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How to Play the Guitar For Beginners – 5 Important Techniques You Must Learn to Get Started

Are you just starting out with the guitar? Is there a song you want to play or maybe one that you’ve written? Perhaps you started, gave up, but now are ready to really learn again. No matter where you are at, now is the time to pick up your guitar and REALLY learn. Keep reading as I explain five of my tips on how to play the guitar for beginners.

Tip #1: Get to know the basic “open” chords

I remember when I first learned the power of chords. I thought they were magical. I still do. Simply by holding a few strings at certain frets, all of a sudden all of the notes automatically sound good together. My advice is to start out with the simple E, A, D, C, and G chords. These are the types that only require two or three fingers. Not only are they easy to learn, but they are also the foundation for thousands of popular songs.

The trick is to practice holding a chord and playing it until you get a clear sound. Then practice releasing your hand and try to reposition your fingers again as quickly as possible. Once you’ve mastered a few chords in this way, practice switching back and forth between chords as quickly as possible. Strum the guitar each time for feedback.

Tip #2: Learn to play a real song

This is a really important tip. It is important to learn real songs from the very beginning. Avoid getting lost in drills or renditions of “Three Blind Mice”. The point of learning to play the guitar to actually play the guitar. There are many hundreds of popular and/or classic songs that only require two or three of the basic chords. Learning a few classic songs early on will not only teach you a lot, but boost your confidence and keep you motivated..

Tip #3: Yes, you have to practice scales

Unfortunately, scales really are required. In fact, they are vital to your to learning how to play. Practicing scales is equivalent to weight lifting and drilling in sports. Athletes spend more time practicing and conditioning their bodies than they do playing the game. The same is true for the guitar. Musical scales form the foundation of nearly all music. Practicing scales trains your fingers to across the strings, back and forth along the guitar. Mastering scales makes it easy and effortless to play the right notes. You’ll barely even have to think about it after awhile.

Tip #4: Practice blindfolded

This is one technique that really helped me learn how to play the guitar. I practice chords this way. I also practice picking notes and composing whole songs with this method. When you practice this way blindfolded, you quickly train hands and fingers to go where they are supposed to go on the guitar. You will develop a “feel” for the guitar this way. If you are ever playing for an audience, you won’t have time to stop and look for the right finger position. The key is to train your fingers to automatically go where they need to go.

Tip #5: Use an expert

Finally, my main recommendation for learning how to play the guitar, for beginners especially, is to get guidance from an an experienced teacher. You might choose a private tutor or an online guitar training program. Either way, you need a well designed program or teacher to lead you step-by-step through the learning process. A qualified teacher or well produced program will know what challenges and pitfalls you will encounter and will know how to guide you past them.

My personal preference is to invest in a good online guitar training program. Not only is this much more affordable, but you still get all the benefits of a personal tutor. With an online tutorial, your “virtual” tutor will be available any time, day or night to help you learn. Also, you get to speed up, slow down, or reverse at any time. Try doing that with an actual teacher.

These were my tips and techniques for how to play the guitar for beginners. If you follow these guidelines, I know you will learn to play great guitar. You will notice an improvement faster than you thought possible. Before long,you will be playing the guitar with skill and with ease. Your friends will also notice and “Wow! Where did you learn to play like that?”

Now, start playing!

Spider Exercises For Guitar

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