Senior Instructor at Halifax Guitar Lessons
At some point in the past you caught the desire to learn to play guitar and you decided to go for it! You were excited, eager and ready to start on an awesome journey.
It looks easy when others are playing guitar doesn’t it? They make it look so effortless and graceful right? But it was far from easy for you wasn’t it? The effort required for you to learn just the basics was much more than you anticipated.
That’s when the thought appeared: “Maybe you are not made to learn to play guitar.” And the more you tried and struggled the more it seemed to confirm this thought. So you ended up believing it and stopped.
Is that thought true? Is it true that you can never ever learn to play guitar? I don’t think so.
Guitar Is Not The Easiest Instrument To Learn To Play
Contrary to popular belief, guitar is not an easy instrument to learn to play. Most people struggle when they first start out and many do not make it very far before they have the same or similar thoughts.
Sure there are many people who find their way through and learn how to play. But they are not the majority of the people who actually attempt to play. And the large majority of those people do not get very far. They learn a few chords and then tend to get stuck.
Why does this happen?
Playing Guitar Requires Some Very Precise Motor Skills
The main reason is that your hands and fingers are not used to doing the things required to play guitar. Playing a guitar requires very small and precise movements that need to be coordinated with other movements, just to get started.
On top of that your fingertips are soft when you start. They do not have callouses so trying to push down on the strings to have them ring out properly is difficult. It is rare to hear a nice clear sound the first time you try to play a note on guitar.
Then to play multiple notes at once (chords) you have to add other fingers on several strings, all at the same time, and none of those have callouses either. So you get more muffled sounds.
And finally, you have to not only be able to do that for several different chords, you then also have to learn to move between them and also pluck the strings with your picking hand to make them sound out. All at the same time!!!
Do Not Be Discouraged, You Can Learn To Play Guitar
Doing all of that, for most people, is not easy. It feels like uncomfortable and awkward. It’s like you never used your hands before at times.
The good news is that this is as hard as it will ever get for you. Learning to play guitar actually gets easier every single day that you keep trying to learn. It may not feel that way at first because the progress is slow, but it does get better.
Do not be discouraged if you struggled when you first tried learned to play guitar. It’s actually quite normal and expected and you can overcome this.
What if there was a way to avoid much of that pain when learning how to play guitar? That would be awesome right? Well, there IS a way.
Find The Right Teacher To Help You Learn To Play Guitar
The key to overcoming the struggles that most beginners face when learning how to play guitar is to avoid as many of them as possible in the first place. This can be done. How? By finding a good teacher. One who has experience in this area and that can help you navigate around the challenges.
You need to be careful though, because not all guitar teachers are the same. Many have forgotten the struggles that they experienced when first learning. Others actually learned without any struggles. And others just teach to make extra money and are not really vested in your progress.
The best teacher for you is one that has actually gone through those struggles, and that can relate to you and your struggles. Someone who remembers how frustrating it can be to learn to play guitar and who has made it through to the other side. Someone who takes teaching seriously, who teaches full time, and who has specific training on how to teach guitar.
Commit To The Process And You Will Succeed
Once you find a teacher that can relate to you and has specific strategies to help you and is committed to your success 100%, it’s your turn.
You then have to commit to the learning process, to trusting your teacher, to do the work and practice daily, and to never give up.
You have to choose to do it, then you have to do the work, and you will succeed and learn to play guitar!
So go ahead, choose it!!!