There are a a couple of questions that people ask when they are considering learning to play the guitar. Hopefully, I’m going to answer those questions.
Obviously, the first question is:
How do you learn to play the guitar?
There are a number of ways to learn how to play guitar.
1)Firstly, you can get a friend or relative to instruct you.
This is a great idea just to get somebody to show you how to hold the guitar and how to play the strings and press down the strings at the frets. If you’re just starting and have not played a guitar before, this is a great way to get you started and shouldn’t cost you anything. Don’t rely on this method by itself though. You should just get the basics and then start to teach yourself from the other ways available. You can always let your friend show you some tips and tricks later on when they have time.
2)Purchase a book.
This is okay to show you how to hold and play the guitar, but not as good as having someone in front of you showing you. It’s not free unless you can find a good book at the library. The cost of guitar books varies from cheap to costly, although you might be able to find them at charity shops. I find that books are good for learning theory. Depending on what style of guitar you want to learn, you might not need to learn too much theory. The more theory you can acquire the better, but you can always do that as you are advancing.
3)Purchase a DVD or video.
I’ve never been a big a fan of practicing this method alone. Sitting in front of the television screen or computer monitor watching somebody tell you to position this finger here and that finger there. It’s good for showing you the basics of playing the guitar and some techniques such as bends, slides, and hammer ons, etc.
4)Get a guitar instructor to teach you.
This could be the most expensive way to learn the guitar. I’ve seen friends and relatives kids play songs better than me and I’ve felt pretty stupid. But, that’s all they’re being learnt, merely songs. I comfort myself by saying yes, you can play that song, but how much has it cost your parents. I’ve seen a video recording of a friends girl playing on stage with other students and she played a popular song note perfect, even the solo. She actually played it better than the original guitar player used to play it live. Only all she was doing was playing notes that she’d learnt parrot fashion. There wasn’t even any emotion or enthusium on her face. If someone said play that in a different key or improvise and create your own solo, she probably wouldn’t have been able to. Incidentally, the guitar lessons have finished and I don’t think she plays the guitar much now.
5)Learn to play guitar on the internet .
This can be free, cheap, or expensive. There’s so much information on learning to play the guitar on the internet, this must be a great reference. Once you can hold and play your guitar, or even before, explore the net for free online courses. When you’re ready, there’s a lot of really good low cost or free stuff that will improve your playing. Don’t be fooled into buying high cost courses that you can’t afford or don’t need. Learning to play the guitar on the internet has all of the the advantages of the other methods. You can learn as little or as much theory as you want to. You can have someone on the computer monitor in front of you showing what to do and how to do it. You can download the information on to your computer and do it in your own time and at your own pace. You can download the guitar tabs to songs that you want to learn.
How hard is it to learn to play guitar?
It’s not difficult at all. It all depends on how much you want to learn it. When I told my brother I wanted to learn the guitar, he was already playing bass guitar in a group, he told me it’s easier to learn the piano. It might be but I didn’t want to learn to play the piano. Actually, it’s much easier learning to play the guitar with guitar tabs than it is the piano with standard music notation.
How long does it take to learn how to play guitar?
Anyone can play guitar when they first pick it up, though you might not be able to play it well. Every guitar player learns to play more every day, it just depends how devoted you are to get to a level you consider good.
Posted under Learn Guitar Fast
This post was written by assistant on August 18, 2011
