Mark Tremonti talked about the early days of his musical journey, telling Comebackstage (via Blabbermouth):
“Yeah, I took one guitar lesson and it was one of those things where I had to buy a Mel Bay [guitar instruction] book and they tried to teach me ‘Silent Night’.
[metalwani_content_ad]“I just wasn’t interested, so I didn’t go back and I just decided to buy tablature books and learn by myself.”
Asked if it’s easier to learn guitar on your own, or with a teacher, Tremonti replied:
“It’s much easier to have a teacher. [Laughs] I didn’t have the resources [to get a guitar teacher]. There wasn’t a teacher nearby, it was expensive.
“I was turned off by the first lesson I had, so I decided… I like songwriting a lot. I wasn’t much into being a magnificent guitar player, I just wanted to write songs and sing. For many, many years, I was a terrible, terrible guitar player. I was awful.
[metalwani_content_ad]“My brothers used to make fun of me that I couldn’t play a song from start to finish. But I was developing how to become a songwriter and how to develop my own sound. I’m glad I did it that way.
“If you have a guitar teacher your whole life where you’re following one guitar player, two guitar players, you start sounding like those players. Learning on your own, you develop your own sound.”