I still play the guitar like a piano. It’s most obvious when I try to play along with the lead guitar part in a recording of a two-guitar band. Often, the lead guitar just has a simple single-note riff or triads in the upper register, but I cannot resist the impulse to insert bass notes in the “left hand” (often grabbing them with my thumb). It doesn’t feel like a complete part without them.

Of course, there is already a bass in the recording, so playing in this way does not add any value, and comes at the cost of less fluidity in the actual guitar melody. I am trying to discpline myself to double lead guitar parts exactly, but it’s hard to break the habit of embellishment.

Another way my piano training interferes with playing guitar is an instinctual aversion to the capo. On the piano, if you want to play a song in a different key, you play it in a different key. (Actually, a lot of keyboards have a transposition feature, but using it is frowned upon.) But a guitar capo is sometimes musically necessary access open chord voicings in flat keys.

My pianist problem is that when I play the guitar with a capo, I can never decide whether to think in the transposed or concert key. The open chord voicings certainly are easiest to remember in the transposed key, but as soon as I need to play a melody higher on the neck, it’s like the capo isn’t there, and I have to think in concert key to make any sense of it. Most often, I just get really confused and put away the capo.