If you are already knowledgeable in music and the guitar, I strongly urge you to forget all that you have learned about music. I know that it's a bit hard to "unlearn" something, so let me put it another way. The real point here is that if you have studied "music theory" to any usable degree, you are already "following" structures established by others. The process of this learning has you playing music composed by others in order to learn how to fit everything together. This inherently teaches you that the study is about the playing of the instrument in a general sense and worse, it teaches that music is made up of notes, scales, and such. The building blocks of music are not notes. They are the emotional content of a dynamic expression of self that expresses what it is to be the subject in the music. The written language of music comprised of notes, scales and such, exist for those who only emulate the expressions of others. Creators typically only write the framework of the music down when they are composing, and the lyrics. Both are an expression of self and always a part of them. Creators also know that the correct way to play the music is by being self-expressive for that moment and they do not consider any one performance to be the "correct" version of the expression. They are all correct versions if they are truly self-expressive for the moment in which they are performed. If you know the patterns of just the basic "open" chords on the guitar, you can extrapolate the rest of the details of how to play the guitar with ease, once you can "see". Of course, this sight has nothing to do with your eyes. It occurs in an extra-dimensional state of BEing and quickly grows into a large repertoire of expressions that radiate states of the self. The focus of the material that I present here is to use the instrument (in this case, your guitar) to express your "self". It is not based on notes and chords - those are almost incidental. It is based on producing the right sound to express the state of being that is expressed in the song - your song.
Before we even begin to discuss playing the guitar, we must discuss the guitar itself. There is a specific guitar that your hand is natural with. I found my guitar in a pawn shop in San Antonio many years ago. My guitar playing started becoming a thing of self-expression when I started playing that guitar. I cannot play the way that I do on other guitars. They do not fit my hand and just do not "feel right". The fingering hand should be able to grip the guitar neck like a golf club. My guitar has a thick resin finish on a maple neck that is the thinnest that I have found in both width and thickness. It feels very natural in my hand. So you owe it to yourself to try to find that guitar that "feels right" and is easy to express yourself on. It should feel "natural". Do NOT settle just because it is the best you can find in your location. It is understandable that you do not want to wait for "who knows how long it will take to find the right guitar?" before you start playing. By all means, start playing. Just keep aware of the importance of how the guitar feels, that you are playing. Always be looking for that one guitar that was meant for you. You will know it when you find it.
My material is all written in the first person. This connects me to the listener(s) in a direct and personal way. I may have written the song to a specific individual, but those who hear it feel that they are witnessing the emotional response first-hand. In several of my songs, I AM actually speaking directly to the listener. With this connection, the listener(s) feel a deeper connection to the experience of my "BEing". It is a real, tangible and physical connection. I urge you to write from a first-person perspective and to NOT play any roles. You cannot be "self"-expressive if you are playing the role of another, whether a person, an idea (for example, personifying "love") or anything that is not of your direct experience.
Only you can see the realities that came together to form the content of the song. Show it to the world! This is exactly what self-expression is. You are expressing what it feels like to be you in the experiences that contributed to the construction of the song. This does not mean that you go into specific descriptive wording describing the events themselves. This is not a history lesson. It is the expression of what it feels like to be the subject of the song. You are openly and sincerely pouring out your emotional state (relative to the song) for all to experience.
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