Mistakes Made by Beginner Guitar Players

Learning to play the guitar can be very tricky – regardless of how you go about doing it. Whether you learn the guitar on your own, enlist the help of a professional, or use online resources to learn to play the instrument, certain mistakes and obstacles can seriously hinder your progress or even worse, cause you to form bad playing habits and prevent you from really enjoying playing the guitar.

Often times, this discourages beginner guitar players from learning the guitar, and they give up trying.

Here are a few mistakes that many beginner guitar players make:

Mistake 1: Not putting in enough practice time

I’m a firm believer in quality > quantity, and I’ve probably even said this before: when it comes to practice, the quality of the practice is more important than the quantity. Essentially, you want all your practice sessions to yield a result of some sort (which is why it is essential to set short-term or daily goals). However a 10-minute practice session won’t do you any good, will it. It is therefore essential to set aside at least 30-60 minutes each day, for practicing the guitar – when you choose to do this is entirely up to you. But the important thing is to be as regular as possible about it – make it a point to practice daily, and if you miss out on one, make up for it the next day.

Mistake 2: Not practicing ‘correctly’

What this essentially means is that it is important to plan out your guitar practice sessions in advance, instead of picking up your guitar without knowing what to do. Schedule your time well in advance, in order to know what exactly it is that you’ll be working on. For instance would you use this week’s practice session to work on a particular technique that requires improvement, or do you want to learn new riffs or a new chord this week? Often times, the best way is to find a balance between the two – for this purpose, divide your time between working on what you know already and learning new material.

Mistake 3: Using the wrong instrument

This one’s tough to spot, however any guitar player – even a beginner one – would instantly be able to tell if his/her guitar is causing problems in playing. The importance of using a good guitar cannot be overstated. Beginner guitar players often may not want to spend too much on a good, expensive guitar (understandably so), however buying a cheap instrument which causes you problems or gives you trouble (like a guitar which cannot even stay in tune, for instance) will only frustrate you. It should be known that these days, you can get a good, branded guitar at just about every price-point. Don’t have money for an expensive Les Paul – get the Epiphone Les Paul, virtually the same instrument, for less than half the price! The Stratocaster’s out of your budget – get the Squier Strat for as low as $150. I simply cannot stress more on the importance of buying a good guitar as your first one; it will probably stick with you for quite some time, and make your practice and playing sessions, as well as the process of learning much better, enjoyable and frustration-free! Cheap guitars do not stay in tune, and have a bad action as well, stay away at all costs (at the same time, you also don’t need to spend big in order to get a good guitar).

Mistake 4: Not enjoying playing or practicing the guitar

When it comes to beginners who’ve just picked up a guitar and learning to play it, one of the best advice you’ll get from anyone is to try to enjoy playing the guitar. Do not look at practice sessions as a chore. Try having some fun when learning the guitar, and above all, enjoy the process of your learning as well.

Mistake 5:  Not making it a habit to warm-up before picking up the guitar

I simply cannot stress enough on the importance of warming up before playing the guitar! A proper warm-up regime/routine allows you to loosen-up your finger, arm and shoulder joints and muscles, gets blood flowing through these parts of your body and gets your body as well as your mind to optimum levels, which enables you to put in a great practice/playing session. An effective warm-up routine consists of physically warming up through various finger, wrist, and arm exercises, as well as playing a few easy scales or licks that you’re already familiar with – shouldn’t take more than 5-10 minutes at max. As an experiment, try this: pick up your guitar one day without warming-up and try playing stuff you’re well familiar with and usually play with ease; you might be surprised to find how tough it is to play the same stuff! Now warm-up, and notice the difference!

Mistake 6: Not setting guitar playing goals

I spoke about the significance and importance of setting short-term and long-term guitar-playing goals in one of my articles on this blog. Setting goals is essential for beginners, perhaps more so than anyone else. I strongly suggest going through that article (linked above) at least once, especially if you’re learning to play the guitar. In a gist: without goals, you’re just someone who’s basically wandering aimlessly, and you cannot expect to make any progress whatsoever without a long-term goal, and a set of short-term goals to be used as stepping stone to accomplish the ‘end-game’.

Mistake 7: Ignoring the importance of aural skills

Tom Hess, guitar instructor and musician, calls aural skill as “the most important skill that most guitar players don’t have”. And I have to say that I agree with him! Ear training and acquiring aural skills is an essential skill that beginner guitar players and those learning the guitar should definitely work on. Aural skills allow you to maximize your creativity, and provide with you skills important to being a good guitar player, such as the ability to improvise. Read the whole article here.

Mistake 8: Not enlisting the help of a professional guitar instructor

Yes, private guitar instruction usually costs a buck-and-a-half, but a lot of the guitar-playing mistakes made by beginner guitar players mentioned in this list can be easily rectified by working with a guitar instructor/teacher. And the best part is that you don’t even need to pay $60-an-hour to a private teacher for lessons, you could look online for much cheaper lessons which give you a better bang-for-the-buck. Or perhaps think about joining a beginner guitar class at your local community center.