Monday, May 9, 2011

Teaching Yourself Guitar

By Chris Lake


If you want to learn to play the guitar one approach is to hire a private and have lessons. This is great, and many people take this route, but there is another way to learn the guitar, and that is to teach yourself. This article will address some of the ways you can do this, and explain exactly what you need to do when teaching yourself guitar.

When you start learning the guitar it is a good idea to give yourself something to work towards. Having targets will concentrate on learning things bit by bit, so you don't end up trying to too much at once. You should decide what it is you want to accomplish with your guitar playing - do you want to become a performer, or a composer, for example? By setting out objectives like these you will find that you are motivated to achieve them, and it also makes it easier to see how much progress you are making.

You will need to have some learning resources at your disposal for you to work from when trying to teach yourself guitar. Traditionally, this would comprise mostly of books, and many self taught guitarists have, over the years, amassed quite impressive collections of these. These days, however, you have more options. The internet and new media offer an enormous amount of information for you to delve into, both paid for and free. Finding it is as easy as typing into Google, and the resulting internet sites, containing videos, audio, lessons, and more, will be enough to keep you occupied for months on end.

The key to successfully teaching yourself to play the guitar, is to work logically and systematically, and not to take on too much at one time. Start off with the basics, and progress only once you have mastered those. If you try and rush things, you'll make less progress and just end up getting frustrated.

One good thing about teaching yourself to play is that you're not bound to the standard methods of learning. You have the freedom to try out as many different ways of playing something as you can think of, and this can be invaluable in developing your own distinctive style and sound. Some of the all time great guitarists were self taught, and part of the reason that they became so well respected is because they developed such individual styles, as a result of not being taught in the traditional manner. That being said, I believe you should always learn the proper way to do things as well, so that you become a great all-round guitar player.

A lot of people find that, without a guitar tutor to encourage them, they struggle to keep disciplined when teaching themselves guitar. This is a difficulty faced by many, and it is down to you to make sure you put in the work, and stay focused on learning. If done correctly, the effort you put in will yield satisfying results which will, in turn, motivate you to practice even more. Above all else, you should make sure that you enjoy the process of teaching yourself guitar.

So that winds up this article about teaching yourself guitar. I hope it has made a few things clearer for anyone thinking about taking it up.




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