Guitar Lesson dot biz

Andreas Wahlstedt posted:

A lot of beginning guitar players write to me and ask for advice how to play guitar ‘fast’. I inevitably write them back to ask whether they already play guitar, and just want to be faster on the fretboard, or whether they’re beginners who want a shortcut to basic proficiency.

This got me wondering whether there might be a connection between the two. It seemed far-fetched; but, the more I thought about it, the more parallels I saw between these two seemingly different levels of training.

So, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that:

1. You can learn guitar faster by studying the techniques involved making your overall playing ability ‘faster’, and..

2. You can become a ‘faster’ guitar player by re-focusing your practice sessions on the basic concepts and techniques taught to every beginner.

The reasons for this overlap and can be summed up in a handy acronym: M.O.S.T. — or, “Memorization, Observation and Strength Training.” Let’s cover each one to clarify the point.

Memorization

One of the things that slows down both beginning and intermediate guitar players, no matter how good of an ‘ear’ for music they have, is a failure to memorize:

1. All of the notes on the fretboard

2. Chords and scales for the Major and Minor Keys

It doesn’t matter whether you’re just starting out, or have a few year’s playing experience already. The fact is that ‘hunting and pecking’ for the right chord or note will slow you down.

You don’t have time in the middle of a song to stop so you can figure out if a Dbminor chord will work in the key of B, and then figure out where that chord is relative to your current position on the fretboard.

If you’re a beginner, then memorizing your fretboard is the place to start. This will make it easier for you to memorize chords and scale patterns, as well as understand the relationship between them in music theory.

If you’re already playing, then you should focus on strengthening your knowledge in both areas. You probably have a good part of your fretboard memorized already, but can you jump to any note or chord automatically?

Observation

Your senses of touch, sight and sound are all involved in playing guitar. As you play, you will no doubt feel the development of ‘muscle memory’ as your fingers play across familiar chords and scales. You will see patterns and relationships on the fretboard. You will hear what you’re playing and come to connect it with all of the above.

Memorization is the foundation for observation, and observation is the key to training your mind and hands to work in concert automatically.

If you want the ability to play anything you hear ‘in your head’ the moment your fingers reach the fretboard, then you must wed memorization with observation when you practice.

Strength Training

No, I’m not suggesting you lift weights at the gym! Strength training, which really includes ‘dexterity’ training, is part and parcel of everything we’ve covered so far.

Beginning guitarists often struggle to hold down chords, and to play scales with all four fingers. This is simply a matter of building strength, muscle memory and dexterity through consistent and correct practice.

Intermediate players who want to get faster on the fretboard must realize that the most likely culprit(s) behind issues with ’speed’ will be a deficiency in strength, dexterity, correct techqnie or all three.

Beginners should focus on strength building exercises and on performing those exercises perfectly. If you’re given an exercise that requires you to hit a note with your pinky, but you decide to ‘cheat’ by using your ring finger, know that your playing will hit a wall down the line.

Likewise, players who can’t seem to exceed their current speed on the guitar should examine their own technique. Have you stopped working on your strength training because the exercises are boring? Is your technique ’sloppy’?

There are some things you simply can not get away with at 160 beats per minute the way you can at 120 beats per minute.

In conclusion, the key to learning guitar faster – as well as playing it faster – rests in following the M.O.S.T. formula. It really is all about getting the basics right from the start!

Liz posted:

Maybe you are a Guitar Hero game player, but now you think you want to learn to play a real guitar? The guitar hero game is fun, but it doesn’t teach you to play the guitar. Maybe you’ve been thinking that to be able to play the guitar and perform for others would be something you’d like to do.

Learning to play an instrument takes work – you don’t really get to “play” at it until you learn the basics and practice. Then, after you’ve learned to play some chords and you’ve learned a song or two, the fun starts. I know because I learned to play the guitar when I was ten years old! I learned to play some chords that you can use for many songs. That is a good way to start – you’ll feel that you accomplished something. For example, if you learn these chords: C, G. and D, there are many, many easy guitar songs that use them.

Online videos teach you various things such as tuning the guitar and changing strings (and look up the parts of the guitar – it’s good to learn that). There are beginner lessons on videos that can teach about guitar chords.

How hard is it to learn a song?

When I learned to play guitar, I had a guitar teacher and used some guitar chord books. Now that was quite a while ago and today there are so many other options to get guitar lessons for beginners. I know that the online lessons are good. But this has not changed: a quick way to learn is to learn one song. After that, learning the second and third song will be much easier!

What kind of guitar should you have?

Lots of beginning guitar players start with an acoustic guitar and many start with what is considered a classical guitar.(See this article about guitars).  A basic difference between those two types of guitars is the kind of strings – acoustic guitars have steel strings and classical (or folk) guitars have nylon strings. Believe me, the nylon strings are much easier to start out with because they don’t hurt your fingers as much!

Either kind of guitar is great to learn to play with. Some people start with electric guitar, especially if their goal is to play electric guitar in a rock band. For some kinds of music, an acoustic guitar is better, you’ll just have to decide what kind of music you want to play and get the guitar that is best for it.

So, go get a guitar, but don’t get a really cheap one. Make sure you hear the guitar played first. If you have to get someone in the guitar store to play it, then do that. Or take a friend with you that knows about guitars. Then, start learning your first song. You will become your own guitar hero!

Dave Barnett posted:


If your a beginning guitar player you may be wondering how to go about learning your new instrument. Well if you have done any kind of research on guitar lessons or guitar instruction courses you will no doubt realize there is a sea of information available.

Being a guitar player of the past 20 years I have come across countless methods on learning to play have seen less than accurate information regarding the instrument.

If you are thinking about buying a course ask yourself these questions.

-what kind of guitar music do I eventually want to play?

-what kind of learning methods do I respond to the best?

-where can I find information that will teach me the right way?

When you ask yourself these questions, you are really asking yourself, “what am I looking for and what will teach me the best way”

Finding the right course is vital to the development of a guitar student, not only will you progress faster, but you will not have to backtrack and re learn any bad habits you may have developed from learning the wrong way.

Luckily now thanks to the internet, there is now a wealth of information, some of it good and some of it great… and some of it blatantly wrong.

Back in the days before the internet if you wanted to play the guitar you could go one of two ways. Either you could learn by having an experienced player teach you, of if that wasn’t possible, you could buy a book and learn on your own.

These two methods are still great options, but they do have there drawbacks. Learning from a book is a great idea, however if you don’t actually have someone with you to show you exactly how the music is to be played, progress will be slow, reading information and using diagrams is great but it can never truly replace a real live instructor, which leads me on to the second point.

Finding a guitar teacher is far more ideal, but can be expensive, but what’s more concerning is the fact that many guitar “teachers” cannot actually teach. I have seen many great guitarists who call themselves guitar teachers, when all they can really do is confuse a poor student and show off.

Of course the other side of the coin is that there are many great guitar teachers out there, you just have to be careful at which one you decide to go with, if you have a guitar teacher already and are not making any progress, it may be time to find a new teacher.

The third option now are online guitar instruction courses. These in my opinion are ideal. Not only are they very inexpensive but using video,audio,interaction and knowledge forums is the best way to advance quickly.

If you are thinking about buying a guitar course then me advice to you, is to read up as much as you can about any particular guitar course you are thinking of purchasing, and not just recommendations on a sales page, but from actual people who have used the course and have benefited from it, that is a great indication that a guitar course works.