Learn Music Theory
When I was a kid, I wanted to take guitar, but my mom made me take keyboard lessons instead. She argued that the best thing to do was to learn music theory. After that, I could go anywhere with it. I would be allowed to learn basically any instrument I wanted within reason. I wasn't very excited about learning musical theory, and I certainly wasn't that excited about the keyboard. I wanted to play guitar like my favorite rock stars did. Nonetheless, I knew that the only way to do that was to go by her rules. Once my mom made up her mind, she seldom went back.
I never really liked the keyboard even when I was playing it, but once I started to learn music theory I get really excited about it. I had always had a pretty good intuitive ear for music, but learning theory brought it to another level. The structures that I had observed for so many years suddenly had names. I could point to my favorite devices in music and identify them, understanding how they worked and why they sounded like they did. I even started to write my own songs, although I wasn't very good at it at first.
After about a year or so of piano lessons, my mom relented and let me learn some guitar. I decided to learn music theory for guitar as well. The interesting thing about keyboard is that whatever you learn on it you can take with you to other instruments. Although guitar theory doesn't necessarily translate to keyboards, for example, keyboard theory does translate to guitars. A keyboard is basically a row of all the notes laid out in a logical order, so you really get to see how the theory of music works. You can then take that knowledge to a more arbitrary instrument like the guitar, flute, clarinet, or anything else.
Still, learning music theory on an instrument I really enjoyed for me to a whole other level. Suddenly, I was coming up with songs that I liked and making progress in my instrument. When I was learning the piano, it was always very slow going. I would learn music theory and pick up some playing techniques, but I didn't show any particular skill or promise at it. With guitar, however, I was really starting to move. I soon had a good intuitive understanding of the way it worked, and could play many of my favorite songs. I had managed to learn music theory to such an advanced level that I could pretty much analyze any song I heard on the radio and understand what was going on in it. I wasn't great at guitar or anything, but being grounded in the basics of music gave me enough background to start playing my own songs.
