Basic Reminders Before Learning to Play the Guitar

by Raymund Tamayo

Learning to play the guitar requires a lot of practice, passion, patience, and persistence. The speed of learning will depend on these four factors.

Learning does not mean you will only hold your guitar during the weekly one-on-one sessions. It means holding and playing your guitar for as many hours as possible every day, practicing over and over, until you get the techniques ingrained in your soul.

You need to have a positive attitude in order to keep on learning. Remember that guitar playing is a process, so you will have your own natural progression. If guitar playing is truly your passion, then you will be able to endure the hard times.

Many of the techniques in guitar playing take time to master, so you will need a lot of patience both on your teacher and on yourself. Do not get discouraged. Physically, it takes time to strengthen your finger muscles and tendons so you are able to play chords properly. Every new guitar student passes this stage.

Finally, persistence is the key to success. Wrist discomfort and fingertip soreness are natural in the beginning. You should be able to overcome those things as time passes. As you play more, fingertip calluses will develop and you will discover the right way to position your hands and wrists. If there is serious pain while playing, then there must be something wrong with your technique, so STOP playing. Review the fundamentals again.

Here are other quick tips before you begin:

Learn the fundamentals – This cannot be stressed enough. Your teacher should be able to teach you all the proper techniques to help you play the guitar the right way. You must be able to develop the good habits of playing – and avoid the bad ones – right from the start, because it would be harder to remove them later as you progress.

So do your best to master the fundamentals first, and then you will be able to create your own style in the future if you want to.

Don’t hurry – Play slowly at first then pick up the pace gradually. It is always better to get things right the first time, practice the right things always, than trying to play fast but sloppy. You will be faster in due time.

Hygiene – Keep your fingernails short, especially the ones on your fretting hand (the left hand for right-handed people). Long fingernails hinder you from fretting chords properly.

Before picking up your guitar, wash your hands first and let it dry completely. Oil and grime on your fingertips makes the fingerboard slippery, which makes learning a lot harder. Also, prepare a cloth towel specifically to use for your guitar only. Always wipe the body and the neck of the guitar, including the strings, before you start playing.

Enjoy – Finally, have fun while learning. Don’t be too hard on yourself when you are slow in some of the techniques. Take your time and enjoy the process of becoming a guitar master.