Congratulations! Now, let’s get started on your journey toward playing like your guitar heroes. Our blog has many helpful guides to learn the guitar. Follow the links in this article to read more and improve your guitar skills.
1. Choosing between an acoustic and electric guitar
Acoustic guitars
Acoustic guitars are a great choice for beginners. An acoustic guitar with nylon strings is one of the most accessible options for beginners. In addition, acoustic guitars are fairly affordable. However, if you’re committed to playing the guitar, don’t go for the cheapest option. Investing in a quality acoustic guitar will ensure your instrument lasts for a long time and is good to play with once you’ve advanced beyond the beginner stage.
Electric guitars
Electric guitars are typically more expensive than acoustic guitars, but they are more versatile. It’s not a bad idea to invest in an electric guitar as a beginner, especially if you’re looking to play rock music and want to play more than just chords. Just remember to get an amp and a good distortion pedal if you want to rock out.
2. Learning the guitar parts
If you want to play the guitar, you should know the parts of the instrument. Some of the most important guitar parts include:
- body
- fretboard
- frets
- neck
- headstock
- strings
- tuning pegs
3. How to hold your guitar
Your choice between electric and acoustic will influence how you hold the guitar. The way you hold a guitar also depends on your personal preference. Acoustic guitar players usually hold the instrument on their lap while sitting down. You may place the guitar against either your left or right leg.
You can also play sitting down with an electric guitar, but some guitarists prefer to play standing up. In this case, you need a guitar strap.
Hold the guitar so that the thickest string (the low E string) is closest to you when looking down. The hand holding the guitar neck is known as the fretting hand. The other hand, in this case the right hand, is called the picking hand or the strumming hand. Left-handed guitarists use their left hand for picking.
4. Learn the guitar strings and fretboard
As mentioned, the fretboard and strings are important parts of the guitar. Starting from the lowest string, the strings are E, A, D, G, B, and E. The low E string is the one closest to you when holding the guitar and looking down. Pressing the guitar strings against the fretboard (also known as fretting) may hurt your fingers at first. However, as you play the guitar, your fingers will get stronger and stop hurting.
Nylon strings are great for beginners, because they’re easier to press against the fretboard than steel strings. The strings will not ring properly if you don’t press them hard enough against the fretboard. Remember to press the string just above the fret but not directly on top of it.
5. Tune your guitar
Learning guitar can be unpleasant if your guitar is not in tune. That’s why it’s important to ensure your instrument is tuned correctly. As a beginner guitarist, you don’t need to worry about alternate guitar tunings yet; focus on learning the standard EADGBE tuning first. EADGBE refers to the six strings of the guitar from lowest to highest.
An electric tuner device makes tuning your acoustic or electric guitar easy. However, the easiest (and cheapest) way is to use a free online guitar tuner app, like GuitarTuna. A guitar tuner app is with you wherever you go. You don’t need to carry a separate device with you; a mobile phone is all you need!
6. Play basic guitar chords
Before jumping headfirst into playing intense guitar solos, start with simple chords. At this point, you should be more familiar with guitar chord charts, as they’re an excellent way to visualize how different chord shapes are formed. Start off by learning the basic open chords, also known as cowboy chords. These can be divided into major and minor chords.
8. Read guitar tablature
When you want to play more than just guitar chords, guitar tablatures or “tabs” will come in handy. Guitar tabs are an easy way to read musical notation and learn to play. Individual notes are visualized as numbers on horizontal lines that represent the strings of a guitar. Open strings are represented with a zero (0), while the letter X stands for muted strings. The line at the bottom represents the lowest E string, and the one on top is the high E string.
9. Practice picking and using a guitar pick
Playing individual notes is possible with your thumb and other fingers. This is known as fingerpicking. However, a guitar pick will come in handy, especially if you’re playing an electric guitar. A pick is a great tool for strumming chords on an acoustic guitar as well. Guitar picks come in many sizes and materials, but the most important aspect of a pick is its thickness.
10. Learn minor and major scales
Guitar scales and music theory may feel intimidating. However, as you’ll soon notice, guitar scales are a great way to explore the fretboard and understand where to find different notes. Guitar scales are also helpful when you want to improvise a guitar solo or start writing your own songs. Just like with chords, there are both major and minor scales. An example is as shown below.
11. Start playing your favorite songs
Now, let’s get to the part you’ve probably been waiting for — playing your favorite songs on the guitar. The days of carrying around massive books full of guitar notes and chords are over, as the internet offers guitar tabs for pretty much any song you can think of. Just Google the song title and add the word “tab,” and if you’re lucky, someone else has already taken the effort of transcribing the song into guitar tablature.
12. Practice, practice, practice
After you’ve gotten the hang of playing guitar chords, tuning your instrument, navigating the fretboard, and reading guitar tablature, the most important thing you can do is practice. Make it a part of your daily routine. Although your fingertips may hurt at first, your hands will get used to playing the guitar as you gain finger strength and develop muscle memory.
- Buy your first guitar wisely; Buy an affordable guitar, but not the cheapest guitar in the store. Some teachers recommend buying an acoustic because it’s generic.
- Detune your guitar strings; use a standard tuner to get your guitars into tune, I recommend the guitar tuna app, it’s on app store and google playstore.
- Start with the basics; learn the little things first, practice finger exercises.
- Practice scales; learn one first, master it before learning the next one, use them to play songs.
- Learn and practice chords; start with chord C F G, and Am, use them to play songs, practice standing up.
- Play Slow; play slowly and correctly, then you increase the speed little by little. Use a metronome, you will find it in the guitar tuna app.
- Memorize the fretboard; learn and practice the 5 pentatonic scales, this can help you with memorizing the fretboard of the guitar. Learn how to use guitar tabs.
- Learn barre chords; also called movable chords, it helps you to play on all keys conveniently on the guitar.
- Learn guitar playing techniques; learn and practice techniques like strumming, legato, arpeggios, string skipping, string bending, palm muting, sliding, vibrato, hammer-ons and pull-offs.
- Be patient; you need time to learn and grow with it, don’t be in a haste. Practice every day.
- Know what to practice next; become curious, watch videos of other people playing, learn more to practice more.
- Stop comparing yourself to others; Stop comparing yourself to others right now. Compare yourself to yourself! Do better than you did yesterday. Listen to recordings of you playing a month before.
- Do not quit, Keep GOING. Join a community of guitar players Never Say Never! You are welcome!
1. Get a capo
A capo is a moveable clamp that can be placed across the fretboard of a guitar (or similar stringed instrument such as the bouzouki or mandolin) to raise the tuning of the instrument (from E standard to F standard if placed on the first fret in E standard tuning).
Essentially, it shortens the length of the strings, sort of like a barre chord without having to use your pointer finger (or ), consider it a guitar trick. The main advantage of using this tool is that the guitarist using it can play songs in different keys while using the open string chord forms.
2. Split your practice into short sections
You have to create a routine of your practice sessions and split it into short sections. Before anything else, you should do a proper warm-up. This is quite important, as everyone, even professionals, do warm-ups before shows, there are no guitar tricks here, only routine.
You have to get that mentality of doing something regardless of how easy/hard it is. It is recommended that you do practice sessions of around 30 minutes a day to get noticeable results.
3. Regular practice beats long hours
Out of all the tips for beginner guitarists, this might be the most crucial. Rehearse often but little, as to get good at guitar. If you let the excitement get the best of you, you might rehearse a day for a couple of hours, and then the following days you won’t want to do anything. So how long to play guitar is recommended?
Try to lower your expectations and practice at least 5 days a week, 15 minutes every day in the beginning. This repetition will help you develop muscle memory and endurance. If you go all out and go for several hours, you will need a longer period of time to heal your fingers, and thus what you’ve learned will go to waste.
4. Take care of your guitar
Here’s an acoustic guitar tip you might not expect to make a big difference but it does, keep it clean. If you take good care of a guitar, it will take good care of you, just like a car.
A guitar needs to be cleaned from time to time, like once every six months or so, you need to use special wood oil to wash your strings and most importantly, the fretboard. You should also consider using a piece of cloth to wipe the strings after every session to prevent rust.
5. Practice scales
A fundamental yet critical part of guitar playing is practicing the scales, regardless if you want to specialize in rhythm or solo parts, it will train both guitar skills. Without scales you can’t play chords, nor do solo parts. Playing the guitar involves synchronizing multiple fingers at once, and the best way to improve your technique is by starting small, practice scales, one finger at a time.
This way you will learn the correct positions, even at a subconscious level, and you will be able to know them by heart and perform chords faster, as well as solos, and all the fun things. The pentatonic scale is the best to start with when it comes to this type of training.
6. Know what to practice next
It doesn’t matter if you choose to learn guitar by yourself or with a teacher as long as you learn it systematically. If you want to become a virtuoso, you should take everything into consideration, and that might include buying a beginner guitar.
However, if you want to play a certain genre, then my best guitar advice is to pick the techniques and theory in a logical manner (i.e. for Metal you learn tremolo picking, palm muting, and tapping, for classical songs and jazz you learn fingerpicking, etc.)
7. Play slow
Every guitarist loves shredding, and it’s natural for beginners to try it out before they are ready, but here’s the thing, you can only master this technique, and speed in general, progressively. Start by playing slow, and gradually increase the tempo as you feel you are ready.
If you want to play the guitar faster, remember that you can’t master speed by playing fast from the start, as you won’t have endurance, and you will most likely won’t even hit the right strings.
8. Learn the CAGED system
Playing guitar better involves the learning of the CAGED System. It describes the layout of the fingerboard by using the 5 major chords (C, A, G, E, D) and using this “map” you can “unlock the fretboard”, the main idea being that all these chords have notes that are found everywhere on the board.
Let’s take the C chord for example: You have 3 notes, the C, the E, and the G and this is where music theory and fretboard knowledge can kick into high gear.
The C chord can have many “chord shapes”, but due to it being only 3 notes, you can play it with a low, open E, the C on the A string on the third fret, and the G on the 5th fret of the D string or the C on the A string on the third fret, the e on the second fret of the D string and an open G string, etc.)
9. Practice the hard stuff
It’s easy to get stuck in the comfort zone and play the same songs you already know how to play, but this won’t get you far. We can’t evolve on anything if we don’t get out of our comfort zone, and this is probably the most noteworthy beginner guitar tips I have to give you.
You must keep your repertoire constantly updated, but if indeed it is too hard for you to let go of some songs you already mastered, try playing them in different styles, or tempo, but the main idea is the same, you need to evolve.
10. Record yourself playing
Playing on your own has its benefits, however, when you play in front of an audience, or when you are recording yourself, that’s a totally different level, and yes, both things are a couple of times harder.
Recording yourself while you play is among the best tips for beginner guitar players one could ever give to an initiate. It is a natural step and the last one before you should play in front of an audience.
This is the perfect way to keep track of your progress, analyze your techniques, if you are on the right tempo, hear your mistakes, study your finger positions, or you can submit it online for others to either cheer you up or give you some tips.
11. Focus on one element at a time
It’s easy to get yourself disillusioned and try multitasking randomly, but that won’t get you far, instead, try to focus on one element at a time. You need to become aware of how a technique works, analyze it, work it out, and move on, and this is how you play guitar better in the long run.
The sooner you get to understand these things, the better, don’t randomly play something, although that has its own benefits, you should first train your attention by being focused on one element at a time.
12. Learn to mute
When playing guitar, in any genre, you may have some pauses in the melody, which are called rests, or you may have some dynamics which call for a technique called muting.
In heavy metal, from Black Sabbath to Metallica to Rings of Saturn, all these guitarists use palm muting for some riffs
What is palm muting?
Palm muting offers a percussive, short burst of sound. It is produced by placing the fleshy part of your thumb near the bridge and pressing lightly against the strings. For example of palm muting/chugging, I recommend you watch the live video for She-Wolf from Megadeth, where all the riffs incorporate this technique.
What are rest beats?
Rest beats are a percussive fingerpicking technique, usually used in acoustic pop or in flamenco style guitar, where you usually hit the bass strings with the fleshy part of your thumb, much like the palm muting, but instead of placing it lightly, you hit the string in a sort of slapping motion.
13. Learn Barre chords
No matter what tips for learning guitar you adhere to, you have to learn barre chords. Barre/bar chords are open-string chords moved up the fretboard. The technique for this is to imagine that your finger is a capo or a guitar nut that moves along the fretboard.
Let’s take an example of a song (Dani California by RHCP) which uses the same verse bar chords as Last Dance with Mary Jane by Tom Petty and these chords are: A minor barre( bar all notes on fret five from E to e and place two finger – annular and pinkie on fret 7 ) chord, G Major barre ( bar fret 3 and place on fret 5 the ring and pinkie) and D minor barre (bar on 5th fret on A string and place ring and pinkie on fret 7 of the D and G strings) and repeat.
14. Understand basic music theory
Most tips to learn guitar involve the learning of music theory. Why is everyone afraid of theory? In my opinion, people are afraid of music theory because they realize that there is more to music than just hogging on the guitar and going insane.
Here are some of my tips for learning the basics of music theory:
- Use Pascal’s triangle to understand the duration of the notes
- Employ math to understand time signatures
- Think of the numbers in the time signature as 4/4 is 4 ¼ notes, 2/2 is 2 ½ notes, etc.
Knowing only the basics of music theory is quite enough to be able to play guitar, but there are some more intermediate and advanced techniques, especially in the notation of sheet music, that will help you unlock more of your guitar.
15. Do NOT quit
Now, these tips to learning guitar mean nothing if you quit. Most people will do this in their first week, and you know what happened to me when I first started? I did the same, and I regret it. As time went by, I thought to myself, If I would have practiced all these years, where would I be now?
And you know what? I finally decided to pick up the guitar again, stick to it, and now I can do something that I’ve always dreamed of, express myself, without depending on anyone, and you can do the same, just believe in yourself.
Absolutely everyone reaches that point where you think you can’t progress further, but that is exactly when you need to push things up. If you put the needed hours in it, it’s impossible not to progress. Out of all the guitar playing tips I have to give you is this, don’t quit, you will regret it more than once, and time passes by quickly, irreversibly.
]]>1. Start With The Basics Of Playing Guitar
The first steps are always the most difficult. But you have to learn to crawl before you can walk — building up strength and confidence before you can get going. Little things like learning the names of your strings and the different parts of your guitar can help you build greater familiarity with your instrument. Here are just a few guitar basics and why you should learn them:
• How to Set Up a Guitar – Learn how to use a guitar tuner and be sure your strings are properly tuned. Learn how to replace a string in case one breaks during a practice session.
• How to Remember Guitar String Order and Names – Learning the names of strings and the order in which they appear on your guitar can help you to identify tones and notes, as well as transfer that knowledge to more advanced practices, such as reading tablature. Get tips and tricks for remembering guitar string order and their names.
• How to Hold A Guitar Pick – Holding a pick correctly can help you to create a much more pleasing sound. Understanding more about the different sounds achieved with picks of varying thickness (or thinness) can also help you to hear how the right pick can impact the tone of your guitar.
• How to Play Notes On Your Guitar – One of the earliest things you’ll learn as a beginner guitarist is learning where to place your fingers on the fretboard to be sure that note clearly rings out. Hearing notes clearly is key to identifying notes and learning how to play guitar.
• How to Strum like a Pro – Little things like keeping your wrist loose while strumming can not only help you to achieve a more fluid style of playing, but it can also help to decrease pain or tightness after a practice session. Get more tips for strumming like a pro!
• Guitar Chords – Learning to play guitar chords are one of the fundamental building blocks of a guitar education. Even if you’re not able to play a guitar solo (yet!), beginner guitarists can easily learn a few simple chords and strum along to their favorite songs as a rhythm player.
2. Find The Best Guitar For You
Whether you’re learning to play an acoustic or electric guitar, or decide that you want to learn how to play bass, finding the right instrument is essential.
Shopping for your first guitar is an exciting experience for new players. And while you might be tempted to pick a guitar based on looks, it’s important to weigh a number of factors when choosing the right guitar for you.
3. Create An Ideal Learning Environment
One of the first steps on your path to playing guitar is to set up an environment that makes you want to practice. If you’re learning guitar at home, setting up a comfortable practice space is key to wanting to sit down and play more often.
4. Build Skills By Learning Songs
Learning to play notes, scales and chords are certainly fundamentals of your musical education. But the best way to learn guitar is to put those techniques into practice while learning a new song. Strumming a chord progression or practicing a hammer-on pull-off can feel much more real when you’re playing it in one of your favorite songs.
5. Pick Up Songs By Ear
Consistent practice and repetition of different notes and chords can help you develop your ear, learning to correctly identify notes and patterns in your playing. Learning to play guitar becomes much easier when you are able to pick out which notes are in a song, what key that song is in, and what chords are involved.
6. Learn With Other New Players
If you’re learning to play guitar at home, you might not necessarily have other new players to chat with about what you’re learning, challenges you face, or breakthroughs in your practice sessions. Having a community of musicians and music lovers to connect with can help keep you more motivated to keep playing, practicing, and cheering one another on.
7. Practice, Practice, Practice
It can’t be said enough how important regular practice is to improving as a guitarist.
8. Be Patient With Yourself
Practice makes perfect… But patience is the key to it all. Every player will have good days or not-so-good days. When you first pick up the guitar, there’s a good chance that you will hit a few sour notes or those chords might not ring out as clearly as you’d like. That’s okay! Rome and Jimi Hendrix weren’t built in a day!
9. Use A Guitar Learning App Like Guitar Tuna
For many new players, using an online guitar lesson app can help give you access to the tools you need to learn no matter where you’re at. Fender Play gives new guitarists access to top-notch instructors who have been there, done that, and created an easily-accessible curriculum broken into bite-sized video lessons.
10. Learn and practice wide
Learn to play all kinds of guitar tunes or pieces you come across. Try to play exactly what you see people play in videos
]]>1. Wash Your Hands Before A Practice Session
This is pretty straight forward. Your hands gather throughout the day a lot of unwanted elements such as dirt, grease, and dead skin cells. These elements will activate a faster corrosion rate on your guitar strings.
By consistently washing your hands, not only do you get rid of all of these unwanted corrosive agents, but you also help your strings decrease their corrosion rate.
I’d strongly recommend you wash your hands before and after every guitar session you have. It is especially more important to do this if you have sweaty or greasy hands.
2. Purchase The Proper Cleaning Products For Your Strings
Having a good combo of cleaning/lubricating products will not only extend your strings’ life but also smoothen out your playing and remove unwanted friction. There are numerous good products out there for your guitar, you can get a guitar cleaning oil from marvinempire.ng.
3. Purchase Top Quality Strings
high-quality strings, especially the ones with an added layer of coating, last much longer. They also retain a good tone for longer periods.
These are my top 3 brands for acoustic or electric guitar string sets: D’Addario, Fender and Yamaha. They are also quite durable, so you won’t have to constantly change them.
4. Keep Your Guitar In A Moisture-Free Space
Moisture is the most corrosive agent you can be in contact with that you have little control over. It’s not like you can decide to move to another country or place right away or just magically change the climate.
However, a couple of things you can do are storing your guitar in the driest place in your house or purchasing an air dehumidifier. Mind you; if you don’t live in a very humid place (like near the sea), this might not be your biggest problem. However, it never hurts to have a good dehumidifier at your place.
5. Always Clean Your Guitar After A Session
Out of all of the tips here, this is the most important and influential habit you can implement.
Regardless of how much you sweat, how greasy your hands usually are, and your overall hygiene, it’s a fact that you are most in contact with your guitar when playing (duh…).
Therefore, this is the time when your guitar strings are most prone to storing corrosive elements.
Suppose you make it a habit to always clean your strings, pickups, and all of the metal parts in your guitar. You can DRASTICALLY reduce all of the corrosion rates happening in your guitar and your strings.
]]>When to Replace Guitar Strings
Regardless of how long a guitar string is “supposed” to last, sometimes it doesn’t make it that long for any number of reasons. Here are six signs it’s time to change the strings on your guitar.
1. A string is broken
We’ll start with a self-explanatory situation — if a string breaks, you need to replace it. Not only is it a lot harder to play the songs you want with only five working strings, but the loss of neck tension changes the tuning and intonation on the remaining strings.
2. Your strings have changed color
There’s no mistaking the shiny, beautiful look of brand-new guitar strings. Over time the oils from your skin will tarnish the strings, turning steel to a dull gray color and bronze acoustic strings to dark brown. Strings may also start looking splotchy since some sections are touched more than others. Discoloration and splotchiness are good early indicators of needing a string change.
3. The strings are falling out of tune easily
After the initial “break-in” period, strings will hold their tuning well for a while barring major changes in temperature or humidity, especially steel strings. If it circles back around to where your tuning changes significantly from session to session, even if you’ve kept the guitar in the same conditions, it’s time for a string swap.
4. The tone has gotten dull
Strings are their brightest and snappiest when new, mellowing out once they’re broken in. Some guitar strings hold brightness better than others, but when you play them too long, they’ll end up dull, flat and muted. If your guitar has a dull sound even after maxing out the treble knob, a string change is in order.
5. The strings feel different
Unless you play heavy-gauge strings, new guitar strings should be flexible and smooth. If they start feeling stiff, that means the metals are corroding. Also, grime can start to build up on the surface, making the strings rougher. Both are signs you should change the strings or at least keep a spare set handy.
6. You want to have a different sound
Different string gauges, materials and construction methods change how your guitar sounds and feels. If you’re not satisfied with the tone coming from your guitar (too bright, too dark, etc.), a new set of strings is a simple and inexpensive adjustment.
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