Learn Guitar The Simple Way
Learning to play a musical instrument of any kind is something lots of people want to do but never get around to, and one of the most popular choices is the guitar. Did you know that learning to play the guitar is fairly easy if you can learn how a guitar works, and teach yourself how to understand guitar chords and how they are written then there is no reason why you cannot learn how to play the guitar fast.
It makes little difference whether you want to learn how to play accoustic guitar or the electric guitar as the basic learning process is the same, so you can start with either.
Obviously you need to start by getting a guitar to learn on. An older acoustic one can be fairly cheap and is equally suited to those who will switch to an electric guitar once they have picked up the basics. The first step is getting to know your instrument, as to start with holding a guitar is going to feel rather strange and unnatural. They are bulkier than you may think, and it is important that you hold it regularly so that you feel natural holding it and not awkward in anyway.
A guitar has 6 strings and you will need to know what each of them is, as this is important when reading guitar music. Put your guitar face up on your lap so that you can learn the order of the strings. The furthest string from you is called E and so is the string nearest to you, just that they are an octave apart.
This is high E and the string nearest you is low E, and from high E moving towards you the strings are as follows – high E A D G B E (low).
When learning the guitar, you will learn guitar scales and chords, which you create with the fingers on your left hand holding down different strings at specific points on the fret board, which is what we call the divisions on the neck.
A tab is the proper name for guitar music, and is a graphical form of music, where six lines have been drawn to show each of the strings. A number is printed on each line and this shows you at which you need to be holding the string – so 1 shown on the bottom line indicates hold low E at fret 1. It does take time to learn how to read a guitar tab. However, there is helpful information on the Internet, and you should spend the time learning and practicing until you are confident you could explain to someone else what it means and what is being asked of you.
If the numbers are shown side by side, you should be playing a single note at the correct fret one after the other. Whereas, if the numbers are stacked one on top of the others, this is a chord and requires you to hold more than one note down at the different frets at the same time to produce the correct chord sound.
It may not be what you want to hear, but there is only one way to get really good at playing the guitar and that is to practice daily where possible, and be disciplined about it. It might seem that you are not making any progress, and you may get quite frustrated with yourself. However, please don’t give up.
If you are really struggling, take a break and do something else for a few hours and come back to your guitar later. If you stay calm and persevere you will find that you start to make real progress. Treat yourself to music you like listening to and want to play as you need to enjoy the learning process not dread it.