Many, if not most, guitarists these days are self-taught. This generally means that instead of paying for guitar lessons or going to school for music, they learn the guitar without any kind of close expert guidance.

The internet makes this choice uniquely possible. After all, it would be much harder to “teach yourself” guitar without having access to countless free online resources. Videos in particular can largely substitute for an in-person teacher, and even blog posts can be invaluable tools!

Being a self-taught guitarist is a great option for many people. You can save yourself some money, learn at your own pace, and pursue any music you like. However, every approach has its downsides. This post is about avoiding some common pitfalls of teaching yourself guitar.

A formal music education is thoughtfully structured. If you learn from a good teacher (and certainly if you go to school for music) you’ll find all of your bases covered.

Being self-taught means you need to make a lot of decisions about your own education and method that, being a newcomer, you won’t really be qualified to make. Inevitably, you’ll waste time and energy in the process.

That said, those early stages of fumbling around by yourself can also be useful. Sure, you have to put in the extra effort of forging your own path, and that can be intimidating for many. However, once you land on a method that works, you might be much better off than simply doing what someone else tells you to do.

You might even discover a creative approach to guitar that few professional teachers would consider!
 

Be Sure to Diversify

My view is that, whatever method you use or create, it should be somewhat diversified. By this I mean that you don’t want all your “learning” eggs in one basket.

If you spend all your time on one song, for instance, you’re bound to link your feeling of learning guitar with that one piece of music, which can be really discouraging (especially since beginners, enthusiastic about music they love, often try to learn pieces well beyond their abilities).

Another way to diversify your method is to have many different types of practice sessions. Most beginners form a routine of “monopractice,” meaning they always do the same thing when they sit down with the guitar.

Instead, you should think in terms of repertoire practice, sight-reading practice, technical practice, theory practice, ear-training practice, improvisation practice, mental practice, and so forth. Not that you need to do all of the above, of course, but your practicing should at least be varied and interesting.

The larger point I’d like to make is that teaching yourself guitar can equally be an asset or a liability. It’s all about the kind of person you are and the extent to which you apply yourself to the instrument. Above all else, a successful self-taught guitarist needs to believe in themselves and trust their musical instincts.

Self-taught guitarists usually have difficulty learning good technique. Some guitar teachers explain this by saying that students can’t “see themselves playing,” and usually develop awkward or sub-optimal movements as a result. But if that were truly the issue, a mirror or recording device would be enough to resolve technical issues on the spot.

My view is that technical problems ultimately stem from philosophical ones. Guitarists who teach themselves seldom understand the importance of good technique. Good teachers, on the other hand, impart technical wisdom right from the start. Were beginners to realize the power of technique, I think they’d pursue it so doggedly as to make any teacher proud.
 

What Counts as Good Technique?

The first step to having good technique is to accept its logical necessity. Technical work is critical because, at its best, it allows you to perform every physical action on the guitar very easily. Bad technique may enable you to play difficult passages, but you’ll be making them look equally difficult to onlookers. With good technique, you can make even virtuosic playing look natural and enjoyable.

For guitar players, common technical issues include chord changes, strumming, fingerstyle patterns, hammer-ons and pull-offs, barre chords, scale runs, and left-hand shifts. This list is by no means exhaustive, but it should be enough to give you a sense of what good technique must overcome.

Good technique also includes other details of playing, such as how you hold the guitar, angle your wrists, strike each string, and fret notes. You need to do all these things in an intelligent way or else waste precious energy.

The two central concepts to remember here are:

1) Use minimal effort to get the best musical result.

2) Keep each (finger, wrist, elbow, shoulder) joint in the middle range of its motion as often as possible.

Any technique, no matter how funky-looking, that meets these two criteria is totally valid in my book.

One final note:

Although you will find guitar technique most systematically presented in the pedagogy of classical guitar, every style of guitar has its own solutions to its own central problems. If you can, you should make your technical study as wide as it is deep.

This one is a bit controversial. Truth be told, many guitarists who take lessons aren’t even taught a whole lot of music theory, so why should self-taught guitarists learn it?

For me, music theory is be a tremendous help to all musicians, including guitar players. It’s a way to understand the underlying logic behind the songs we know and love.

Truth be told, music theory isn’t equally important across every style of guitar. However, if you’re especially interested in classical, jazz, or blues guitar, then you’ll find theory to be essential knowledge.

Plus, any guitarist (in any style) who wants to be the best player they can be should learn as much as possible about the formal side of music. It only helps! Trust me.

All of that said, I would never argue that theory is an absolute necessity for guitar players. Many excellent players get by just fine without it. Be assured, however, that these players tend to be the exception rather than the norm.

In fact, many professional guitarists who can’t read music (which is a certain kind of theory illiteracy) nevertheless have a thorough knowledge of chords, scales, intervals, and rhythms, all of which pertain to theory. That is to say, they tend to know more than they let on.

Above all, I’d advise you not to be afraid of music theory. It may seem intimidating at first, but any amount of effort you put in will be rewarded threefold in your musicianship.

You don’t need to be a musicologist, either. If you don’t feel passionate about theory, even just a basic understanding of musical time, pitches, intervals, chords, scales, and keys should be plenty.

Sight-reading is about putting new music in front of you (tabs, standard notation, or chord progressions) and performing it to the best of your ability. Anyone familiar with this blog knows that I’m a huge advocate of sight-reading, and I consider it one of the best ways to practice and improve quickly.

Frequent reading will expose you to a host of new scales, rhythms, intervals, and chord shapes, as well as allow you to cover a ton of musical ground. This will round you out as a musician in a major way; you’ll start to see the same left- and right-hand patterns repeatedly, and you’ll be more capable each time you encounter them.

Another bonus is that the better you become at sight-reading, the faster you’ll learn new pieces. Good readers can play through a lot of new songs right away, which is almost like “learning” them instantly. Difficult sections will still need work, of course, but you’ll turn weeks or months learning new pieces into days or even hours.

The hardest part is getting started. For a full guide to sight-reading for beginners, you should head over to this post.

Suffice to say, the key is to start slow and easy. Pick music that’s very simple at first and work your way up. Also be sure to practice in short sessions.

Sight-reading is exhausting and discouraging at first, so you shouldn’t be afraid to try it for a few minutes, take a break, and then try again. In time, you’ll be able to do it for much longer, and you’ll have a lot more fun. The effort is totally worth it!

Perhaps more crucial than any instrumental guidance, a guitar teacher can provide their student with a sense of musical purpose. They can help their pupil through moments of frustration or hopelessness.

This sort of mentorship is often sorely missed by self-taught players. Unfortunately, they tend to navigate the mental trials of learning guitar on their own.

The truth is, self-taught guitarists need to be their own musical psychologists. They need to keep tabs on their emotions, making sure to stay centered. For me, it always helps to remember that hard work really does pay off. That way when I run into a challenging moment, I see it as a long-term investment.

The pianist Franz Liszt was known to have said (I’m paraphrasing because I can’t find the exact quote), “I worked so hard when I was young that I never have to work again.”

For me, this concept applies largely to barre chords. I used to hate them and avoid them. Then I realized I needed to take the fight straight to the enemy. I was sick of barres holding me back. So I did barring drills on a daily basis for months on end and now, finally, they’re not something I worry about anymore.

My general point is that our mental cycles almost totally determine our destiny as guitarists. If we get trapped in a vicious cycle of negativity, hopelessness, and disappointment, then we’re bound to give up before we’ve really tried.

However, if we stay optimistic, passionate, and fearless, we can meet some really far-fetched musical goals.

For more discussion about the mental side of guitar playing, check out this post.