Guitar-Playing and Practicing Tips for Beginners

Learning to play the guitar is a tough and a challenging job; it is a skill that requires a lot of patience, hard work, dedication, commitment, perseverance and some more patience.

If you’re a beginner guitar player, here are a few tips and tricks that should really help you with your guitar-learning, and should also allow you to become an accomplished guitar player much quicker than your peers, allowing you to fulfill that dream of becoming a rock star one day.

1. Choose the Right Teacher/Mentor: First things first, I personally believe that it is essential to be able to choose the right teacher or instructor for yourself when it comes to learning the guitar. Yes, I know that many good guitarists out there are self-taught guitarists/musicians. However choosing a teacher – someone who will also be a mentor for you – will allow you to grow and develop as a guitarist as well as a musician in a much better way. A teacher will be able to hone your skills in a better way, point-out and rectify any mistakes that you might be making in terms of your guitar play, introduce you to guitar music theory, and you’ll eventually discover that you’re able to make much better, more quicker progress.

Private lesson are great, however they can be a bit expensive. Some private teachers charge as much as $60-an-hour, which can go on to be thousands of dollars for a whole course and of course, the pace at which you learn the guitar. If budget’s an issue, you can even look in the yellow pages or on Craigslist for Skype-based lessons, instead of opting for private lessons which might be expensive.

Personally, I recommend going for a good, proven online guitar-teaching course such as those offered by Jamorama or JamPlay (reviews here and here). They are as effective as private lessons, but signing up for these usually costs significantly less. Both of these are proven winners in my book, and I personally recommend going for any of these - preferably one that suits your needs in a better manner.

2. Choose the Right Guitar: I cannot even begin to stress how important it is to choose the right guitar when starting off. A good teacher or an instructor would be able to guide you when it comes to choosing your gear. First off, decide whether you want go for an acoustic guitar, or an electric-guitar-based setup, depending on the kind of music you want to play and the sort of artist you see yourself become. Secondly, don’t buy cheap.

Choosing your first axe is very important and crucial – because your first guitar will be something that you’ll not only be stuck with for a long time, choosing a bad guitar as your first axe will only put you off practicing and choosing the right guitar will encourage you to play it as often as possible, which is something you’ll need to do often, as you’ll soon discover that…

3. Practice Makes Perfect: This might be pretty obvious, but practicing as often and as regularly as possible is vital. It’s like going on a weight-reduction regime, or going to the gym to tone your body: in order to see some real and tangible results, you’ll need to practice, A LOT! Try tailoring your practice sessions with the view of improving a specific skill, or a specific portion of your guitar-play. This is also why it is important to choose a good guitar; you’ll be spending a lot of time with your guitar.

It is important to ensure that each practice/jamming/playing session is preceded by a proper warm-up in order to avoid any strains or injuries. And it is equally important to ensure that you actually enjoy these practice and jamming sessions, instead of them become a chore or just ‘something that you have to do’. Once again, ask your instructor for guidance in this aspect, or look online.

Ensure that you make your practice time count!

4. Warming-Up: Warming up before playing is crucial, and something which usually goes amiss with a lot of guitarists out there. Believe it or not, particular parts of your body will be undergoing a tremendous amount of stress and wear when you play the guitar. In order to avoid serious long-term injury, it is essential to warm up prior to playing the guitar, in a similar way to how an athlete warms and loosens-up. A swimmer never dives right into the water as soon as he comes out of the locker. Similarly, a sprinter never starts running immediately after he ties his laces.

Loosen up your hands, wrists, fingers (together and each finger individually), and your elbow and shoulder joints as well. There are plenty or pre-performance warm-up regimes on the internet that you can choose from. Alternatively, you could just stretch these parts of the body in order to loosen-up and get some blood running. In addition, make sure that your body isn’t tensed up or anything. This is something that can be hard to do if you’re playing live in front of an audience, however it is important to relax. Start off nice and slow with the guitar, by playing something familiar.

5. Use a Tuner and Practice Using a Metronome: In the beginning, it would be impossible for you to be able to tune a guitar. Even the more seasoned guitar players use tuners. You could opt for a chromatic tuner, or get an guitar-tuning app for your smartphone. Chromatic ones obviously work better, are more accurate and can be had for pretty cheap.

In addition, I highly urge all new guitarists to practice using a metronome. Metronomes are great devices as far as technique is concerned, and will probably end up becoming the most important accessory, apart from the tuner. Timing, as you’ll discover, is a large part of being a good guitarist, and that is where a metronome comes in. They allow you to play more accurately, evenly and quickly, in a shorter span of time. You can set the tempo of a metronome according to your preference. As a beginner, you might want to start off slowly, and gradually increase your speed as your progress (remember, it is important to walk before you can run!). Since the tempo on metronomes can be set and changed easily, it allows a novice guitar player a lot of freedom to play at a comfortable speed. If you don’t learn timing in the beginning, it will continue to be an issues throughout your musical career, and probably something which troubles you in the long run.

6. Play All Kinds of Music: While it is true that you should spend the most amount of time playing and practicing the music style that you’re interested in, variety in this aspect is important. Variety makes guitar playing more interesting and fun. Besides, the best musicians and entertainers out there are the ones who have variety in their musical styles. Being able to do a wide variety of different skills will improve you as a guitarist, and make you a more diverse musician.

7. Seek Inspiration: Especially from those better than you. It could be your teacher, someone in your class, your music idol(s), a friend… anyone. Learn through observation and by watching. Ask these people for advice and tips. Spend as much time in their company as you possibly can (don’t be too clingy though). Connect with them through social mediums such as Facebook and/or Twitter. Being in the company of people who are better than you will be the best form of inspiration and motivation, as these will be people who you look up to, and who inspire you to become a better musician.

These are just some of the things you can do in order to improve your guitar play. I recommend going through this list of 101 Guitar Tips for Beginners as well. Good luck, and rock on!