So you want to learn how to play guitar? The greatest requirement for learning how is time. Without putting forth time and effort you cannot hope to be able to play. I have been playing guitar for a decent amount of my life and my tips for learning how are just my own personal opinion; I know others may disagree with how I believe guitar can be learned but these are just my own ideas. After my time of learning how to play guitar, I think the best way to grasp guitar is by understanding the chord shapes and changing between them, becoming familiar with the pentatonic shapes, and learning the rhythm for playing both chords and single notes.
The learning of chords should be one of the first parts of playing guitar. Gaining a plethora of chords allows for variations of sounds whether they be sad or happy or dissonant. When playing chords it is important to use proper form. On youtube, a good video for learning the proper form on playing guitar is Stevie Terreberry’s video which shows Lil Wayne playing guitar and how you can play like Lil Wayne; a sarcastic way of saying how Lil Wayne plays guitar is incorrect and you should in fact not play like him. By playing the way Stevie T. says he himself, plays you can play guitar the proper way. When learning chords on an acoustic I suggest learning open chords which do not require bars and learn how to switch between them before attempting to move onto the more difficult bar chords; if you are using an electric guitar, bar chords will sound much better and are much easier to form due to the lightness of the strings and easier action. Learning chords should come first in your guitar education and I believe are essential for becoming a good guitarist.
The understanding and use of pentatonic scales should be practiced so playing single notes may be done with greater ease. The nomenclature pentatonic may seem frightening, but it is just a scale with five notes instead of the traditional eight. To learn the pentatonic scale shapes across the fretboard you should learn the shapes separately, and then, the shapes move according to what key you are playing in. To fully understand how they work I would suggest further investigation on the internet because attempting to explain how they work here would only cause you confusion. The internet may give you the shapes in A minor/ C major but I would personally suggest to learn it first in E minor/G major because the repetition of the shapes will make more sense. If you would like, and after first learning the shapes of the pentatonic, you may learn the full eight note tonics through the separate shapes of modality which include the Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, and Locrian. With a variety of single notes to play you can accent your chords and play tasty riffs in between them.
Perhaps the most important part of learning to play guitar is rhythm because without it your chords and single not playing will likely sound like trash. I myself am not the greatest at rhythm and if I could change one thing about how learned guitar it would be the attention to rhythm. My guitar teacher did attempt to get me to appreciate it, but I was consistently apathetic toward the meter of songs. Playing guitar should start off slowly and speed will come with practice. One of the best ways to get better at playing rhythm well is by using a metronome while you playing your chords and scales, first slowly and then gain speed over time. It is a tedious process and requires time but a good guitar player will agree with me about its importance. The creator of the YouTube series called “This is why you Suck at Guitar”, Ben Eller, once posted on Facebook something about how some people can execute sweep picking with easy (a difficult form of picking), but then totally fail at the solo from Highway to Hell because they are not very good. Neither I nor he could recall when he posted this but he did confirm that he still agrees with this when messaging me through Facebook. I really wish I had focused more on rhythm in guitar and if you learn it right away, you will be a better guitarist.
By learning a multitude of chords, the pentatonic scales and playing both of them rhythmically, you can learn to play guitar in the way I believe will gain you the best results. More than these three suggestions, time and practice is required most so if you plan to learn guitar, then be ready to work at it as much as possible.
Work Cited
Terreberry, Steve [SteveTerreberry] (2011 Apr. 24). How to guitar like Lil Wayne [Video File]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Jf9-VyXEKE
