June 18, 2010
4 Mistakes New Guitar Players Make
Learning how to play the guitar is really not as easy as most people believe. You must learn basic theory, plenty of chords that can be quite tricky to master, and even how to move between chords quick enough to put a song together. However, once you begin to get the hang of these basics, you will know all of your hard work was well worth the effort. You will be able to play your favorite songs any time you want without even thinking about it. Learning will be even quicker if you can avoid making the following four common beginner mistakes:
Trying To Move Too Fast: Sorry this is a boring one I know, but you can’t try to fast forward through all the basic stuff to get to the good songs and chords, it doesn’t work. There is a certain amount of boring stuff you need to master, and if you just skim through it and move on then it will hamper you later on. So learn about scales, major and minor, learn how to read the notes and not rely completely on guitar tablature, try fingerpicking, plus memorize and practice it all, you will get to the ‘good’ stuff soon.
Getting Stuck On Barre Chords: Many beginners struggle with barre chords; they took me months to master. These chords require one finger to lie across several different strings, and they can be very difficult to start with. A good number of people simply give up when they get to this stage, as they just cannot grasp the concept, or they get too hung up on them and won’t continue learning other things at the same time.
While you should still practice barre chords every day, you should also learn other things at the same time. Devote half of your practice sessions to barres, and half to new material. This will keep you from becoming frustrated and when you do master the barre chords, you will have a bunch of new skills to go along with them.
Disregarding Rhythm: A metronome may not scream rock and roll, but it is quite helpful to get you used to sticking with the rhythm of a song. Many people simply play a song the way they think it should sound, without actually paying attention to the real rhythm. You can get away with this to a certain extent, but if you want to play with others, or to a backing track, you need to play properly. If you do not, you may find yourself speeding up on the chorus, or playing much slower at the tricky parts.
Lazy Practice: Do not get lazy with your practice sessions. It is very important that you strive for excellence each time you play, so that you can progress faster. If you play too fast, and ignore your mistakes, your playing will suffer. Make sure each note and chord is perfect before you speed things up. The more time you dedicate to learning, the better your playing will become.
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