Having taught the guitar for many years, I see the majority of beginners experiencing the same problems and making the same mistakes over and over again in their quest to learn how to play guitar. It’s my job to steer them through these problem areas.

These mistakes are basic errors that most beginners naturally tend to make. But these mistakes can cause major problems if you allow them to become habits in your playing. Unfortunately, 90% of guitarists have done just that!

Avoid These 3 Mistakes Like The plague

The three main mistakes MOST people make when learning how to play guitar are:

1: Trying to play too fast too soon.

Don’t be in such a rush. Trying to go too fast too soon causes serious problems. Sloppy playing and mistakes will become your trademark.

Learn to practice slowly and perfectly. The reason for this, is, what you program your brain and fingers with while practicing, is what you’ll get as a habitual and subconscious end result.

The GIGO computer term describes it best. Garbage In = Garbage Out. If you program a computer with faulty data, your results will be faulty too. It’s exactly the same with learning how to play guitar.

So practice everything very slowly and perfectly. Do this, and your playing will be to a higher standard than 90% of all other guitarists. Yes – even those that have been playing for years!

2: Too much body and hand tension.

Have you ever noticed how the top professionals make it all look so easy and effortless? How relaxed they are?

Take a lesson from that.

When learning how to play guitar, and in all practice sessions, you need to be as relaxed as possible at all times.

Unnecessary tension anywhere in the body when playing will stop you like a brick wall. Any excess tension in your fingers, hands, arms, elbows, wrists, shoulders, neck, chest, stomach, thighs, legs is extremely hazardous to learning how to play guitar properly.

Practicing the right things in the right way will give you amazing results – even if you practice only 10 – 20 minutes a day.

3: Learn the difference between practice time and noodling time.

Basically, you learn how to play guitar in two ways:- 1: when you practice, and, 2: when you noodle and try out new ideas.

Practice Time is SERIOUS Time!

It’s when you are specifically and very deliberately teaching your body and brain new motor and muscle-memory skills. This is all done very slowly, with great care and meticulous attention to detail. Never practice fast.

Practice time is where you develop muscle-memory and train your body to act in the most beneficial way for playing guitar. Remember – GIGO!

This is the foundation building time.. where you lay the foundation for learning HOW to play guitar the best way you can – without imposing limitations upon yourself through bad practice habits.

Noodling Time.

Noodling Time is where you learn how to play guitar by putting into practice what you study during your practice time. It’s where you to steal licks, chords and solos off records. It’s where you hunch over your cd player or computer with your guitar trying to hear and learn that tricky chord or lick.

It’s where good habits can easily become undone!

Better to do this… Once you learn a lick, sit down in your chair in the proper position and play that lick over and over at a slow speed while focusing on being as relaxed as possible and with absolute minimal finger movement. Program that lick, your physical movements and relaxation perfectly into your brain. Only when it becomes 2nd nature to you, and you own that lick, should you start speeding up.

But… always focus on being as relaxed as possible.

Noodling is fun, and a necessary part of learning how to play guitar. Do as much as you can. But.. don’t mistake it for real practice time. Don’t noodle with bad habits either.

Next… you need to ensure you are practicing the correct things in the correct way too. But that’s another story.

John Bilderbeck has taught guitar for 30 years. To claim your FREE Master the Basics eBook course now, visit his Free Guitar Chords Site now.

Picking out what you want for your very first guitar is a difficult and tricky choice. You probably do not know a lot about guitars to begin with, and with the thousands of selections available, it is easy to be confused.

The first decision involves choosing between either an electric or acoustic guitar. Once you have made that choice, the next thing you have to do is to determine the budget that you are comfortable with. If you are really serious about learning, it is recommended that you avoid buying a cheap and low-quality instrument, as such guitars tend to impede your learning. When it comes to upgrading, you will also find that getting a good price for your guitar will be difficult.

Typically, acoustic guitars have six strings, are hollow and have a sound hole. Electric guitars are not hollow, and require a guitar amplifier. However, electric guitars may be easier for beginners, because the strings are easier to press down, and do not cause your fingers to get sore as easily as compared to playing on an acoustic guitar.

One of the most important factors that you have to consider, when choosing between an acoustic or an electric, is what kind of music will you be playing. If you like to learn how to strum your favourite songs, an acoustic guitar may be better. If you are a great fan of rock music, then you might like to start off with an electric guitar. This is important, because if you start off with the wrong kind of guitar, you will find it much more difficult to find the motivation to play regularly.

Interested in learning how to play the guitar? Learn more about guitars and get links to free guitar lessons at LearnGuitarFree.com!

Learning to play the guitar can be a daunting task. Thankfully, there are several different ways you can master the axe. Which way is best for you? Here are the major learning methods available:

Traditional Lessons

This is how a lot of people learn to play the guitar, and for good reason. There are many benefits to getting personal lessons:

• You get hands-on advice, and corrections on every detail as you learn
• If you have any specific questions, your teacher can help you out immediately
• Your lessons are customized to your learning curve

However, there are a few minuses to learning from personal lessons:

• - This is the most expensive way – each lesson costs on average $20 or more per lesson, and at one lesson per week this can add up fast
• - Lessons have to be scheduled, so this is a commitment with both time and money

Personal lessons are still considered to often be the best way to learn, since each lesson is personally customized to each student.

Instructional Books/Videos

Books and videos can be an effective tool for learning. The perks?

• These can be specific to certain types of guitar styles, or even specific techniques
• This is one of the cheapest ways to learn, with books and videos anywhere from $5 and up

What are the downsides to these methods of learning?

• - Again, these can be specific to certain styles or techniques, which means learning the guitar fully will usually require multiple purchases
• - Any questions you may have are not able to be answered by books or videos

Books and videos can be very effective to learn from, but they are fine-tuned to learning specific guitar skills or geared towards a very limited experience range.

Learning Online

The Internet is a huge wealth of knowledge, and can often contain good information:

• Some of the information is free, although it can be hard to find
• The Internet is international, so if there are no books, videos, or instructors available in your part of the world, you can still learn if you can get online
• There are some online guitar lesson packages that offer full instruction for a decent price – in some cases these can include written lessons, computer programs, video and audio files, or even all of these combined

So what’s bad about learning online?

• - Similarly to books and videos, a lot of the free lessons are specific to people of a certain experience level, so finding lessons best for you can be a chore
• - Spending money on a product that doesn’t work to help you learn can be a major disappointment – do your research before purchasing

Learning guitar online can be a good way to learn. The catch is finding quality instruction from the huge mass of information available about learning to play guitar.

Play By Ear

This last method is the cheapest by far, but also the hardest. The perks?

• It’s free!
• Making your own mistakes and correcting them can often lead to learning more effectively, even if you don’t learn exactly how other people have (just look at Jimi Hendrix)
• This will definitely lead to having your own personal style of playing, and possibly unique skills other people don’t have

But it’s not all perfect:

• - It’s the hardest way to learn since you have nothing to help guide you along the way except yourself, and it is also the method that takes the longest by far
• - Learning something wrong and not being corrected right away can be VERY hard to un-learn, and can sometimes cause damage to the guitar or even yourself
• - Many tips and tricks that would help you learn effectively will be missed

Even though it’s hard, a lot of people do start learning guitar this way. It can be done, but just be cautious about making mistakes.

Conclusion

The method you use to learn guitar is ultimately up to you. Figure out which method works best for you and what you can afford. Anybody can learn guitar, it just takes time, effort, and some determination.

Alan Marquez is a guitarist with over 10 years of experience. He plays on a weekly basis and has taught guitar for over five years. See his reviews on online guitar lesson packages at http://LearnGuitar.ReviewsOfStuff.com/

You are apparently interested in playing the guitar. Or maybe you are educating yourself before you make a time and money commitment for a child. I believe that being able to play a musical instrument can be very satisfying and enriching, provided the choice of instrument is appropriate and provided that it is voluntary.

This article focuses on the choice of instrument. The guitar certainly has been, and probably always will be, one of the most popular instruments. Why? I imagine it is because a classic guitar can be taken just about anywhere. You can always play a few strings and soon have a circle of people join you in singing. Even young people join in, especially when some of the classic rock songs are being played.

The classic guitar is generally played at a lower volume than the electric guitar. Many young people however are more excited about playing the loud electric guitar, which requires an amplifier and with that an electrical outlet nearby. It also might require some soundproofing, unless you live in a very remote location. Neighbors generally do not appreciate a group of teenagers jamming at full volume at 10 pm or on a Sunday afternoon. And it is amazing what sound effects can be created with guitar and amplifier. It opens up a whole new avenue of creativity. It is important when learning to lay the guitar, that a clean technique is learned from the start. This is especially critical when it comes to body posture. Wrist problems can arise by not properly positioning the hand and having to contort the wrist, in order to reach the strings. Ignoring any pain from the wrist, could result in having to stop playing the guitar.

Learning how to play the guitar requires a good teacher or good learning program (book, video, audio) and commitment on your part to hours of practice. You can find a good teacher in your local area and you can find good programs on the internet. Many of these programs offer a combination of books and videos. Some include free newsletters or free sample lessons. Check the different avenues out so you can determine what works best for you. It might be a combination of learning with a teacher in person, supplemented by a downloadable program.

So before you run out, buy a guitar and sign up for lessons, ask yourself if you will dedicate several hours each week to practicing and playing the guitar. If you do, you will be able to enjoy many hours of enjoyment playing this wonderful instrument.

Christiane Perrin is the mother of 2 teenagers who play guitar and drums. http://www.learnguitareasily.blogspot.com

To be on the right place at the right time is quite nice. It is called timing. In your guitar playing you will find that timing is crucial. This means to play your notes at the right time so that the result will be music.

To learn to play guitar notes at the right time is not the same thing as playing mathematically perfect. You cannot learn to play music by only using a metronome for example.

You have to listen to music and play together with other people and learn to react rytmically upon other peoples playing.

Anyway, in music there are usually a pulse that you can feel more or less and your ability to feel the pulse in the music will help you contribute with your musical and rytmic playing to the end result.

How can you learn to feel the pulse in the music? I will give you seven suggestions that might help you develop your timing when you play guitar and increase your ability to feel the pulse:

1. Dance to the music. If you can learn to feel the pulse with your whole body it will help you play musically. In this case it doesn’t matter how your dancing is performed.

Listen to music on your stereo and move to the music. The important thing is to develop the feeling that you are floating or surfing with the music without any effort on your part.

2. Learn to play drums. I think it would be a good thing if all musicians as part of their musical development on their particular instrument learned to play drums.

The ability to create rhythms and patterns when playing drums will help you a lot when you try to learn to play guitar in time and in a musical way.

Actually you don’t need drums, you might as well play rhythms on your laps with your hands. Try to play eights for example on your laps by alternating between your right and left hands and by accentuating different eight notes as you play.

What you can play with your hands on your laps or on a table or something else requires another article I guess.

3. Buy a metronome. A metronome will give you a 100% even pulse and can help you play in different tempos. It will help you play in slow tempos and help you keep a steady tempo.

How to use a metronome to your andvantage you can learn in other learn to play guitar articles.

4. Practice strumming patterns on your guitar. The act of strumming chords on the guitar resembles drum playing and will increase your overall ability to use a pick.

For example, playing eights with up and down strokes on a barr? chord and playing around with the rythm by releasing the left hand pressure on some notes thereby damping them and also accentuating some notes with the up or downstrokes with your pick can create interesting rhythmic patterns.

5. Play with other people. As I said before the art of timing when you learn to play guitar doesn’t mean the same thing as playing mathematically perfect even if it is sometimes necessary to do that in some music.

When I produce my own music on my preferred recording software I have realized that the bass part for example can be edited to play on exact beats.

When I have quantisized the bass part 100% it usually means that the whole production loses tension so to speak. I can see that I many times play a little ahead of the beat and other times a little laid back and this is done intentionally to create energy in the music.

When you learn to play guitar it is very important to learn to feel the pulse in the music. I hope my tips can help you be on time!

Peter Edvinsson is a musician, composer and music teacher. Visit his site Capotasto Music and download your free sheet music and learn to play guitar resources at http://www.capotastomusic.com

I?m on a mission. To convert.

To convert guitar players and aspiring guitar players to open-D. It?s the tuning so important to guitar in the last number of decades, but too often, so overlooked by the mainstream. Standard tuning has a stranglehold on the business of learning guitar. The reason, to me, remains unclear.

As a starting point, an open tuning is clearly the logical choice. What easier way to begin to play guitar, but with an open, major chord? How much more confidence could an aspiring guitarist (of any age, but more on that later) need than to be able to play a nice sounding chord without putting finger to fret? That?s what you get when you start with an open tuning.

My personal story went like this. Frustrated novice guitar player (?novice? for years on end!). Gets nowhere with guitar for years. Does research (i.e. reads guitar magazines). Realizes many of the greats played in alternate tunings (K. Richard, J. Mitchell, E. James, R. Johnson, R. Cooder, J. Page, etc, etc.). Re-tunes guitar until he finds one that works ? open-D. Presto! Light bulb comes on, a better guitar player is hatched.

Open tunings are mentioned, frequently enough, in magazines articles, transcriptions, books and the like. But very seldom or never have I seen an outright promotion of their use as a stand-alone approach to guitar (my god, even Keith switches to standard tuning every now and again!). And open-D, the most logical of all starting points, is rarely mentioned at all. I have yet, in 20 years of public performance, have anyone come up to me and say ? ?How about that ? you play just like I do, in open-D?. People do come up, but the comments are almost always, ?You sure use some funny chord positions? or ?Are you playing in a different tuning?. Amazingly, many guitar players associate ?open tuning? with ?more difficult?. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sure, to make the transition from standard tuning is a bit of a learning curve, but once you?re there, POW! You?ll never want to play any other way (although just adding proficiency on an open tuning to your standard tuning is a giant leap).

Which brings us back to beginners. No matter what the age, a beginner, whether 6 or 60 years old will find open-D an easier way to start playing guitar. It is so obvious. Focus on the strum without any fingers on the fretboard, and then work your way up to one finger on the fretboard (the basic major chord in open-D is just one finger). What a way to develop early confidence. The truth is, and I am living proof, you would never have to make the flip to standard tuning. But if you wanted to, it?s just small tweak up to standard ? sort of drop-D tuning with three other minor adjustments back and forth, to and from standard E A D G B E, to D A D F# D.

One question that arises ? why open-D, then, of all the potential starting points? The absolute simplest choice may be, for easier understanding of theory, keys and harmony might be open-C C G C E G C, but that gets a tad floppy sounding, as the guitar strings are so slackened. Going the other way to open-E E B E G# B E might be going too far the other way, though it?s used. Open-D seems the perfect choice! For singers wanting to accompany themselves, of course, it becomes an issue of vocal range tied to the guitar tuning. A capo may be in order.

Frank Foxx is a semi-professional guitar player who plays exclusively in the tuning of open-D. He has written a guitar method book, extolling the virtues of what he considers to be the most versatile and easiest of all guitar tunings, entitled Guitar-eze A Simpler Approach to Playing the Guitar. His website is http://www.easierguitar.com. He keeps a blog at http://open-d.blogspot.com dedicated to helping guitarists and aspiring guitarists see the light.

Do you know why music is so awesome and unique?

Because no one can take it from you. Whats even more awesome is that you can make music your own. Haven’t you ever thought of having a hit song, or releasing an album? I know most of those thoughts are just dreams and kind of far fetched, but the truth is you don’t have to be famous in order to play or write your own music.

One of the most popular instruments these days is the guitar. It seems like everywhere you look there’s another person playing guitar. This is really good, but the problem is that a lot of these guitar players don’t have any guidence, and either end up quitting or just never getting any better.

If you are interested in learning guitar, or perhaps you already play guitar, but are looking for some tips, then please read on. Below are several very helpful tips thats can help a newbie with learning guitar.

1. Don’t expect to be some kind of amazing guitar player overnight! It just doesn’t happen that way. Like most things, learning guitar takes time and you must be patient. The more you practice the better.

2. Start off slow. Don’t rush yourself, and don’t drive yourself crazy if you don’t get something right the first, second, or third time. It may take you a hundred times to get a riff right. The important thing is that you start off slow. Example: If you found a new riff, or chord progression that you like, start off practicing very slow. It may seem tedious, but it helps tremendously. Once you start adjusting to the riff, start increasing the speed.

3. Practice chord changes. One of the worst things to me is watching someone struggle to change between simple chords. Make sure to get these chord changes down. This will make everything so much easier in the long run.

4. One of my favorite things to do is to practice on an acoustic guitar. This strengthens your fingers greatly, and helps build speed.

5. Listen to lots of music. Any kind of music is ok. Then, just try and figure out whatever you’re listening to on guitar. Even if you only get in a couple of notes or chords, thats ok. This technique will help with your musical ear. Then after enough practice you’ll be able to pick up a song on the radio in no time.

I wish I could help you more, but unfortuneately thats about as good as I can do within an article.

I highly advise taking lessons. I know that taking lessons can cost a lot of money, but with technology these days you can take guitar lessons online for way cheaper. Usually a one time fee around $40 or $50. There are some really great programs out there that I highly recommend. Guitar Tutor Pro is an internet course that teaches guitar lessons online. If you’re looking for a program that covers the basics, scales, chords, reading music, theory, and more then this is the site for you.

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In many articles on the net on learning to play guitar you will find many article authors stressing the importance of setting goals. Well, it would be interesting to find out if you can learn to play guitar without goals. Let us investigate the matter!

I have many memories of my first attemps to play the guitar. Like many boys I had many interests like reading, playing piano, singing, listening to music, athletics, chess, stamp collecting, painting and other things at different times. Playing guitar was just one of them.

I remember that I had my own way of practicing guitar playing. I always had my guitar on my bed waiting for me. I sat down on my bed many times everyday playing for a while and then starting to do other things.

Sometimes I felt inspired to play guitar for an hour or two and other times just for a minute. Did I have goals or not?

I know that I was developing as a guitarist quite fast and I think it must have been something in my way of playing and practicing guitar that was good.

I believe that some of the reasons for my progress during those early days of my learn to play guitar career were:

1. I felt no pressure to become an accomplished guitarist. I just felt the joy of sitting down with my guitar trying to find out the treasuries in the land of music.

2. My father was a guitar teacher giving me lessons at times and I always heard him play guitar in our home. Other guitarists visited our home many times and these visits inspired me a lot.

3. I never felt a pressure to play fast and thereby building tensions by playing too fast. This is one of the big mistakes beginning guitarist and even accomplished guitarists sometimes make.

4. As I mentioned previously I did a lot of other things besides playing guitar and I guess all these things I was involved in kept my mind quite healthy and helped me retain my joy when I learned to play guitar.

I guess in a sense I had goals that was not so apparent to me that directed me towards somewhere even if I was quite content being on the road of progress towards guitar land.

Can you learn something from my early guitar experiences? At least you can learn the following:

1. When learning to play guitar always remember to enjoy the act of playing without thinking too much on what you can or cannot do as a guitarist.

2. Try to associate with good musicians and guitarists that inspire you to play musically and that give you the motivation to learn to play new things on your guitar.

3. Beware of playing too fast on your guitar. There is a risk of building up muscle tensions and thereby actually reducing your ability to play fast. A remedy for this and a way to tame yourself is to use a metronome at a low tempo to reduce your speed to a level where you can play your guitar in a relaxed manner.

4. To become an interesting guitarist and musician you might benefit from being involved in other activities like listening to good music, having another hobby, reading good books, assiciate with other people and more.

Do you have to have goals to become a good guitarist? Well, even if you don’t have learn to play guitar goals in the ordinary sense you can help yourself to play everyday by having easy access to your guitar.

I had my guitar on my bed. Maybe you want to have your guitar in your favorite armchair. I guess you understand the principle….

Peter Edvinsson is a musician, composer and music teacher. Visit his site Capotasto Music and download your free sheet music and learn to play guitar resources at http://www.capotastomusic.com

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