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How hard is it to learn to play the guitar?
Learning to play guitar is something I have always wanted to do. But I know what I am like. I have no discipline and I give up way to easily. But it has always been something I want to do.
How easy is it to teach yourself to play guitar? Are there any people here who were self taught? |
I am self taught guitarist but believe me learning to play guitar is very hard than other instruments like piano, drums, etc. But if you dedication and interest you can surely be a pro. Persistence is the key. Never give up at first because "Everything is hard before its easy."
There are lot of ebooks, videos and learning stuffs all over the internet. I mostly learned myself using Guitar Pro. |
It all depends where you want to go with it. If you just want to strum a few chords to a song and you own a decent instrument to play on it can be fairly easy. On the other hand if you want to get more involved and learn lead guitar for Rock, Metal or Country it can be somewhat difficult.
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It's easy to learn. Just takes a lot of time to train your mind and hands. There's a lot of online resources available now to self-teaching guitar.
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Learning the most basic functions and theory of the instrument isn't that hard, but unless you practice those elements it's never going to matter. I used to buy every copy of any guitar magazine that had tablature in it back in the 90s. Whether I knew the song or not it didn't matter, I'd sit there and play through the tab just to learn new licks or to see how different parts were put together. Getting a teacher also won't change the fact that the ability to play the instrument is still entirely your responsibility and directly related to how much you choose to play it. |
^wut he said^
Was gonna pull that little gem out of that post too. |
It's not easy at all. It's all about patience and discipline. It's really satisfying to look back and see how far you've come and it makes it all worth it. From my experience, guitar is harder than the only other instrument I have experience with which is piano. When you have a ****ty guitar with really high action, changing chords can be a big task. I found it to be a lot easier on piano, but I know they both have their own aspects that make them difficult.
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i'm half-self-taught and half received lessons
strumming a few basic chords is easy and that's all you need in punk, really |
aside from discipline, I think inspiration plays a major role in learning how to play guitar
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Learning to play guitar is hard typically. Ive been playing for 8 years, piano for 10. Ive been giving private music lessons for near 6 years now and have had all types of students.
When learning to play guitar, at first, your fingers will hurt due to not being calloused. Once youget past that, depending on what you want to learn, it can be difficult to build dexterity, speed and playing cleanly. You can just jump into playing guitar and be steve vai in a month or 2. Once you get past the intermediate stuff, comes learning how to play outside of the scale boxes, along with playing melodic lines in tandem with chords (think hendrix, john mayer, etc). All of that being said, if youve got the will and drive and inspiration, playing guitar can be very rewarding and very fun. As a closing statement, if you are really interested in playing or learning an instrument, I very strongly suggest learning piano first. This is because Piano is a relatively easy instrument to learn due to the fact that you can actually see all of the pitches laid out sequentially as opposed to the guitar which has overlapping tones depending on what string youre on and where you are on the fretboard. A lot of the time, playing piano will make a lot more sense to someone who doesnt have any musical training. Hope this has helped. |
I'm self taught. My parents were against it (still are), but then when I showed then I could play a few chords, they quickly left me to my own devices. Learning on your own can be tough.
What you need is a lot of imagination. Without this, you won't be getting anywhere. Quick chord changes call for imagining the next chord you want you play in your mind while you're still playing the current one. Self taught also means that you tend to rely on power chords more often than other chords. You may find the others too hard and you may not have any motivation. The best cure for this will be to figure out the chords to some song and then check them out with Ultimate Guitar Tabs. Don't go for Guitar Pro. A few of the tabbed ones will be very tough for a beginner. Another thing to remember is to start easy. Start with C, G, A, D chords. Learn to switch between them quickly. The other thing you need to keep in mind is that you need to practice. Without that, you'll be getting nowhere. Another thing is that when you're not close to a guitar, imagine playing one, picture the fingering of the chords in your mind and then strum an imaginary guitar. Each free moment you get could be utilised to practice switching chords. Switching chords should become flesh memory. You shouldn't even think twice about looking down at the fret board to see your finger positions; you should just be able to get it right on the first try. And last of all, good luck! You'll need it. Sent from my GT-S5360 using Tapatalk 2 |
If you learn how to read tabs, which should take about 10 minutes then pick an easy song to start with you're on your way. I chose Zombie by The Cranberries and was playing to a decent standard within a couple of months. 2 years on and I was lead in a reasonably successful band. Not one lesson.
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Depending on how you see playing on guitar.
I learnt it by myself through hitting the strings in various ways while listening to it on headphones. Then I found out how to tune it and later tried to play something simple, like grunge music or creating my own stuff (ballades mostly). It's all about getting a nice grip on your fingers and be organized when hitting the strings. Then I started recording my ideas and through this I quickly made my first tracks with guitars, which sounded pretty decent. |
It's not that hard, but you'll have to take the time. Take a guitar course, watch internet tutorials, and take online lessons. I did all of these, and now I'm a decent guitarist. Not on professional level though.
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not hard at all, just takes effort
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Not hard at all? I beg to differ. Sure, it's not rocket science or anything but it's not easy by any means. You're right when it say it takes effort, that's pretty much it. A lot of effort, time, desire and patience. Learning and playing are two different beasts. I can get on YouTube and learn how to play some more difficult songs, but once you want to start writing your own music, that's when you encounter that different beast. There's no much you can do.
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try singing - much harder
i'm learning to sing at the moment |
That really boils down to onw simple, basic question: how good do you really want to be?
Spoiler for Long rant that can be summerized in the two sentances below::
Take your pick. The more skill you want, the more time you'll have to put in. |
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It was not difficult for me, but I wasn't self taught, my boyfriend tought me... I think if you really want to you'll manage doing it!
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*david fair whoops |
Pretty Damn hard. For me anyways
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Just weighing in with my personal experience:
Guitar is difficult. When you first start, it's going to be extremely frustrating and you're probably going to be convinced you can never switch between chords or even learn chords that aren't G, C, D, A, Am, Dm, G7, because your hands won't want to move that way, and your fingertips will feel like they're being murdered. That lasts for weeks. After that, you'll suddenly realize that you can play all manner of other chords with a little bit of practice, and your fingers don't hurt anymore. Suddenly, it seems like it just happens one day, you're able to switch between chords and that F chord is cupcake city. After that, you've got a nice foundation to continue, and you can pretty much look up tabs and kind of know what you're doing. And it's just up from there! You just have to understand that it's going to take a little while for it to feel natural, but from there, it's going to be fine. You're not going to be able to shred like Malmsteen off the bat - or maybe ever - but you will be able to strum an acoustic at a campfire LIKE A BOSS. |
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For me, you just got to get through this "phase" wherein your fingers are still adjusting, notes are still new, and strumming is still measured by ups and downs. When your fingers get to the point when they automatically position themselves with chords, and strumming becomes innate, then it gets easy from that point on. It usually takes 3 months to get over this phase with constant practice (consistently playing the guitar for 30 mins a day).
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Be careful and try not to injure your forearms - that tends to happen if you practice too much. If your arms start to hurt, STOP PLAYING IMMEDIATELY.
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My experience with guitar has never, ever getting back tog...been frustrating.
I had my moments: the F chord, trying to link properly the D one (because of the unusual position of fingers) and others for sure but I really loved the instrument and I couldn't wait to be able to make some great noise with it. My advice is to learn powerchord, even without knowing the theory behind, so if you start getting nervous you can just stick to the same fingers position and play music anyway. It could even make the F chord become easier, but in my case after weeks of practice I just woke up one day and I could do it. Still a mistery to me. |
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