How to begin learning to play

[raysachs]

There are as many "best ways" and "easiest ways" to learn to play as there are people who have learned to play. You'll get a lot of personal stories here of what worked for each of us. No telling what will work for you, but maybe some of the advice you'll get here will make more sense to you than others and serve as a good jumping off point.

I started learning when I was 18, just bought a cheap guitar and a friend showed me a handful of common open chords to start with. That kept me busy for a while and then someone showed me a minor pentatonic scale in just one position. Almost every great blues solo you've ever heard starts with a pentatonic scale and just learning that one scale, those five notes each played twice within three frets of each other got me started plinking around to records. I'd just keep trying different positions on the fretboard until one sounded right, and that was the key the song was in. Just playing little three and four note solos got me started in what improvising was about, before I even had my chords down. I just kind of felt my way with these very simple building blocks I'd been shown by friends and I always found a way to have fun with it. The hard part was getting even a little bit smooth with changing chords and building some callouses on fingertips so it didn't physically HURT so much.

But after the first few weeks of that, it was basically all fun. I think I bought a book of Neil Young songs "made easy for guitar" which basically showed each song in a key where the chords were the simplest and easiest to play. So with that I started learning how to combine those chords into songs. And I don't think I was more than a few months into it when a buddy and I who were both in the same really early stages of learning, would play these songs together and sort of "jam" taking turns playing the chords and trying to do some simple little improvisations using the simple scale we'd learned. At that point, it's very rude, crude, and rudimentary, but it was music and it was FUN. And 40 years later, that's been the key for me, always trying new stuff that promised more fun along the way.

So, there's one data point for you. May not work for many, and by the standards of getting really good, I guess it didn't work for me, because I'm not really good. But I'm good enough to have endless amounts of fun playing music and that's all I ever wanted from it anyway.

Good luck - find a way to learn that you enjoy. You're much more likely to stick with it that way...

-Ray

[Kenbike]

Had zero music training and decided at 52 to learn how to play. Found a local guitar instructor that would teach the tab method and have been going ever since.
Can play lots of songs be strumming, finger picking, and flat picking.
I focused on the music I enjoy but still can't sing.

[musicman1951]

Tough times lately, but I suggest at least one lesson with a quality guitar teacher. If you have a college near you with a music department that would be a perfect place to call (normally: don't know about now). You can often find bargain priced lessons from an almost music teacher.

Technique is pretty simple, but important. You want someone to get you started with the proper hand position.

You'll get some great suggestions soon about online offerings (I started way too many years ago to have that information).

Learn to play the guitar. That is the first step, but you have to play something. Do you want to be able to read/play classical guitar music or just strum some chords so you can sing along - and everything in between.

Do what makes you happy, but if you can't read music you are limiting your future choices.

[BlueStarfish]

Do you already have a musical background, from playing some other instrument? If so then there are quite a few good teach-yourself resources, which can help you learn guitar (assuming you already know and understand music). Live lessons can help too, but a determined learner can make a lot of headway on their own.

If you don’t have a musical background already, then the task is a little different. You need to learn not only guitar, but also music in general. In that case, I would think it’s much more important to go with live lessons.

[Mycroft]

Originally Posted by Wil23

Hello everybody,
I'am a beginner and i like to know what is the easiest way to learn to play the guitar.

Well, first you need to acquire a guitar...

Then make sure that said guitar is setup (adjusted) so to be as easy to play as possible. Things like height the strings are above the frets, relief (the arc) of the necks, etc. Many guitars, particularly less expensive ones, come with a horrible setup. It is well worth the relatively slight expense if you nee dto pay a shop to adjust it.

More people become disillusioned with playing guitar because a guitar that is itself difficult to play than for any other reason.

[jseth]

Ditto on the setting up of your instrument... having a guitar that plays as "easily" as possible is paramount to assisting in the learning curve...

But mostly? JUST PLAY!!!

At this stage, you know NOTHING, so EVERY BIT of qualified knowledge you can accrue will assist you in playing... as you go, you will discard some ideas and develop others.

Playing guitar is not a "race"... it truly is about the journey, and that journey will not end unless you stop.

You have a lot of fun ahead of you! Why not start NOW...

[KitKat1]

One of the more useful things I started to do at one point in the early stages was to sing a phrase from a simple children's song like Row, Row, Row Your Boat, and try to pick it out on the guitar. Sing the fist note, can you find it? Then try to pick out the rest of the tune. Start on one string only and learn about the spaces between the frets. Then fool around with doing the same but on two adjacent strings. If you enjoy it, try to find many places on the guitar, using the whole fretboard, where you can play the simple melody. This should be just a doodling exercise, like what a kid might do. This is not to supplant other lessons but its a good'un and will pay off.

[vindibona1]

I think there are two aspects in successfully getting going on guitar: Left hand fluidity and a logical, and easy approach to begin getting around the fingerboard. And that begins with learning the basic "cowboy chords". These chords have specific shapes that are similar to one another. So understanding how they are both similar and different, and how they can transition from one to another you can be well on your way to playing songs in weeks, if not days. As you learn to form these chords, your hand begins to become more flexible, pliable and familiar with the feel of the guitar's neck, fingerboard and string positions. Fluidity seems to follow automatically with the right time and dedication.

The right hand can initially be kept very simple as the left hand begins to become familiar with movement across the fingerboard. Once chord changes become more fluid, then more advanced strums and basic plucking can be introduced, and ultimately developed.

The reason I like this approach is because not only does it introduce the guitar, it introduces basic music theory. Once, in a very short time, you start playing songs with the chords you learn initially, you begin to see the relationship between them and how they tend to move in similar patterns. This becomes the understanding of basic "root progressions". From that it is easy to understand the variations that come later.

I know a lot of guys like to teach scales and standard notation reading etc, and that's great. But IMO that comes after you develop some feel for the instrument. I find that single note playing comes easier after learning chords, more so than the other way around. JMO YMMV

[Charmed Life Picks]

Wil23:

Welcome to AGF.

A lot of great suggestions and ideas here.

If you're playing a steel string guitar, it will be important to begin to build some callouses on your fingertips. For some reason, that's always what I think of first on this topic going back lo! so many years.

scott memmer

[Ten]

Easiest way - Lock yourself in a room and play at least 12 hours a day for a few years.

You don’t want to know the hard way.

[Wil23]

Originally Posted by BlueStarfish

Do you already have a musical background, from playing some other instrument? If so then there are quite a few good teach-yourself resources, which can help you learn guitar (assuming you already know and understand music). Live lessons can help too, but a determined learner can make a lot of headway on their own.

If you don’t have a musical background already, then the task is a little different. You need to learn not only guitar, but also music in general. In that case, I would think it’s much more important to go with live lessons.

Yes, i play the piano. So i know the basics. And i tried to play the guitar 6 years ago, but i found it to hard. Now i want to try again. I have a different guitar now, and have found out that this one is a lot easier to play. I learnt a few chords now. I try to learn it with YouTube. But a lot seem to like Justin guitar so i will try that. Thank you all for the advices.