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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!

So you have finally decided to learn to play guitar. Have you decided to learn online or are you going for face to face lessons? Your average guitar teacher will wind up costing you about eighty to one hundred dollars every month. That is just for one lesson per week. On the other hand a nifty set of videos cannot give you personal advice based on the observation of your playing by a seasoned professional guitar player.

A live guitar teacher might offer you the chance to take a free lesson to help you decide whether to commit yourself to a course of lessons. You could sit down with your teacher during your free lesson and tell him how you want to progress with the guitar. He can tell you if your goals are realistic or if you need to rethink your dreams of the future. This will let you get an idea of how committed your teacher is to turning students into guitar players. A good guitar teacher will be listen to your plans for your guitar playing and his teaching methods and advice will be tailored to your specific needs. He can watch you play and see where you are going wrong and what you need to do to fix it.

If you lead a busy life it might not be practical for you to get to a guitar teacher once a week and devote half an hour, an hour or more per day to practicing the guitar as well as performing your professional and family duties. If you are one of these busy people the prospect of saving money on guitar tuition fees and transport fares or fuel costs you might want to think seriously about learning guitar online. If you decide to go for an online course then how do you know which one to choose?

The internet has archives of guitar tabs, sites containing free lessons, thousands of free videos and countless opportunities for us to watch videos of the best guitarists in the world, past or present, dead or alive. There are many forums with guys who have been playing the guitar for many years waiting for a chance to pass on their expertise and love of guitar playing to beginners. If you save a few of these guitar forums to your bookmarks in your browser you can visit a few every day and copy and paste any advice or tabs that you find useful.

There are guitar lesson websites that have the lessons set out in the correct sequence for a beginner guitar player’s progress. The formulators of these guitar courses are experienced guitar players who have extensive experience teaching the guitar and playing in bands. These online lessons are great for people who need a basic understanding of the guitar, how to hold it and play chords for easy songs. Free online guitar lessons get these people playing the guitar fast.

Here is a great way to make use of free guitar tools and tabs you find on the internet. You could organize your basic tools into groups like tabs, chord charts, songs, scales, articles and tools such as online guitar tuners. You create some folders on your computer for each of these groups so that you can get to your learning material easily during your guitar practice time.

Online guitar lessons also go a long way towards saving your dignity as well as your money. You can work quietly in your own room at any difficulties or misunderstanding about guitar playing without exposing your shortcomings to another person. You can do this at your own pace, seeking more advice from forums to help you with your problems. If you have only a little time to spend on guitar practice online lessons will accommodate you, and if you find that you have some extra time you will always find something new and interesting to learn.

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!

Many of beginner guitar players choose acoustic guitar as their first instrument. That is, is many ways, a wise choice. You don’t have to buy additional accessories to make the guitar sound louder , and acoustic guitar also weights less than electric guitar.

Playing acoustic guitar is different than playing electric guitar. Let’s take a look at these differences.

The first and main difference is the body. Acoustic guitars has a hollow bodies, and they’re projecting sound only with acoustic methods. That’s different from electric guitar, who has pickups and need amplifier in order to make it sound loud. The neck and scale also is different. Usually acoustic guitar’s scale is shorter than electric guitar’s scale , making it harder to reach higher notes. The neck is usually fatter than electric guitar’s neck.

The difference is also in strings. The are strings that are made and should be used only on acoustic guitar in order to maintain the guitar’s sound quality. Unfortunately not all people realize it, so they make mistakes such as putting electric guitar’s strings on acoustic guitar. That’s not right and can ruin your sound and even guitar. One of the biggest mistakes is to put an electric guitar’s strings on a classical guitar (acoustic guitar with nylon strings) , which requires specific strings. Doing it you can even brake your instrument.

To sum this all up I can say that acoustic guitars has much wider variety than electric guitars, so there’s a greater chance that you will purchase the right instrument.

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So you have an acoustic guitar and you want to take lessons. The question of which style of acoustic guitar to learn can be a bit of a conundrum for the newbie guitar player. For a start you have two basic kinds of acoustic guitar – steel string and nylon string. Then there are several basic genres you could choose to learn.

Let us begin with making the most glaring distinction in acoustic guitar music: there is classical guitar music and there is the rest. Classical guitar has grown up in the past hundred years or so. It was originally a poor relation in the classical music family with few players and very small audiences. Over the years with the appearance of virtuoso classical guitar players and composers with a high level of sophistication and enthusiasm audiences have come to know something about what to expect from a classical guitarist.

If you are interested in classical guitar music then this will probably be your first choice. If you choose to learn classical guitar you are laying the foundation for a wide musical education. You will also be trained in how to play to produce expressive tone and color in your guitar playing, not to mention your technique will be on a higher level than guitarists in other genres.

There are some skills that most serious rock or jazz guitarists have that classical guitar players do not have, Classical guitarists are not trained in improvisation. No matter how much musical theory and advanced technique he has, in a situation where improvisation is needed a classical guitarist may as well be a sculptor. Neither will classical guitar lessons give you a good ear. All your music will be learnt from the printed page, and there will be no opportunity to develop an ear.

So if you pick classical as your acoustic guitar style, the musical training you receive will give you a great background in music and the kind of technique which will enable you to move easily between genres as long as you can rely on sheet music.

If you have a steel string acoustic guitar and want to take lessons then you will be taught to play using a plectrum. The music you are taught depends on the teacher but it can range from pop to folk to country so you will need to make sure your teacher’s tastes are the same as yours. This kind of musical education can possibly give you the chance to develop skills in improvisation and playing by ear but you will most likely taught to accompany songs by strumming chords. From there you can branch out to playing electric guitar, country flatpicking or learning to play using fingerpicking techniques such as Travis picking but you will at least have a basic knowledge of guitar playing.

If you own a nylon string acoustic guitar you could begin right off with fingerstyle guitar lessons. This entails learning fingerpicking techniques developed by folk guitarists and Travis pickers. This kind of playing is nowhere near as demanding as classical guitar but it does give you a little more technical versatility than playing using a plectrum.

This survey of the kinds of acoustic guitar lessons you could take is nowhere near exhaustive but I have given you some idea of the basic differences between the acoustic guitar styles.

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