How to Learn Guitar on Your Own

A person’s life becomes interesting when he or she is constantly learning new things. It can be complex or simple but learning new ideas, concepts, hobbies gives us joy and confidence. It makes our life adventurous. Most of the young children during their long vacations join for music, sports, or fun activities. Learning guitar has been an all-time favorite. The guitar has been an instrument of high demand always. This is because of the simplicity. The guitar is a string and fretted instrument. Strumming or plucking the strings and fretting creates beautiful melodies. Both hands are used to play the guitar. The sound of the guitar comes from the movement of those strings. There are three types of guitars and they are:

Acoustic guitars, classical guitars, and electric guitars.

The most important parts of the guitar and are common in all types of guitars are body, neck, headstock, strings, frets, pegs, nuts, fingerboard, bridge, and pickguard. Wood is used to make the body of the guitar. Then plastics, nylon, and syntheticare also used to make several guitar parts including the strings.

Some Terms related to the Guitar

Chords: Guitar chords are a set of notes played on the guitar. One set is consisting of three or more notes. The notes are playedsimultaneously. The guitar should be perfectly tuned to play the chords.
Interval: Interval is two notes played together. The chord can also be a set of intervals.
Triad: A three-note chord is called a triad.

There are two types of chords:

• Open chords: These are chords played in the first 3 frets. These are easier to play than barre chords. As a beginner,it is good to focus on open chords.
• Barre chords: These are chords played by barring index finger across 5 or 6 strings in one fret.

How to Play Guitar?

The guitar is the easiest instrument one can learn and many learn guitar by themselves. Some people find a good teacher and train under him or her. Both ways, learning the right techniques gives a good foundation and helps to master the guitar faster. When we observe great guitarists of all times, we can see they have a good technique.

• Hold the guitar properly lays a solid foundation. The thumb of a person’s hand should be behind the neck of the guitar. As a beginner, it will be hard to bring the play in a specific way we are not comfortable with but with a lot of practice, we can achieve the right way.
• Same way, sitting and playing guitar is the easiest and popular way but as a beginner, it is better to stand and practice. When you sit and play there is a tendency to bend forwards to see the hand movements so it is best to play guitar on your shoulders with adjustable strap.
• Learning new things can be a stressful and straining process so it is recommendable to gradually improve your skills. This will give you a good base and once a solid base is laid, speed will come naturally.
• Learning the correct fingering technique makes playing scales and chords accurate and easy. Hand-mind coordination is the secret of playing guitar successfully and this comes automatically through regular practice. Dedicate a minimum of 15 minutes of practice to achieve the best results.
• Relax and do not overstrain your body and mind because sometimes learning a new thing can be stressful and can drive you crazy in the beginning (most of them quit at the beginning itself).
• Strumming and playing chords are important features that add depth to guitar playing. We should not ignore any one of these so practicing both regularly is required.

How to Learn Guitar on Your Own?

There are no apps or software good enough to replace an experienced teacher who can guide you through different steps personally. But a person might have 100 reasons to learn guitar by themselves, difficulty to find a good teacher; cost for learning; commutation; busy work schedules; can be some, etc. Below are some suggestions to learn the guitar on your own.

Tuning guitar

As a young player,the first thing you need to learn is to tuning a guitar. A person’s practice and training can be in vain if the guitar is not properly tuned. There is a very good yet less expensive digital tuner that can help a beginner with tuning the guitar accurately. Tuning by ear comes by practice and acquaintance so, to begin with, a digital tuner can be very helpful.

Learning some basic chords

Learning the basic chords will be essential as a young enthusiast. In guitar, there are many tricks and techniques to learn that will help you master the art. It will surely take some long run to learn hardcore playing techniques, chords, chord progression, etc. Start with some simple chords. $some of the simple chords that we can learn as a beginner are E minor, G major, C major, A minor, etc. It might be hard to play these chords with clarity at first but through thorough practice and patience, we will be able to achieve our goals.

Learn some simple songs

It is not possible to learn the whole chords and then start playing songs. Learning to play some simple songs can give you an idea about chords and it can also improve a person’s strumming skills. It is easy to find chords for simple music and then you can start practicing those easy progressions, which can loosen up your hands and can give you the idea of music as a whole.

Fretting accurately

Learning the correct fretting technique gives you clear chords. Following preset fretting or fingering pattern will give you desired results.

Repeated practicing

Practicing daily and thoroughly is the only way for you to become a successful guitarist. Spending at least 10 to 15 minutes of dedicated time can work magic. Once you get the hand mind coordination, learning any chords can be achieved with very little effort and you will get this only by continuous training and repeating.

These days, YouTube tutorial videos have become popular. You can learn a lot from them. However, a guide could be of great help!

Even if you do not have a professional teacher, it is always advisable to seek help from a mentor. A mentor can be your friend, colleague, or neighbor who is well acquainted with the guitar.