gutar lessons
From guitar pictures in old paintings, we know that guitar songs have been pleasing humanity for hundreds of years. It is probably the most popular instrument ever invented.
It’s small and light enough to carry, fairly durable if we take care with it, and we all like the sound..
It can carry the song by itself, back up your voice, or hold down leads or harmony or rhythm in a band. Its sound can be clear, bright, muddy, dark, shrieking or heavenly.
The romantic and soft sound of an acoustic guitar with nylon strings is soft and sweet, and echos the sound of Spain where it became the guitar we know today.
Add metal strings to an acoustic guitar and suddenly nashville, westerns, and folk songs begin to sizzle.
Add magnetic pickups and heavy strings and the sound of jazz surrounds fills the smoky air.
Move those strings and pickups to a solid body and it’s time to rock ‘n roll, baby!
And yet… it’s all the same guitar, the instrument with a thousand voices and ten thousand moods.
What kind of guitar to choose?
Your choice of nylon strings or steel, your choice of a “flat-top” box or an archtop, your choice of a solid body or acoustic-electric guitar will tend to be driven by the music you wish to create.
When you’re just beginning to learn to play, a sturdy acoustic or a simple electric would be an excellent choice, but don’t become scattered with secondary choices like special effects.
What you need to start…
All you need is a guitar tuner, and you can start learning guitar chords or how to play guitar songs.
Your first focus needs must be to learn to play the guitar. You will find this most enjoyable — and this makes for persistence and progress — if you are playing in the genre that you most enjoy.
So Bill might begin learning Stairway to Heaven, the bane of a thousand guitar stores. And Sally might begin learning “Old Stewball,” and Thomas might begin learning Bartok or Bach.
The most important predictors of success are two simple things:
(1) Do you make space in your life for regular and frequent practice?
Those are the keys. Regular and frequent. You don’t need to do hours-long marathons. In fact, you’ll make better progress with 20 minutes of daily practice than with six hours every Sunday.
(2) Are you following a “well-designed” learning plan?
So many new guitarists, after deciding how to buy a guitar, then decide to save a few bucks, and instead of finding a good teacher to guide them, and instead of finding a well-designed method in a quality self-taught course, simply go for the random and arbitrary “free lessons” all around the web.
And the results?
Generally, random and arbitrary.
This is no way to learn. It’s like waging a war with no battle plan. It’s like driving to Cleveland with no compass, no map, and no clue what state it’s in.
You could only win by an unlikely accident, because the odds are stacked against you when you have no planned (and tested) learning sequence.
After spending your money on your guitar, don’t waste your investment. Find a teacher or get a well-designed and tested self-taught learning method.
You’ll be glad you did.
And the lovely sound of your guitar will surround you.
– Traktor Topaz does most web-design and online articles for Mobius Megatar Touchstyle Basses. Makes instruments, too.
He is the primary author of a method book and specialty newsletter with guitar lessons for Chapman Stick using a revolutionary new fast-learning two-handed tapping method.
He also recently published a helpful article for aspiring guitar players presenting an outline of how to most easily learn to play guitar, called Guitar Lessons, on the Gutar-Gitar-Guitars website.
