If you've set out to learn to play acoustic guitar, you have made a great choice. A life-changing one.
It is not easy at first, but with time, you'll see that the things that seem hard now, will become super simple. Reflex-like, if you will.
If you're learning to play acoustic guitar, here are some very useful tips you should keep at heart.
- Learn about the anatomy associated with the acoustic guitar, what it is made of, how it works, why it sounds the way it does. This might appear unproductive, but focusing on how an item functions, is a good first step on the road to mastering it.
- Tuning your guitar correctly is important from the start. Correct tuning is easily attained by buying an electrical tuner, but there are other methods as well.
- Discover ways to strum your acoustic guitar keeping rhythm. This will be significant since rhythm is everything in music.
- Learn something new each and every day.
- Whilst fretting a given note, make sure not to ever bend any of the strings. This might alter the pitch of this string so that your chord will likely sound wrong and your guitar will most likely sound out-of-tune.
- Your fingers ought to be arched over the rest of the strings, so you aren't unintentionally touching any guitar strings.
- When learning to play a brand-new chord, just pluck 1 string at a time. Pay attention to the distinct tone of each string.
- The best way to teach yourself guitar chords is slowly and gradually in the beginning. You have to teach your hands exactly where to go, before speeding up.
- Having difficulty with a chord? Play it again and again and again, and your hands and fingers will remember it better next time.
- You're not focusing on speed at first, accuracy is more important. Speed comes naturally with practice.
- After a few months, start learning theory. This will be extremely important in the future and is necessary in order to actually get started playing your very own solos and improvising.
- Get into the practice of shutting the eyes and looking away sometimes. Soon, you won't even need to look at your hands.
- Teach yourself barre chords. It really is hard at the beginning, but it gets far easier over time.
- During my time spent teaching, I have found that the easiest method to keep a student enthusiastic, is to begin playing real guitar songs right from the start.
- Practice as much as you are able to, at least 60 minutes per day! The sole secret to getting great at playing the guitar is frequent practice.
- Stay motivated, by understanding how to play popular songs right away! Teaching yourself fun songs makes a big difference and can help you to practice even more.
- Find out about every area of the acoustic guitar, not any particular one. Learn rhythm guitar, strumming, solos, lead guitar, etc.
- Use a metronome to develop timing and rhythm. Playing to a backing track or with another person can also be helpful.
- Get a good guitar book, that will teach you all about guitar theory, scales, and chords.
- Have you got favorite tunes? Learn to play them correctly.
- Record yourself and listen to the recording. It can be painful listening to your mistakes but will help you identify where you have to get better.
- Upload a variety of guitar applications on your smartphone. The main apps you should obtain are a guitar tuner, a chords app, and a drum backing track app.
- Try out guitar strings of different gauge, to obtain experience with more strings, also to find the one which you love the most.
- Don't skip learning things that seem difficult. You need a solid base to build on.
The tips you just read should guide you in the right direction. Your guitar learning journey has started but is far from over.
You will be frustrated and angry at times but remember my last tip/word of advice:
Even the best guitar players used to beginners, just like you.
John Hart
guitariano.com
Now tune your guitar, and start playing!