Guitarist Profile 4 of 24
Mercenary · The Mapmaker
You understand how the music is built.
Mindset
Mercenary
Plenty of goals. No single path yet.
You want to get somewhere on this instrument, and you have gone looking for it everywhere: books, videos, a teacher for a while, another video. The goals are real. What is missing is one process that carries you from one to the next.
- What it gives you
- You are hungry, and you have heard a lot. That wide exposure is useful the moment you point it at one thing.
- The blind spot
- With no process, you go wherever the wind takes you. You bounce between goals, and the result is the feeling that you should be further along than you are.
- The next move
- Pick one tune and one focus for the next four weeks. Nothing new until it is done. Most players who join the academy start right here, and this is the change they were after.
Signature strength: Theory
The Mapmaker
Your musical knowledge is ahead of your other skills. You can look at a tune and see what is going on, which makes everything else faster to learn.
Deep dive
What a Mercenary Mapmaker is like
You are likely the player with a folder of saved videos, a shelf of method books, and a list of things you mean to learn: a Wes lick, chord melody, that tune from the jam. Every one of them is a good idea. Maybe you have had a teacher for a while, then not. You learn fast when something grabs you.
What you haven’t had is a sequence, one thing that leads to the next. So the effort goes in, but it goes in sideways, and the result is that nagging feeling that you should be further along by now. In my workshops, more players recognise themselves here than in any other mindset.
You understand more than you can play, because every new source adds knowledge faster than it reaches your fingers.
What gets in the way
- Too many sources, no order. Every video teaches something real, but they don’t add up. Lesson 3 of one course, a lick from another, a scale from a book: nothing builds on the last thing, so nothing compounds.
- Starting over, again. You get a tune halfway, then something new comes along. Half-learned tunes slip away, so you keep relearning the same first steps.
- Not knowing what is actually wrong. You can feel that something isn’t working, but not what. Without someone who can hear you play, you guess, and the guess is usually “learn more material”.
From members who started where you are
“I went from video to video looking for the free, easy trick that was going to make me a better guitar player. It doesn’t work… In the 5 months I’ve been using Chase’s jazz lessons, I can barely recognize the old me.”
“I’d spent years trying to learn from books, video courses, and the internet, and was just overwhelmed and frustrated. What’s so fantastic about Chase’s Guitar Academy is the structured way it builds step by step.”
What fixes it
- Follow one sequence
A fixed order of tunes where each one adds only a little that is new, and a fixed order of patterns for soloing. You stop choosing and start stacking.
In the academy: A structured, step-by-step system: the Master Standards Blueprint and the Master Improvisation Blueprint
- One tune at a time, finished
Stay with one tune until you can play the melody, comp it and solo on it. Then the next one.
In the academy: Tune-based learning: one tune a month, with every class pointed at it
- Someone listening
Send a recording and get told the one thing to fix next, instead of guessing.
In the academy: Personal feedback: Chase reviews your playing every week (Premium)
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What the quiz adds
Your own six bars, and a plan
A profile is half the picture. The quiz also ranks your six skills against each other, names the one to work on first, and gives you a 30-minute daily plan and a starting point. It takes about 10 minutes.
