I am a beginner guitar player – where do I start?
Learning to play guitar can be a tall order for those without much guidance. Even with guidance, such as the guidance from one of our professional guitar teachers, it is important to be able to structure practicing on your own, to know what you should be learning next, and to know what is important to learn. Without knowing where to go next, you can get frustrated, not feel you are making the progress you hoped, and ultimately you can give up before getting anywhere on your instrument. This blog post is here to help ensure you keep playing!
Basics
To make sure that your guitar is sounding it’s best, you want to make sure of a few things. First make sure you have 6 strings on your guitar! Make sure they look to be different sizes and that they aren’t rusty or have corrosion built up. It can create an unpleasant playing experience if your strings aren’t in fair condition. If they do have corrosion built up, you could find a way to clean them if you are in a bind, but we would recommend buying a new set and starting there!
Next, we recommend that you download a free tuning app on your phone or tablet. This saves you the money of going out to buy a tuner and these tuners work extremely well. Our instructors rely on them and they are a very good resource for guitarists of any skill level.
Once your guitar is all strung and you have your tuner, the next step is tuning up. It is important to always tune up before practicing so your guitar sounds as pretty as it can and so you get used to hearing what a tuned guitar sounds like. If you don’t know your string names, we have a fairly easy method of remembering them. From the thickest string to the thinnest, we like to remember them like an acronym. The string names are E A D G B E, and we like to help students remember with this saying: “Every-Adult-Dog-Growls-Barks-Eats”. ‘Every’ is your thickest string and ‘Eats’ is your thinnest!
Getting Playing
So, your guitar is all strung and tuned now! Awesome! The next step is to start practicing. We recommend spending 10-20 minutes a day playing instead of playing for an hour only one day of the week. This is our recommendation because you will spend more time total, and it won’t become boring to you if you aren’t forcing yourself to practice for a long period of time.
Another great rule of thumb is to practice songs that are within your skill level. It can be extremely frustrating to try to learn a highly challenging song before you’ve learned a lot of the basics and can lead to you losing motivation for your instrument. If you are taking lessons with one of our instructors, they will make sure to help you lay a solid foundation for yourself, and in no time, you will be off to the races learning really hard songs!
HAVE FUN
Guitar playing is not meant to be something you get upset doing or something that seems like a chore! There are a few ways to make sure you are setting yourself up to have lots of fun while playing. We recommend finding music you enjoy and learning those songs! If you are making progress while playing something you really love hearing, it will be twice as gratifying.
Play with other guitarists and jam with other musicians! One sure way to double the fun you have playing your instrument is sharing your skills with other musicians. This not only makes for a great time, but also helps you improve your playing and helps get you used to playing in front of others. If you have family members, friends or acquaintances that play music, reach out and see if they want to jam sometime. If not, get one of your friends or family members to play some tambourine! Playing music is fun for the whole family.
We recommend trying to perform sometime! Got a coffee house or talent show at your school? Sign up and get practicing! If you are an adult, try going out to an open mic in your city. One way to get really excited about playing music is having a show to look forward to. You don’t have to always perform in person either, online performances are becoming just as common. Post a video of yourself playing for your family and friends to see and get some feedback! We recommend posting a video to our students only Facebook group called “Brian Baker Guitar Studio Community”. Here you can get feedback from other musicians including your instructors and get used to your playing being heard before posting it for the whole world.
If you are looking for more guidance, we would love to have you join us for a month of lessons. Our instructors will do our best to have you feeling like a better guitar player after leaving each and every lesson!
