Are you a beginner guitarist? If so, then give yourself a pat on the back! You’ve decided to learn one of the greatest instruments out there. The guitar has a beautiful sound, diverse harmonic possibilities, easy portability, and appears in many different musical styles.

I’ve decided to list 7 things beginner guitarists should know in order to get you moving in the right direction!

Many beginner guitarists start learning with the impression that the guitar is an “easy” instrument. Unfortunately, this commonly-held belief isn’t true! I think many beginners are disheartened when they expect guitar playing to be simple and don’t find that to be the case.

The easiest part of guitar is supposed to be learning basic chords, but even that can take some time. I think you’re better off being realistic about learning guitar. It’s not easy, and you won’t master anything right away. In fact, nothing worth doing is ever easy, so you shouldn’t be looking for that in the first place.

All of that said, guitar playing doesn’t need to be especially hard either. If you’re thoughtful and you practice consistently, then you’ll improve quickly without torturing yourself in the process.

The main thing is to be realistic. Also, don’t give up if you have a hard time with something. Every part of guitar playing gets easier with practice. Be patient and try to enjoy the ride.

All beginner guitarists should be practicing slowly as often as possible. Slow practice is without question the fastest way to improve. It will allow you to play accurately and develop good technique right from the start, which is key to long-term progress.

If you’re like most people, your default practicing speed is too fast. I know it might already feel like you’re going slow (especially compared to your guitar idols), but you might still be rushing things and making mistakes.

In order to consistently play slowly, you need to work on your mental game. Try clearing your mind before you start to practice.

If you don’t feel peaceful and relaxed, you won’t play slowly enough. When you can feel frustration building up during a practice session, ask yourself if you’re going too fast.

Always remember: slow playing yields fast progress, while fast playing yields no progress.

It may help you to pretend you’re caught in slow motion. In fact, try doing a couple of everyday tasks around the house in slow motion. You’ll soon see how challenging it is to do anything slowly, let alone practice guitar that way.

The reason slow practice works is because your brain always learns what you do, not necessarily what you’re trying to do. That means when you practice mistakes, you "get better" at making the same mistakes! 

Slow playing allows you to play much better than you’d otherwise be able to. Repeat good playing, and soon you’ll be able to speed things up no problem. However, if you repeat sloppy playing, you’ll play sloppily at any speed.

I’ll leave you with this amazing video on the importance of slow playing.

Too many guitarists are more focused on their fingers than on the music they’re making. In starting guitar, your impulse will be to stare at your hands, especially your left hand as it shapes each chord.

You’ll learn much faster if you focus on the sounds you’re making and take your technique as secondary.

This music-first approach is actually better for your fingers in the long run. We all have a strong musical instinct but virtually no instinct for guitar playing.

Therefore, we should let our fingers follow our musical wishes, rather than the other way around. It’s amazing what our fingers can do when we simply forget about them and let them do their job.

This advice applies equally well when you’re watching another guitarist play. You might be impressed by the actions of their fingers, but you’ll learn even more by zeroing in on the sounds they’re getting out of the instrument. More than anything, a musical technique is a beautiful technique.

Music theory can really jump-start your ability as a guitarist. The more you know about the music you’d like to play, the easier it will be to produce those sounds on the guitar.

I know that music theory can be intimidating, but any effort you’re willing to put in will certainly reward you in the long run. Theory knowledge is often the difference between a good guitarist and a great one.

I’m not going to deny the fact that many excellent guitarists don’t seem to know much about theory, but they tend to be the exception rather than the norm.

I would argue that these guitarists tend to know more about theory than they let on, plus they’ve essentially absorbed the logic of theory through years of musical experience.

If you’d like to get started learning theory, then you should probably check out this post. The good news is that the basics of theory are actually pretty simple. You just need to take the plunge!

Everyone’s heard some variation of the idea that “attitude counts,” but I’m here to tell you that it REALLY does.

The reason? Your attitude will almost single-handedly determine your guitar-playing destiny. Let me illustrate this idea with a few simple hypotheticals.
 

A tale of two guitarists:
 

Guitarist A believes that he’s not a natural musician. He watches talented guitar players with envy, thinking that they’re so lucky to have such skill.

Guitarist A can’t practice for too long because he gets down on himself and starts to think he’ll never get better. He can’t imagine that “good” players were ever as bad as he is.

These negative thoughts spiral out of control, and soon he’s barely practicing at all. Years pass, and presently when he sees guitarists perform he thinks, “I tried that, but I was never any good. Oh, well.”

Guitarist B believes that she can learn to be as good as any other guitarist. She knows it take a lot of hard work, but she finds guitar practice to be the best part of her day, so she keeps at it. Before long, she starts to see results, which motivates her to keep pressing forward.

A few years pass, and guitarist B becomes more capable on the guitar than she ever could have imagined.

As you can see from the hypotheticals above, what each guitarist believed at the start (their attitude toward playing) greatly influenced their fates as guitarists.

Positive attitudes lead to positive feedback loops, including practicing, studying theory, listening to more music, and so forth. Meanwhile, negative attitudes lead to downward spirals, including skipping practice, hating/fearing theory, and even quitting altogether.

So be sure to watch your attitude! Also, never underestimate the power of your mind as a tool for musical advancement. For more discussion on these concepts, check out this post.

Sight-reading is the art of performing a piece upon seeing it for the first time. It’s all about putting new music in front of you and attempting to play it without practicing first. I know this may seem difficult (if not impossible) for inexperienced players, but with enough practice anyone can become a great reader.

As you might guess, the key to becoming a confident sight-reader is to do it as often as possible.

To get started, I recommend you get a hold of some really easy music (relative to your level) and do your best to slowly play through it. I’d do this in short sessions at first, stopping whenever you get tired.

I realize that frequent sight-reading seems like a tall order, but if you can get yourself to do it, the rewards are enormous.

Good sight-readers can basically play a lot of new music right away. This enables them to learn new pieces very quickly, and it also allows them to cover a ton of musical ground.

In my view, sight-reading is also the fastest way to master the fretboard. If you play through a lot of different music, you’ll be exposed to a variety of patterns and positions, all of which will soon become second-nature.

You’ll know the fretboard by heart because you make frequent use of it, rather than memorizing it through a meaningless system.

Want to read more about sight-reading, including tips for beginners? Check out this post on the topic.

Many guitarists will tell you that there are no shortcuts to learning our instrument. In a certain way, I agree with them. However, I also believe that shortcuts do exist in a sense, and if you’re smart you can profit from them.

To simplify things, I’m going to liken mastering the guitar to climbing a mountain. Beginners stand on the bottom of the mountain looking up, while advanced players explore the peaks.

There are many paths up the mountain. Some paths are long and gradual, with many plateaus and resting places. These paths tend to be well-worn.

Other paths are steep and difficult, yet much shorter to the top. Each path has its own advantages and disadvantages, and some individuals are more suited to one path than another.
 

The steepest path up the mountain

So, what’s the shortcut? Well, it’s nothing more than the shortest path up the mountain; the steepest and most difficult path. While this path isn’t for everyone, it’s perfect for individuals who aspire to learn guitar as soon as possible and have the willpower to make that happen.

The steepest path of guitar progress requires significant dedication. “How much time should I put into learning guitar?” quickly becomes “How much time can I afford NOT to be learning guitar?”

The secret is to approximate total immersion. I say “approximate” because even if we can’t totally immerse ourselves in music and guitar playing, we can approach it by degrees.

For instance, by practicing in short (5-20 min) sessions many times throughout the day, we can create the feeling (or illusion) that we’re always playing. Thus we rapidly gain fluency on the instrument.

I’ll list a few other strategies that should put you on a steeper path below:
 

• Sight-reading (to create fretboard fluency, cover musical ground, identify technical weaknesses, etc.)
• Technical work (to strengthen the muscles which control the fingers, to eliminate all physical difficulties)
• Musical study (listen closely to music, study scores, read books about music, learn theory, consider ear training, etc.)
• Play slowly (fast progress comes from slow playing . . . you need to believe this and act on it)
• Mental work (all types of practice can be done in the mind, plus you should actively shape productive attitudes/narratives about yourself and your guitar playing)

If you’re looking for more discussion around these ideas, I suggest you explore this post.