If you are learning to play the guitar or are thinking of starting out, we recommend that you take these 5 things and make sure you do them. I didn’t follow this advice when I started 20 years ago and it held me back.
Let’s take a look at the 5 things you MUST do to learn guitar fast
1) Decide what type of guitarist you want to become
This may sound silly, but it is very important. If you want to be the guy who sits around the bell strumming chords on an acoustic guitar singing “Kum ba yah” (and there’s nothing wrong with that), your learning curve won’t be very steep and there are plenty of theory lessons and technique. with which you would be wasting your time.
On the other hand, if you want to be the next Eddie Van Halen, Joe Satriani, or Steve Vai, it’s going to be very hard for you to feel any sense of progress if all you’re working on are chord shapes and patterns.
2) Find out what you need to know to become that kind of guitarist
The only thing that stops a lot of people from doing whatever they want to do, whether it’s playing the guitar or learning magic tricks or whatever, is that they don’t know what they don’t know! A new guitarist may not know the difference between a major scale and a minor scale. If they just want to be a chord strumming guitar player, they may NEVER need to know those two scales.
Some great ways to find out what you need to know as a guitarist are to ask other guitarists, visit forums, read guitar magazines, take guitar lessons, or buy a complete guitar course to learn.
3) Establish and follow a practice schedule
Picking up the guitar once in a while after school or work and playing can be fun, but it will never get you to a level of playing that is very impressive to you or anyone else. A great future on the guitar needs to have a plan of attack. If you really want to become a great player as quickly as possible, you need to know what days you will practice, what time, and for how long. You need to configure what works best for you. As with anything else you want to learn, more is usually better, as long as you’re working on the right thing.
4) Establish and follow a practice plan
This is where you pick the right things to work on as mentioned in #1. #3 above. If you’ve ever seen home guitar study courses advertised online, they’re very structured (the good ones anyway). They may have CDs, DVDs, books, online videos, and more, but the bottom line is that they’re not just random “noodles.”
If it’s a DVD course, you probably have a disc called DVD #1 that might start you off with the basics, how to string and tune the guitar, how to hold the guitar, how to hold the pick, etc.
Following one of these courses is a sure way to guarantee your success in becoming a good guitarist. Instead of fighting for months to figure out what the heck you need to be working on, it’s just presented to you and all you have to do is look and touch what’s shown to you. It can be very fun and interactive.
5) Be consistent and stick with it!
No matter what you’ve read, becoming a Guitar Hero probably won’t happen overnight. Yes, you can progress a lot very quickly. Many courses even list that as a selling point. They will say things like “learn to play the guitar in a weekend” or something similar and they are telling the truth.
However, reaching higher levels where you can play guitar solos, lead a band, or write your own songs will take a bit longer. The only secret is to be consistent. If you said in #3 that you were going to practice every other night from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm and on Saturday and Sunday from 10 am to noon, go ahead!
Always practice at those times and during those time periods and be careful not to deviate from your practice plan. You’ll be glad you did when you’re an amazing guitarist and become one in a fraction of the time everyone else does.