Teach Yourself to Play Guitar
63There is something about guitar that makes people want to play it. I'm a student at university and it's not uncommon for me to overhear friends and others says something like, "Man, if I could play guitar--it's such a cool instrument."
The draw to learn how to play guitar is there. But do you have what it takes to teach yourself to play guitar? You should know a few things if you're interested in learning.
1.) When you teach yourself to play guitar, it ain't easy. You might know someone who just picked up a guitar and started learning on their own time. They might seem like Dave Matthews to you. But the frank truth is that it takes a lot of time and energy to learn how to play the guitar well. It takes devotion!
2.) When you teach yourself to play guitar, it requires patience and determination. When you first start to play guitar, there are going to be a few obstacles. One of which is that your fingers are going to start to hurt really bad! You'll also probably offend all of those who overhear you practicing, so you'll need to keep a safe distance from your roommate, spouse, friends, etc.
3.) You can't teach yourself to play guitar alone. Every good guitar play has a mentor or instructor--someone to be inspired by or pushed by to succeed. This might be your favorite music artist, or this might be a friend. All to say, if you want to be a good guitar player, you are going to need to be around people in your life who can teach you, give you tips, and lessons.
Do You Think You Have What It Takes?
After reading these couple things, are you still up for the challenge to teach yourself to play guitar? There are a lot of great resources online that can help you. I would suggest you look at online guitar lessons of sorts. Here are a few resources to check out:
- Teach Yourself to Play Guitar
- Guitar Lessons for Beginners
- 3 Effective Ways to Teach Yourself to Play Guitar
Best of luck to you!
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Comments
GnossoS - Those are great ideas you added. I find it helpful to have a guitar out on the stand next to my desk so I can just pick it up and fiddle around with it. This eliminates all the "work" needed to get out of the case. hah, aren't we lazy sometimes?
Something I would add though is that it's important that we are intentional about our practicing as well. It doesn't always help to play the same old stuff we know by heart. This becomes easy and boring. It's good to be intentional about sitting down and learning a new song or piece. This is what really causes our playing to get to the next level I think.
GnossoS says:
9 months ago
I've been messing around with guitar for about a year now, still can't really play because you're right: it really does take A LOT of patience, devotion, and motivation.
My mentor is an insane metal guitarist, and to get that good he tells me he pretty much did nothing but play guitar for months. To this day he plays a couple times every single day. I love music, but sometimes it's hard to get motivated to pick up my Lotus, especially when I'm discouraged about my crappy playing.
When learning guitar, it doesn't take long to realize that unless you're a prodigy, the only way you'll ever get good is if you play constantly. Play while you watch TV, play while you're waiting for a friend, play when you're bored. Just play.