5 Easy Ways to Learn the Guitar

The internet’s emergence has changed a lot, as far as learning to play the guitar is concerned. It has now become one of the easiest methods to learn just about anything under the sun – including how to play the guitar. A simple Google search will probably reveal thousands of different sources on how you can learn to play the instrument – starting from the basics all the way up to the toughest of lessons. Then there’s the plethora of websites offering dirt-cheap guitar lessons. And let’s not forget the countless online-learning/online-education websites offering different university and college courses free-of-cost to anyone who has internet access (such as Coursera)!

My point is that the advent and emergence of internet in the last decade has made it very easy for guitar players to pick up a guitar, learn how to play like their favorite rock stars and become a pro at it! But there are countless other ways through which you can learn the guitar as well. Let’s have a look at some of these, shall we:

1. Guitar-learning Websites

Guitar-learning websites are getting more and more popular with the passage of time. And why shouldn’t they, since these websites do provide the best of both worlds – (a) they provide guitar lessons aimed at all sorts of guitar players, regardless of their proficiency, (b) use a combination of different material in order to deliver these lessons, such as videos, one-on-one time with instructors, instructional books, and so on, and (c) give people an immense amount of freedom as far as choosing what lessons they’d want to take, and/or what exactly they would like to learn or work on. Above all, these guitar-learning websites don’t cost a lot; GuitarTricks, for instance, provides access to 5000 lessons for less than $15 a month! Other good online guitar-learning websites include JustinGuitar and JamPlay.

2. Private lessons

Another great way of learning to play the instrument is through the help of a guitar teacher or an instructor. For me, private lessons are the best way of learning guitar hands down. However they are more suited for people who are willing to put in some serious time into learning the guitar, who may want to fast-track the process of learning the guitar, and those who have deep pockets – private lessons usually cost crazy money (a good guitar teacher may cost you as much as $60-an-hour!). On the upside, private lessons can be customized and personalized according to your specific requirements or needs. It is the quickest way of learning the guitar, and working with a professional on a daily basis will develop and hone your skills in the best possible manner, and the instructor will also be able to identify and correct any mistakes in your playing style.

3. Youtube

You have got to love Youtube! One of Web 2.0’s crown jewels, and one of the greatest achievements of our time, Youtube has been an absolute revelation when it comes to looking up video-lessons or learning stuff through the help of videos. A simple ‘learn guitar’ search on Youtube should yield hundreds of results, if not thousands, on all kinds of guitar lessons on video! Learning to play the guitar on Youtube can be a lot of fun, not to forget that videos allow you to see every detail in real-time, as it happens in front of you. Above all, these videos are free. You can also find series of lessons on Youtube.

4. DVD-based Guitar-learning Lessons

Another form of guitar lessons which used to be quite popular a few years back. You can still easily get a hold of guitar lessons on DVDs from any music store, or online off any guitar store as well as from guitar-learning websites. Like Youtube, these DVD lessons provide learners with certain advantages, such as the freedom of time, and practicing and learning the instrument whenever you find the time to do it. Unlike other aforementioned forms of learning however, you don’t get any personalized attention or instruction at all.

5. Coursera (and other online education websites)

Coursera is a popular online-learning website that partners with some of the top universities and schools in the world to provide all kinds of different courses to just about anyone who might want to take them up. The beauty of the model is that it allows people no matter where they might be in the world to take courses offered by the top universities in the world, free of cost! Coursera is also a Berklee College of Music partner, and offers many of their courses on the website – such as the Introduction to Guitar course (direct link), a 6-week course taught by Thaddeus Hogarth, which starts in April 2013, and is aimed at students thinking of picking up an acoustic or electric guitar. I suggest all beginner guitar player thinking of learning the instrument enroll for this course for free (you also have plenty of time to prepare for it). Apart from Coursera, there are plenty of other online-learning/distance-learning websites out there as well, offering similar services.

The Importance of Setting Goals as a Guitar Player

“Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement.” - Brian Tracy.

“The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never score.” – Bill Copeland

Setting goals is important with just about everything that you do in life!

Goals provide us with a clear idea about what we want to achieve, and where we see ourselves down the road. Goals drive us forward, keep us focused and committed, help us develop a sense of accountability, and above all, help us achieve our true potential and maybe even go beyond that.

Setting goals is the first step towards successful goal achievement, as it gives us a path towards how we can go about achieving our goals and get to our destination.

People who do not set goals ultimately live life on a meandering, day-to-day basis, which is precisely why they never achieve anything of meaning or substance in their life. Their lives are pretty much the same even 5 or 10 years down the road!

Setting goals is hence also of the utmost importance for guitar players – regardless of whether you’re an amateur/beginner guitar player, or a pro. Setting goals allows you to be the kind of musician you want to, or you aspire to be, and both short-term and long-term achievables are essential to your success as a guitar player.

Having said that, setting goals as a beginner/novice/amateur guitar player is particularly important. The best way for guitar players to make progress with the guitar is for them to know where they are going, and for them to have a set of tangible ‘achievables’, aka. goals.

How to Set Goals

As a beginner guitar player, it can be quite the task when it comes to setting goals. From what I’ve seen, beginner guitar players can have a tough time identifying and setting tangible goals – especially since they may feel like they’re unqualified to create these goal themselves. And even if they are able to do so, their goals are often too unrealistic or simply unachievable. That’s where a good teacher and mentorship can really help!

A good teacher work with his students to not only help them achieve their goals, but also set them. In fact, the mark of a good guitar instructor/teacher is that this will be one of the first things he asks his students!

Setting guitar-playing and/or guitar-learning goals is usually a two-step process: the first of which is setting long terms goal (or goals, yes you can have multiple long-term goals!), and then breaking things down into smaller, short-term goals which will help achieve the long-term goal(s).

Setting Long-Term Goals

Long term goal can also be referred to as ‘big-picture’ goal!

Long-term goal – or ‘goals’ – provide your practice and playing sessions with structure and purpose. From a guitar-player’s perspective, these goals determine (a) why they started to play the guitar, (b) what kind of artists they see themselves become, and (c) what their aspirations are.

For instance ask yourself this: where do you see yourself as a guitar player down the road, say 1 or 2 years from now? What kind of an artist would you want to be? Who do you want to play like?

Setting Short Term Goals

In order to achieve your long term goal/goals, you need to break it down into smaller chunks – or short-term goals, which essentially refer to a smaller set of achievables. Think of these as day-to-day goals (more on this below), weekly or monthly goals that you would want to achieve with your daily practice sessions.

Short-term guitar-playing goals are stepping stones towards achieving your ultimate long-term goals. These should therefore help you accomplish whatever long term goals you set for yourself.

Setting Daily Goals

These are perhaps the most important set of goals for you, and should allow you to achieve your short-term as well as long-term goals.

Daily or day-to-day goals provide you with direction as far as daily-practice sessions are concerned. These form the crux of your daily practice sessions. For instance these could be things such learning or mastering a new skills, as improving your technique or working on improving a skill, etc.

Daily goals are the easiest to measure as well, since you can virtually see what you’re learning and what you’re improving upon.

Goals Need to be Realistic

After all’s said and done, the important thing to know about goal-setting is that your goals need to be realistic, reachable and achievable. Setting the bar high is a good practice, but it should still remain realistic.

Goals Should be Measured

One of the best things about goals and milestones is that they provide you with a yardstick to measure your progress. At the end of the month or the year, for example, look back to see how far you’ve come since you started off, and compare where you are today to where you were an year back, for instance.

Keep measuring your progress, and continuously refine your goals.

Zig Ziglar’s 7 Steps to Goal Setting

Here’s an excellent article on goal setting, Ziglar’s 7-steps to setting goals, courtesy LearningGuitarNow, that should be of immense help to guitar players without any mentorship and struggling with setting goals for themselves. Definitely worth a read!

Concluding Thoughts

Measuring your progress will also provide you with a great way of motivating yourself (such as when you see how far you’ve come), and take pride in your progress and accomplishments. Use it as a source of inspiration for yourself.

The additional focus will make your practice sessions less frustrating as well!

Guitar Practicing Tips

Hi this is Tom, and welcome to my blog on all things guitar! I’ve been playing the guitar for a long time, and thought I should finally try my hand at writing about it too.

One of the first things I’d like to speak about on my new blog is the importance of practice, especially as a guitar players.

Practicing the guitar is essential. Practicing the instrument regularly can help you become a great guitar player, and on paper practice sessions should be fun and enjoyable, right? Wrong! I don’t mean to put you off or anything but as you may (or may not) have found out by now, practicing the guitar and learning to play the instrument is anything but a walk in the park!

Learning the guitar, and getting good at it actually requires a fair amount of hard work, perseverance, determination and patience.

Here are some guitar practicing and learning tips that I’ve learnt over the years:

1. It is essential to develop a guitar-practice regime/routine

Without a guitar practicing regime, it can get extremely difficult to learn the guitar and get better at it. The keywords here are ‘practicing regularly’ – regularity when it comes to practicing is essential, and all your practice sessions should be designed to improve certain skills, or work on techniques that enable you to become a better guitar player. Above all, guitar practicing should never be (or become) a chore. Take breaks, and if need be, take a step back, slow things down and try to have fun during your practice sessions. Try enlisting the help of a good guitar instructor if you want!

2. Set short- and long-term goals

Setting goals is important with just about anything you do in life – and that includes learning the guitar as well. Goals help you stay on track, and remains focused – long-term goals determine what kind of a musician or an artist you see yourself becoming, while short-term goals are typically daily, weekly or monthly ‘achievables’ (things that you might want to learn, stuff that you may want to work on or improve upon, techniques which you want to master and so on), which are the stepping stones to get you to your long-term goal(s). The great thing about setting goals is that they are realistic and achievable milestones, and provide you with a sense of accomplishment as well.

3. Practice with a guitar teacher

Every professional musician worth his salt would almost always recommend guitar players to get guidance from, and play with a qualified and experienced guitar teacher or coach. Perhaps Tom Hess, an experienced musician and a guitar teacher put it best himself when he said that “Even though a lot of information [on learning the guitar] is readily available, there exists a lot of incorrect, incomplete and otherwise bad information. You will need the aid of an excellent teacher to teach you how to fully understand and apply the correct information. You can save yourself a lot of unnecessary frustration and disappointment by studying with the good teacher.” That emphasizes the importance of a guitar teacher quite nicely, and I don’t think anything else needs to be said.

4. Turn to online sources of practicing and playing the guitar

The internet is just brilliant, right? I didn’t have access to stuff like Google and Youtube when I first picked up the guitar, but now, anyone with a laptop and an internet connection can find just about all sorts of information and guides about all things guitar on the web – from buying guides, to guitar lessons... heck, you can even pick up guitars and guitar accessories online way before they hit the stores! But I digress, the point that I’m trying to make here is that it’s become extremely simple and easy to find information on the internet, and the internet is and all that it has to offer can be of immense benefit to beginner/novice guitar players as well.

5. Always warm-up before a guitar-practicing session

The importance of warming up before playing the guitar simply cannot be overstated! Playing the guitar puts a lot of stress and pressure on certain parts of your body – especially certain joints and bones in your arms and fingers. Athletes and people who play sports warm-up before putting their body under pressure and strain, as it helps them become more nimble, loosen-up and perform in a better manner. In the same way, it is important for guitar players to warm-up by stretching their joints and muscles. Simple warm-up exercises such as stretching your arms and fingers before picking up the guitar, as well as warming-up once you do pick up the guitar, is essential. Doing so will allow you to play at optimum levels and put in a great performance (or a practice session).

Your Turn

What makes up your guitar practicing regime or routine? What guitar practicing tips would you want to share with everyone? Leave us a comment in the comments section below!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!