Many guitarists playing at BRIDGE Guitar Festival will agree: playing the guitar is a matter of lifelong learning. With a bit of luck, a teacher will push you somewhat in the right direction. The Dutch guitar hero JB Meijers (he will play at BRIDGE AROUND TOWN on Sunday, June 2) teaches Niels, without a guitar in sight. “I've always had a very do-it-yourself attitude.”

Anyone who picks up a guitar for the first time is mercilessly confronted with their own incompetence. While as a beginner you can immediately produce a quite acceptable tone on a piano, for example, this is radically different on a guitar. The very first attack sounds - in my case at least, in one short expletive - horrible. But the good news: from that very moment your quest has begun. For many guitarists, playing those early notes is a defining moment in their lives. BRIDGE Guitar Festival is a timely moment to see where this can all lead.

The special thing about the journey on the guitar,  is that you will ultimately have to do it all yourself. Every skill you have learned is your own achievement. Every concept you understand is your own merit. That may not make the journey of discovery easier, but the reward is very satisfying. The route of unconsciously incompetent to unconsciously competent is one with many stops. Many leave prematurely. Others drive there in a detour. For some, many exit points remain closed forever.

In recent years, an incredible number of tools have emerged for those trying to master the guitar. Whether the most popular number, the strangest, the most difficult: there are always online supports that will help you a long way. You could hardly see the trees for the forest, so many of them courses can be found there. Our own Dutch guitar hero JB Meijers planted  a nice tree in that forest recently. His guitar course 'Playing Guitar with JB' is as clear, concise and to the point as the name of the lesson series in which he takes all kinds of styles 'under the microscope like a laboratory technician.'

JB takes on the role of teacher somewhat unwillingly, he said when I spoke to him recently. The idea was that we would meet online with the guitar on our laps. Although JB says he plays the guitar for about ten hours a day, this time - as you can see - there was no guitar within his reach. He doesn't consider himself a real teacher, JB said. “Because I am very bad at preparing. But people often think that I can talk about music very nicely.”

And that is exactly the skill a good teacher must have. Because the scales, the chords, the fingerings: you can all find them somewhere and you really have to grasp  them yourself if you want to get them into your system. But inspiration from someone with knowledge is an elusive and immeasurably valuable thing for which you really need someone in front of you. Whether live or online.

After the conversation with JB, I thought back to my own guitar teachers and how important they have been to me. If only to realize  that the person in front of you can really make a difference. I was dreading lessons with my very first teacher every week. The songs he made me play didn't do anything for me. There was not particularly  a sharp learning curve because of that. It wasn't until I was introduced to my second teacher through a friend at school that the penny really dropped. He allowed  me to play whatever I wanted. And that turned out to be the key to an almost insatiable hunger that lasted for years.

JB told me about his own teachers. Such as Chris Krekelberg and legendary conservatory teachers Wim Overgaauw, Ben de Bruin and Peter Nieuwerf. People who have broadened JB's horizons. But in the meantime, the guitarist also followed his own path and was inspired by artists like Jimi Hendrix, Black Flag and Bob Marley. “I've always had a very do-it-yourself attitude,” JB pointed out. And so he developed as a guitarist with his own unique sound. Moreover, as someone with great songwriting abilities and a razor-sharp ear.

That is perhaps the most important lesson throughout: just listen very carefully if you want to play something. Just like the father of the Australian guitar hero Plini filled (and one of JB Meijers' new favorites, as he said during the conversation) once answered him when, as a boy, he asked how he should learn to play jazz: “Just listen”, Plini's father tipped at the time. I myself have been busy with JB's course and after the conversation with him I listened extra carefully to his playing. I'm really looking forward to his show at BRIDGE Guitar Festival, although it's still a surprise with what band he will appear on stage that day, he said himself. Whatever it turns out to be, I certainly learned a lot from delving into his work. In that respect, many other guitarists who play on BRIDGE will certainly enrich and surprise me. Exactly like good inspirers and teachers should.