidation

Now for the intimidation part. I was intimidated because I knew I had my work cut out for me. When I brushed my fingers across those strings, it wasn’t exactly “music” that I heard. It was simply the open strings of a guitar in standard tuning. Although those notes would qualify for some obscure chord name, it wasn’t exactly “pretty.”

I knew it was going to take a lot of studying and practicing to churn out anything close to music on that instrument.

The truth was I knew nothing about music except I liked listening to it and I thought it would be cool if I could play the guitar around all my high school friends. In addition to physically learning how to play it, I knew I had to learn a lot of theory to know what on earth I was doing. I knew I had a lot of work ahead of me. It was overwhelming but I was more than up for that challenge.

The Wrong Way To Learn

I experienced a ton of frustration when I began my guitar journey. My new guitar came with an instructional tape. It did a great job of teaching me the basic chords and learning a couple of old folk songs. But beyond that, I was lost. I was listening to a lot of Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin back then and wanted to learn how to play a lot of classic rock in the style of Hendrix and Jimmy Page.

So what did I do? First, I had to get an electric guitar which I did a few months later. Back then there was no YouTube or countless video lessons that were freely available online. This was 1999. The Stone Age in terms of the internet and technology. So I couldn’t pull up endless videos and watch someone explain how to play a song in great detail.

But, there were tabs. Countless, shoddy guitar tabs online, for the songs I wanted to play. They were my only hope of learning the riffs and solos of the legends and I had access to a computer and a printer. Game on!

So I printed off all of these tablature sheets of any and every song I wanted to learn. I probably amassed a folder of 200-300 sheets of paper of guitar tabs. It was quite “impressive.”

Some of them were very accurate so I’ll give credit where it is due. They were okay for learning basic acoustic songs. I learned a lot of Neil Young and Pink Floyd songs on my acoustic guitar.

But eventually, I wanted to learn how to play some Hendrix tunes. Trying to learn Hendrix from guitar tablature is just a recipe for frustration and discouragement. Especially when I had no clue about what a pentatonic or blues scale even was!

The problem was this: I was trying to just copy what they were playing without having any knowledge of WHY they were playing what they were playing. I assumed they were using some sort of scales or “system” for how they were playing but I had no idea what that was. Guitar tabs give you the WHAT but not the WHY.

I was trying to copy Jimmy Page and Eddie Van Halen solos from guitar tablature that some random Joe Blow posted online of their best guess as to how it is properly played. One does not simply learn how to play like Eddie, Hendrix, or Page by trying to copy notes from guitar tablature. Especially when they don’t even know how to play a single scale!

This was the equivalent of that saying, give a man a fish he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime. I didn’t know “how to fish” yet. I didn’t need guitar tabs (having the fish handed to me), I needed to learn the systems and frameworks those players were using (how to fish). Then I would have a snowball’s chance of learning how to play these things I was trying to learn.

Eventually, I did learn many of those systems and frameworks. Through this website and in my course material I plan on teaching you those systems in frameworks. I want you to be able to learn from the mistakes I have made over the years. I want to pass along what I have learned so you can benefit. I intend to do that through this website and future courses and material.

My Playing Background

Ever since that Christmas morning when I received my first guitar, I have been involved, off and on, with playing in a few informal bands, but nothing too big. I was fortunate to have a friend in high school who was quite an accomplished guitarist. He’s the one who introduced me to guys like John Petrucci and Yngwie Malmsteen: the shredders and virtuosos.

We had a small band that was more like a practice group. We would get together a lot in the summers and play a lot of pop and rock tunes that were big in the late 90s, and even some classic rock. We were pretty good actually, but we didn’t ever really play in front of people unless a few other friends came over to his house. Although I think if the 4 of us (if you guys ever read this, you know who you are) kept playing together, we could have made it far if we wanted to. We were good!

The most formal band I played in was at a large-sized church I attended. I would play on stage every Sunday with some extremely talented musicians in front of a few hundred people. It might have just been for church, but it was still performing at a high level. The songs weren’t too technically difficult, but I learned a lot about music performance, which is a separate skill set altogether. I will address that topic on this site.

Music Styles I’m Learning Today

I love all kinds of music and I have played many different styles of music over the years as my playing has evolved. In the last few years I’ve focused on learning a couple of different styles of music on the guitar, both of them on opposite ends of the spectrum: progressive metal on one end and jazz on the other. I also like a little bit of blues sprinkled in here and there!

Progressive/Neo-Classical Rock & Metal

My biggest and earliest musical influence was Eddie Van Halen. Hearing Eruption for the first time was an experience I’ll never forget: the kind that makes you freeze, in awe and disbelief of what you’re hearing. Eddie is the man who made me want to pick up the guitar. I’m sure I’m not alone here.

I love many of the progressive metal and neo-classical shredders like John Petrucci, Joe Satriani, Paul Gilbert, Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai, and on and on. My goal is to master the instrument in due time, as these artists have done.

Jazz

On the other side of the spectrum, I have always had this curious fascination with jazz music. I think it started with my fascination with big cities. I grew up in a rural area where jazz was the last type of music you’d ever hear. When we’d go downtown to a big city, I’d see jazz clubs or bars and hear the sound of saxophones and that swing rhythm. It just seemed so dang cool.

When I was in college, I began to buy jazz CDs at music stores just to see what it was all about. I didn’t know any jazz artists or much of anything about the music, but I loved it! It was so unique and I began to become fascinated with it.

By the time I had learned to play the basics of guitar and had a few years under my belt, I decided to take my fascination with jazz to the next level and do something very few rock guitarists dare entertain. I set out to understand jazz music and learn how to play it on guitar!

I began listening to a lot of jazz and tried to soak up all I could. I learned about its history and got to know the jazz virtuosos. My favorites are Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass, Kenny Burrell, Jim Hall, and too many others to name. I also began to love non-guitarist jazz musicians, especially saxophonists like Paul Desmond and Sonny Stitt to name a couple.

My latest project is to learn to play jazz in chord melody arrangements. I will be posting more about this and everything I’ve learned in due time. I can’t wait to share what I’m learning! I really want to write Christmas songs and maybe record an album.

Jazz ballads have a special place in my heart as well because I would always play them for my kids to help them get to sleep at bedtime. I got so used it playing jazz for them, that now I have a hard time falling asleep unless I have some jazz playing softly on my cell phone.

Blues

I’m not a huge blues fan, but I am a little. Every now and then I’ll hear a blues tune, or maybe even just a simple blues lick, and get inspired. Then I’ll want to learn it and go play it. I do enjoy some Hendrix, and artists like Buddy Guy, B.B. King, and more recently, John Mayer.

I think everyone needs to know at least a little bit of blues. It’s sort of the default springboard for musical improvisation. It bridges the gap between rock and jazz. So I’ll post a lot about blues, even though it’s not necessarily my favorite style of music.

Summary

So that’s me in a nutshell. Once again I hope you will stick around, read a few articles, and maybe eventually, purchase a book or course from me. But more than anything, I hope you take something away from what I had to offer and I look forward to possibly hearing from you in the future. Good luck with your playing and your personal musical journey!

– Brandon