| Learning to play guitar is a serious business that you | | | | non-disciplined way? |
| should take lightly. Once you have a little physical | | | | Many guitarists have made their way by watching and |
| hands-on experience with the guitar you can relax and | | | | talking to friends and making use of the free tabs on |
| make choices about what style of music you want to | | | | the internet. Choosing tabs should be a fairly |
| learn and how you want to learn it. Once you have | | | | stress-free job if you are guided by your personal |
| learnt the basic chord shapes and how they can be | | | | musical tastes but there could be a problem with |
| moved up and down the fretboard, you can | | | | learning from friends. If you have a bunch of friends or |
| experiment with strumming patterns if you get bored | | | | family members who think they know a thing or two |
| with that, you can start on learning a few finger picking | | | | about playing the guitar, you are talking to someone |
| patterns. You must never lose sight of the goal of | | | | who may or may not be aware of their own limitations. |
| personal satisfaction behind your musical efforts. | | | | A guitar playing friend can show you how to play a |
| Part of learning to play guitar is, unfortunately, the | | | | chord or a riff but they will have only limited ability to |
| wondering. "Which way of learning to play guitar is the | | | | provide you with the guidance you need to chart your |
| best for me?" "How many ways of learning are | | | | own guitar learning path and to judge your own |
| there?" Are books the best source of guitar learning | | | | progress. |
| information? Or is it better to pick some of my favorite | | | | If you do take the unstructured route for learning guitar, |
| songs and concentrate on learning how to play them? | | | | you can always take a lesson or two from a |
| What makes learning guitar more confusing is the fact | | | | professional teacher just to make sure you haven't |
| that everybody who learns seems quite happy to | | | | acquired too many bad habits and to help with charting |
| have taken the path that they took and, in hindsight, | | | | a course for your guitar music progress. |
| would not have done anything different. Anyway, | | | | One experience you could do well to share with a |
| maybe talking to friends who already have been | | | | guitar teacher is learning from a printed guitar tutor. If |
| through the learning journey would probably be a good | | | | you choose one of good guitar lesson books you |
| start. Did they learn to play by starting on chords? Or | | | | already have a structured learning program and |
| scales? How do people feel about their abilities as a | | | | sharing the learning with an experienced guitarist who |
| guitar player after a few years of fooling around in a | | | | can add his own perspective to the info in the book. |