3 Tips For People Learning Guitar
Although it can be difficult, learning to play the guitar is also a very rewarding experience. At first, you might become disappointed that nothing seems to sound right, and the most basic chords cannot be played without clipping other strings, but with a little bit of time and patience you will be able to play some of your favorite songs, and this is when the process becomes a lot of fun. Here are a few simple tips to help you get the most out of your learning experience and quickly learn how to play your favorite songs:
Choose The Proper Guitar: All guitars are not created equal. Beginners cannot pick up any model and learn how to play. Different models have different characteristics, such as some having a high action (the strings are raised off the fretboard, resulting in the need to press harder), while some have fretboards with elaborate decorations (which can be quite distracting for beginners who are learning notes). When starting out, stick with a bare bones model; more elaborate models can be purchased as you advance and become more familiar with the instrument.
To choose the one you want I suggest you ask on an online forum, or visit a music shop and ask for their advice on a good beginner guitar (mine is a Seagull S6). You also need to pick whether you want to learn with an acoustic or electric. Learning with an electric guitar gives you faster progress because you don’t need to use as much pressure so barre chords etc are a lot easier, but that also means you are limited to playing where you have a power source? you need to think about all these things before you buy a guitar.
Make Sure You Have Some Structure To Your Learning: Some people think they can totally teach themselves guitar, and they will look up the chords for a song online and try to play it using those, or using tutorials on Youtube etc. The problem with that is there is no structure to what you are learning, so you are going to get frustrated, pick up bad habits, and struggle a lot more than you have to.
Buying a course or taking a few lesions can help you to avoid these issues. Learning the basics in this fashion will teach you all the “boring basics” such as music theory, and chord construction. Once you have this material down, you can move on to teaching yourself new techniques, songs, and the like. A firm background will allow you to become a better guitar player.
Practice Slowly: You should not be sacrificing quality for speed. Most people practice as fast as they can and make mistakes, but that is getting sloppy and won’t help you progress as fast. Instead take your time to make sure you sound every note and chord cleanly, and that you follow the rhythm of the song exactly, then slowly build the speed up. It will be faster in the long run than trying to go really fast, making loads of mistakes, then having to slow down anyway to fix the mistakes.
If you want a good course then the Jamorama course is really popular at the moment. It is a downloadable course so you get instant access to it, and it uses both text and video to teach you what you need to know.
Filed under Musical Instruments by 
Leave a Comment