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Guitar Tips
Beginner Guitar TipsThese beginner guitar tips will help you form a learning pattern and suggest effective, logical ways to manage your guitar practise time. I recommend printing this page out and finding a quiet area to read. Don't worry, it's a light read!Whether you've been through all the beginner guitar lessons on this site or not, the below will hopefully get you in the right frame of mind for learning guitar and provide some structure to your learning, which you can then apply when learning various aspects of guitar. Learn guitar at your own pace and focusThis is a key beginner guitar tip.It's really important not to feel rushed. Learn at your own pace and dedicate yourself to just one technique during a given practise session. Don't overwhelm yourself with too many goals at the same time or you'll just frustrate yourself. Keep focussed on one goal at a time. For example, you could spend a week or two really getting to know 5 chords (why 5? Just pick a realistic number for that window of time and go with it!). Then, in the next week or two, practise changing between those chords using different combinations. In the next week, work on your strumming or picking, using the chords and chord change combinations you've learned. Build up your progress in layers like that. Know what your specific focus is for the current week and stick with it. Don't get sidetracked or distracted into a new technique, causing you to abandon your current focus prematurely. That's what causes problems. As a beginner, you might think using this method will take ages. Well, you'll be surprised at how quick you progress if you just focus your learning time and put those blinders on. The thing that slows guitarists down, and causes them to hit brick walls with their learning, is constantly switching between learning different techniques and playing elements, without really nailing any single one of them. Don't let that be you! How often should you practise guitar, and for how long?An hour per day devoted to practising guitar is, in my opinion, a good window. Perhaps you can practise more at the weekend if you have more free time? If so, great! If not, don't worry, just aim to get that hour in on the days you can.Be prepared for each practise session. That means, know what you learned in your previous session, and whether you're satisfied you accomplished your goal for that session. If you still need time on your previous session's goal, spend another session on it. Don't move on until you have it nailed. So important. Separating the physical from the mentalThere are two types of guitar learning - the physical side and the mental/theory side. It's important to distinguish the two, as you may find it easier to focus your practise sessions on one or the other, as opposed to mixing them together.Mental/theory - these sessions will be devoted to understanding how the fretboard works, how strings and notes relate to each other, what chords are made up of etc. A lot of theory time will be spent reading and analysing diagrams and your guitar's fretboard. This aspect is for understanding how music works on the guitar, so you can later apply the physical techniques with confidence. If you're serious about getting good on guitar, you need time devoted to theory. Physical - these sessions will involve exercising your fingers. For example, fingering chords would fall under this category, as the focus will be on getting physically comfortable with positioning and changing between chords, or experimenting with new strumming patterns. With lead guitar, the physical side covers techniques such as hammer-ons/pull-offs, string bends, drills and anything that involves the physical side of playing guitar. So, as you can probably see, the two do go hand in hand, but I recommend you clearly separate these two aspects during your practise time. Devote a separate session to each. Most often, the theory will come before the physical. Below is an example... Week 1 - theory - major 7th chords (< you can use lessons on this site) Learn how regular major chords you have learned in previous sessions can be altered to create major 7th chords. What notes do you add? What unique sound do maj7 chords have? How does adding this major 7th alter the sound of the original major chord? Can you build a chord progression that makes good use of a major 7th chord? Week 2 - physical - chord changes and rhythms Focus on the new chords you have learned and get physically used to changing between these and other chords you've learned in previous sessions. This is where you can use metronomes and backing drums to develop your rhythm around these chord fingerings. Try and strum a simple sequence using these chords. Create a simple 3-4 chord song. This is about putting the theory you have learned into context. So - theory time lays the foundations, physical time puts it into practice! Practise time vs noodling timeNoodling is just a silly word I, and many guitarists use for "messing around". It is far less regimented and focussed than a typical practise session, yet, in my opinion, just as important."Messing around" might sound a bit chaotic and unproductive, but it's often the breathing space you need to be at your most creative. Noodling often brings to the surface ideas you've formed, consciously and sub-consciously, during your practise sessions. Let me just clarify though - noodling time is NOT part of your practise time. During practise time, you want that hour+ to be devoted to a specific technique or theoretical element. Noodling time is extra, and should remain outside your more focussed sessions. Noodling is simply about having the urge to pick up the guitar and experiment with some raw, freestyle playing. No rules. No "right" or "wrong". Anything goes. This is time for you to discover those more unusual chords around the guitar neck, to improvise, to deconstruct and relax your playing. To truly be yourself on guitar! Of course, if you've not neglected solid practise time, your noodling won't sound that spontaneous, but let's just say that hitting a few bum notes during this sacred time, in the name of experimentation, is not the end of the world! Overcoming frustrations as a beginner guitaristIf, like me, you have a short fuse, you might find yourself cursing to yourself when unable to nail something on guitar. Indeed, you might get so frustrated that you feel like, literally, nailing something into the guitar. If you do get to this point, it's because you're trying to move too far too quickly. Your mind and fingers will struggle to keep up with your expectations if you're too ambitious or impatient.When you hit that brick wall, take a small step back. Are you trying to play too fast (see my article: Speed Comes Naturally)? Have you been using a metronome to start slow and gradually speed up (you should!)? Are you giving yourself enough time? Are you progressing in incremental stages rather than trying to take huge leaps to "speed up" your learning? The important thing is not to feel hopeless, that you'll never accomplish what you're stuck on, because you will. Time and persistence is all it takes. YOU set your deadlines, and even then, you can move them. As I mentioned earlier - know what you accomplished in your previous sessions so you have that safe point of confidence to step back to, take a deep breath, and begin your creeping progress from that point once again. Be inspired by different styles of guitar playingI listen to a lot of internet radio, from soul to death metal. I think it's good to listen to a wide variety of music, even if you're not particularly into certain genres. Each genre has its own qualities when it comes to guitar, so spend time just... listening. Listen to how rhythms, chords and solos are used. You may not know how they're doing it just from listening, but you might like the sound of something which you'll then be inspired to go and investigate independently.That's how I learned much of what I know about guitar - inspiration, investigation, accomplishment. The benefit of this is, you'll learn far more than what originally inspired you. And a final beginner guitar tip for the road...Above all, enjoy playing guitar and enjoy the journey! Look forward to 3, 4, 5 years down the line where, if you've been persistent with your practise time (and allowed plenty of time for noodling), you'll have accomplished so much. This is all about freeing up your creativity, bit by bit, so you can express yourself on guitar as naturally as you can with speech. Doors will open all throughout your progress. Each new door that opens is like a new outlet for your creativity.The more of these doors you open over time, the more creative options you'll have at your disposal and the more your music will have the chance to be unique to you - and that is, in my opinion, the ultimate purpose for learning guitar.
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