Guitarist Profile 10 of 24
Monk · The Mapmaker
You understand how the music is built.
Mindset
Monk
You love the act of playing.
You play because it is good to have the guitar in your hands. You show up without being pushed, the way some people love to cook with no wish to become a chef. That is a completely valid way to play music.
- What it gives you
- Consistency is the hard part for most people, and you already have it. You never have to talk yourself into picking up the guitar.
- The blind spot
- With no specific target, time goes in and your level stays about where it is. Over the years that can turn into boredom with your own playing.
- The next move
- Keep the routine exactly as it is and add one target: record a full take of one tune every Sunday. After four weeks, listen to the first one again.
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 Monk Mapmaker is like
The guitar is part of your day. You pick it up because you want to, not because a plan says so, and you would play whether or not anyone ever heard you. You probably have a set of tunes and ideas you return to like old friends.
That is the hardest part of practice, and you already have it. The catch is that a routine without a target tends to repeat itself. The hours are real; the change is slow. Some Monks are fine with that. Others notice, years in, that their playing hasn’t moved much, and that it has started to feel a little flat.
You know how tunes work and you enjoy turning them over. A target would turn that knowledge into new repertoire.
What gets in the way
- The comfortable loop. The same tunes, the same licks, the same positions. Comfortable is good. It is also where growth stops.
- No outside ear. When you only play for yourself, you can’t hear your own habits: the bar you always rush, the lick you play on every ii-V.
- No reason to stretch. No gig, no jam, no deadline. Nothing asks you to learn the hard tune.
From members who started where you are
“I’ve played guitar for a number of years, but never reached what I considered a reasonable goal in my playing… My most meaningful moments are those that occur every month or two where I realize I’m definitely doing things that I didn’t do in the past.”
“I was wasting perhaps too much time trying to learn scales or repeating the same technical exercises and not even applying it while playing… After some time, I realized that I could start playing something that sounds like jazz.”
What fixes it
- A next tune chosen for you
Keep the routine and let someone else pick what goes in it: a tune order where each tune adds a little that is new.
In the academy: A structured, step-by-step system: the Master Standards Blueprint, 100 tunes in order
- An outside ear
Play for someone who will tell you, kindly and specifically, what they hear.
In the academy: Personal feedback: Chase reviews your playing every week (Premium)
- A gentle deadline
Learn the same tune as everyone else this month, and play it in class if you want to.
In the academy: Live classes for every member, built around the month’s tune
Start your 7-day trial todayRisk-free: no charge today, cancel anytime.
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.
