Do You Need a Teacher?

If you are just beginning to play guitar, or thinking about learning, you might be wondering if you need a teacher. The short answer is "yes". Everyone is different, and we all learn in different ways. So, you might need a teacher to get you started, or you might be able to pick up the basics on your own from books or videos. When I started out, I got a couple of Mel Bay books with my guitar. I read them and looked at all the chord diagrams, but I had no idea what to do with them. I was finally able to take some lessons from a local guitar teacher, and instantly things began to make sense. For me, the one on one was much easier than trying to figure out stuff from a book. Even if you can pick up things from books or videos, there is no one there to give you feedback. Feedback is invaluable when you are starting out. This is true for just about anything you are learning, not just guitar. If you are learning, or struggling to learn, on your own, you will find it money well spent to invest in some guitar lessons from a local teacher. If nothing else, a few lessons will give you the feedback to see if you are on the right track.

How Are You Practicing?

If you are new to playing the guitar, hopefully you have read my article on making it a habit. You are getting in the groove of picking up the guitar on a daily basis. As it becomes a habit, we want to begin working on how you practice.

When you begin working on something new, it may seem impossible at first. Those first notes or chords can feel extremely awkward when playing them the first few times. When you play a new piece, it will seem difficult and cumbersome. Starting off slowly and paying attention to detail is critical to learning a new piece. The first few times you are just trying to get through it. Then you start to pay more attention to the details of the notes, the chords, the finger placements, the strumming or picking, etc. This is the critical stage of practicing something new. As it starts to feel more comfortable, do not rush into trying to play it as fast as you can. This is where you are building your practicing habits. You must continue to build up the speed s-l-o-w-l-y as you practice a new piece. Paying close attention to the details, articulating the notes correctly, and slowly building up your speed will instill technical proficiency. If you fail to build up slowly, your playing will develop in a sloppy manner, and will inhibit your technical progression down the road.

We’ll talk more about this later, but using a metronome is a key player in your practicing the building of speed. A metronome or something like a drum machine is the time keeper. You will have something absolute with which to gage your speed. There is nothing wrong with starting off very slowly in learning a new piece. Only build up speed as you are comfortable with in keeping it technically accurate. If you need to slow it down for while, that’s fine.

A note to parents for the younger players out there: make sure you are reviewing with your kid’s guitar teacher the lesson plans. Make sure you know what he or she should be practicing, and for how long. If you feel like things are not progressing, talk to the teacher about it. And finally, let your kids have some time to just mess around with the guitar. Make sure he or she is practicing what is on the lesson plan, and then have a few minutes to goof around, strum make up songs, whatever makes them feel good. Learning guitar does take some disciplined practicing, but it should be fun!

Make It a Habit

How do you get good at playing guitar? You just play! It’s not quite that easy, but in a way, it is. To get good at anything, you need to do it, and do it frequently. When someone is starting out in learning to play an instrument, there is that initial excitement of taking on something new. For many, frustration can quickly set in when you realize that this is harder than it looked. You might be watching your teacher play or watching a famous guitar player and think to yourself, “How will I ever get that good?” The bad news is that there is no instant magic to learning to play. Also, the good news is that there is no instant magic. Learning itself is the journey. There really is no final destination. If you are new to playing guitar, you need to make it a habit. This is not the same as setting a practice schedule...continue reading...