How long to get decent at guitar

The last thing you want is for your guitar playing to feel like a nagging chore. This is about doing something you love, connecting with music, connecting with your spiritual side and expressing yourself. You should view your guitar learning as a fun and lifelong journey.

Not a chore. And not something to rush. We put together a guide to help you narrow down the right starting guitar for your skills and goals — Best Beginner Guitar.

Your local music store will have guitar experts on hand to help you find the right guitar for your size, hand shape, playability, and type of music you want to learn. While some guitars look fancy, picking one that is a better fit will make your learning experience much easier. There are many types of guitar, but we always recommend a steel-stringed acoustic guitar as a beginner guitar.

Pro tip: Keep you guitar OUT of its case and somewhere you can see it and pick it up easily. You will play much more if you do this. Why do you want to learn guitar? There is no wrong answer here, but knowing what you are aiming for will help you measure your progress. With all goal setting, the more specific you can get into your reason why you want to learn guitar, the easier it will be to track your progress. It was the way he spoke to me and his talent which made me choose him as my teacher.

My lessons are geared towards blues. So he has taught me rhythm, making me wait for my desert lol soloing. I play till my fingers are burring everyday, sometimes up to 6 or 8 hours a day or more.

I started playing rhythm in my band just 6 months after learning guitar from absolute newby. Having passion to make music has been the thing for me. Oh and playing guitar has made me a better singer!

Hello Sir! My namenis nathan hardee been playing for about four years every day…hours a day sometimes. Completely self taught. I can play some stuff that blows my own mind, things id never think i could, such as red house by hendrix, and being able to just make up whatever i want in whatever key..

Ive studied theory on my own diligently and am still studying as it is an endless task it seems. I know i probably have many bad habits… anywho, iask of you sir seriously. If there was maybe one piece of advice or knowledge that may help spark my mind and concept of guitar what would it be. Think well about it, it could be whatever you wanted. Something a person may have told you that just, put things together or made something click for you.. Hi, it would be that you join a band.

Learning from and playing with other musicians is a true game-changer. In that time I have learned much. I have five positions of the pentatonic scale, Barre chords, open chords, improvisation, a couple of songs and rhythm work under my belt.

When it started playing guitar my decision was to just play Blues because I am a blues fanatic. My first teacher was on with this and geared my lessons towards that. I recently decided to try a second teacher. So at this point in time I have two teachers. The second teacher is a blues guitarist and he is very highly accomplished in the Blues world.

My first three lessons with this new teacher have just been on rhythm. His way of teaching is to get you playing rhythm and then jumping from rhythm into soloing. I have kept a log of my hours since I started playing guitar and I am just at hours in 15 months. I average 20 to 28 hours practice every week.

I play one hour in the morning before work and then between 2 and 4 hours at night. When I started out I thought that I might be able to start a blues band, or Join one, in a couple of years. I think maybe three to four years would be more realistic. Hi Mark, thanks for sharing your story.

One thing though, I think you will be able to join an amateur band much sooner with your dedication. Keep it up! I started playing at 15 and will be 45 next week.

I will say that everything depends on your reason for wanting to learn how to play. People with a strong reason will endure the pain, use their frustration as a motivator to get better, and will likely have a tangible idea or vision of their guitar playing that gives rise to a lifelong desire to keep going, for all the right reasons.

I was a kid who had a need to be able to play the sounds I heard Jimi Hendrix play. However, I would suggest finding a good teacher. There are lots of good guitarists, but not many great guitar teachers.

There are many benefits. Hope this helps. I personally found using a combination of Songsterr and the Guitar pros on youtube who teach songs. I like to learn the technical stuff by taking it from a song I love. When I lose motivation I search for music new to me that I find inspiring. The scales are now the priority for moving me to the next level.

It seems timing related for if a lesson will click or not. If its a dry lesson go elsewhere or try find a cool song that utilises the theory you are trying to get your head around and let your fingers learn before your head.

And now I understand things will not change overnight. I need to put my heart and soul to learn this skill. Thank you TheGuitarLesson. I think the key question you have to ask yourself is this. Do you have the time to put in the practice? A lot of us would find it impossible to put in 4 to 6 hours of practice every day? Even 1 hour. Many of us are caught in the rat race working long hours.

When we get home from work all we want to do is relax and watch a bit of TV. If you can find an hour a day then I think you can learn a musical instrument albeit slowly. This is what I am planning on doing soon. I am planing to retire in so once I am retired I will be practicing that ideal 4 to 6 hours of practice each day. Another important question is this. Are you disciplined? It is similar to saying I will go jogging every day for 45 minutes but end up not doing that because it is easy to not make any effort.

It sounded so beautiful I immediately wanted to go out and buy a guitar and start learning. This time, I made it a goal to observe myself learning and improving each day I practice. The challenging part was building up finger dexterity when switching chords. Letting some of it soak in along with muscle memory, I can sometimes double the number of chord changes the following night.

Hi All, I am 59 and will retire at 60 soon! Is it too late to learn? I would really like to play an instrument before I kick the bucket. Thought about a keyboard, but something attracts me to the guitar. Any opinions? I started at 69 years old — nearly two years ago now. Driving myself turned into doing the same things and being happy with little improvement. Theory, scales, pentatonics, triads etc. Sometimes it does my head in but it is a challenge and I have started to improve again; quite significantly I believe, but it is hard work.

So a total of nearly hours practice and hours classes…. But so worth while! Thank you Alasdair!! I, too, have been wanting to play the guitar for many many years. Your comment of starting at 69 opens my eyes. Since covid19, and now retirement at 60, I have the time to pursue a lifetime goal. Two marriages, kids, now 7 grandkids, there was always never enough time. June 10, I started pounding my fingers. Learning with Guitar for dummies 4th edition, and a teacher virtually to learn music theory along the way.

I think what you say is most probably very true. I got to a good level very quickly when I started but this was because I was practicing around hours a day. I then decided to sell my guitar which I instantly regretted. I bought a new one about 6 months later but still never had the time to practice. Since then my ability has slowly started to disappear.

I have now decided that to restart guitar lessons, so I can relearn from the beginning, I have my first on Monday. Practice makes perfect and I regret not practicing enough or finding the time. You have some good advice but if your telling me some who has been learning for six months can play well your way off.

Unless they have slot of talent I have been playing. Please reread the article. I said after 6 months, you will get to an acceptable level of playing, where you start enjoying it all.

I was a decent Rhythm guitarist and played in a few bands. I always wanted to be a league of tourist, but I never quite gelled. I got laid off a few years ago and started reading Theory and guitar scales and a lot of stuff on YouTube.

I am still by no means I lead guitarist, but have a much better understanding of how things work. Circles of fifths and stuff like that. The only thing I would add to this conversation is you got some people are predestined to be excellent guitarist.

The level I might have attained in 10 years, some people might attain in one year due to their drive and their natural ability to adapt. Very inspiring, indeed I agree its all in the amount of time your fingers are on the strings. And that you be sure to practice on the things you find difficult and sticking with it in the beginning. And then any extra time just playing around and attempting songs even if they seem impossible and often are at this stage.

Also ive seen alot of people ask if theyre too old, Im 33 and have tried with teachers twice before in the past and got no where because i got discouraged too quickly on my own with dedication ive made leaps and bounds of progress so just stick to it! Im going to for sure! I have a dog called Daisy and have 3 kids…. But I have solved the 2 problems. Practice time is between 5 and 6 am.

And using site like these or Justin Guitar for learning. Great job! I just hit 1 year playing electric guitar, and actually I feel very identified with the description you gave: I can play popular riffs and make them sound good and I am more confident with my ability to play.

I like that you pointed out that practicing regularly will ensure that you will improve in playing the guitar in the quickest way possible. I will follow your advice since I plan to learn an instrument this coming May.

Thanks for the tips! In acquiring a complex skill — guitar playing, cooking, fly-fishing, etc. What matters is purpose-driven practice measured in hours. Hi im 40yrs old and i have been learning guitar for 6mths now doing lessons once a week and feel like im getting no where.

I can do somethings i know my basic chords i even know some bar cords. I practice minimum 1 hr a day or more but i cant change between chords quickly im basically stopping to change chords on some chords. My teacher is giving me 1 thing to go and learn for the week and shows me how 2 do it i play a couple of strings throughout my lesson then have to take it home to practice the next week i go back to my lesson he asks how did i go so i explain to him what im having trouble with and he says u will get it eventually and gives me something new to go and practice but i havent even got stuff i got 3 mths ago down packed each week i get something new.

The only song i can almost do which i do get behind in and still have some problems with is wish you where here by pink floyd. Is my guitar teacher doing the right by me learning guitar as it really doesnt feel like there is structure or direction something im aiming to get to move on to the next thing. No offense to you or your teacher, you need a new teacher. At the beginning, just as much as your fingertips can handle.

This might be minutes. As you develop calluses, you can increase your practice time. Is there any difference in how long it takes to learn the acoustic guitar vs the electric guitar? Are either of them easier to learn? Any tips for learning Spanish guitar? Where to start and how to progress? I just bought my guitar a week ago and practicing 1 hour a day. If you just started out, specializing in Spanish guitar is more down the line.

Also, Jamplay has a really good Spanish guitar course, but as I said, you need to be at an intermediate level to start with that:. I love this article. I am 15 years old and am looking to starting a band As Lead guitar after 6 months from now with two other begginers, a drummer with some background, and a rythem guitarist who is just starting as well as myself.

Is this too soon for a band? I am currently using Yousician and thinking about purchasing Rocksmith edition, as well as using any tabs and youtube videos.

You can learn a lot in 6 months if you really put your back into it. Hi there, you are definitely not too old to learn guitar. If you want to play like a true professional in years, meaning you plan on making a living off of your music, you have to devote a lot of time and effort to learning and mastering every aspect of playing the guitar.

The key point to remember is that splitting a long practice session up into smaller chunks improves the quality of your practice overall. In the previous chart on short practice sessions, you might have noticed that each extra practice session started off slightly lower than the previous one. Each new practice session is slightly less effective.

This is due to something called the Law of Diminishing Marginal Returns. In plain English, it means that each additional practice session is slightly less effective than the first one. Or every extra 10 minutes of practice will be slightly less effective than the previous 10 minutes. This is why super-long practice sessions can be a waste of time. The longer the session, the less effective that time will be.

Eventually, if you practice long enough, extra practice gives you very little or no extra benefit. This is why breaks are important. It helps your mind reset and come back to a practice session fresh. Key point to remember: the effectiveness of your practice decreases the longer you spend practicing. Taking regular breaks during a practice session is an important way to get the most out of your practice as explained earlier. An interesting study has also found that taking short second breaks throughout your practice can have a big impact on your learning.

The basic finding is that when you take a short second break during practice, parts of your brain will rapidly replay what you just practiced. This is important to understand. A lot of guitarists will sit down to practice a lick or scale and play non-stop for an extended time. Regularly taking short second breaks gives your brain a chance to analyze what you have been working on and rapidly replay the part over and over.

When you practice, take a second break every minute or two. Just stop playing and sit still for seconds, then go straight back to your practice. The study found that in the early learning phase eg: when you first try to learn a lick or scale , most of your ability gains will come from these short second rest periods.

Imagine an average person who likes to go for a swim once or twice per week. Each swimming session gives them a nice boost to their overall health.

In other words, each session gives them a massive amount of benefit for very little time. If they increased from swimming twice per week to three times per week, they will notice that their performance increases over time.

Each swimming session for an average person has a massive impact on their health and performance. Now imagine a swimmer training for the Olympics. Plenty of teachers will teach scales before you even start to look at a song. Realistically though, most of us learn to play guitar with the ambition of playing songs they know and love.

The quicker you can get to this goal, the better it is for your confidence and enthusiasm. There is nothing wrong with taking the quick route to playing songs. Though you are unlikely to be able to play full songs in your first day or two of playing guitar, it is not unrealistic that you could learn to play riffs and licks that people recognize. To play chords which you will realisticly need in order to play full songs your task is a little more complicated.

Chords will mean getting used to multiple hand shapes and moving between them, and though this will result in a fuller sounding song, it can be challenging and could take a couple of weeks to play even a few simple chords. These eight chords are enough to play a huge amount of songs. Without having to build up the finger strength and technique for bar chords, the process is quicker, and you can expect to learn three or four chords enough for a simple song in hours of practice time.

You are likely to make more errors at this stage, but being able to play something recognizable can be hugely rewarding. These beginner songs are brilliantly categorized in a way that can show exactly which chords you need to learn to be able to play simple songs.

This is an interesting subject of debate. When it comes to learning how to play guitar there are different schools of thought. The truth is, there are many ways to get to the end result of being able to play, and plenty of exceptional guitarists have never had a lesson in their life.

Learning the guitar in the modern age is easier than it ever was historically. Imagine trying to navigate a new instrument without the internet. It is truly incredible to have all this knowledge at your fingertips in the modern age, but has it completely eliminated the need for lessons? One huge advantage of guitar lessons is the interaction. If you are watching a video or reading chords or tabs and trying to play them then it is sometimes difficult to realize if your technique is not up to scratch.

There is a chance you can be playing a song wrong for a long time without ever noticing it. Another benefit of having lessons is the fact that they can be tailored to your needs. A good teacher will have lots of techniques and methods to help you to learn and keep the process exciting for you. If you have a day where you want to focus on something specific then a teacher should have specific exercises and methods to help you.

A weekly lesson can prove expensive. It also ties you to a certain time which has its own set of pros and cons. Our top tip for those who have the luxury of being able to have lessons is to take plenty of lessons at the start while you are developing your basic skills and understanding.