This is a great time to learn how to play guitar! We are in some crazy times right now. We are in the middle of a crazy pandemic, stuck at home watching TV, watching YouTube videos, or just hanging out. It is a difficult time for most people.
But do you know that this a GREAT time to learn something new? Time to do something different – time to learn how to play Guitar!
I have talked to so many people who want to learn how to play guitar but never get around to it. Many of the people I know have a guitar sitting around, but they have never played it – or played it very little.
I hear the same thing over and over again – “I don’t have the patience,” or “It is too hard to learn,” or even better yet “I don’t have the time.”
There has never been a better time to learn guitar than right now. Anyone can learn how to play, no matter how old or how young. It just takes the willingness to learn.
Here is the key – you must have the right expectations right from the start. You will not be Eddie Van Halen or Eric Clapton in your first month or even your first year. But you can get good enough to where you can sit and play with friends and have fun doing it. If you keep at for a year, you will most likely be a good guitar player.
Anyone can learn how to play and playing guitar is just a lot of fun!! It is time to get started.
What does it take to learn? As a guitar player with many years of experience in both coaching and actual playing, we will answer the most common questions;
- What is the best guitar for learning?
- What is the best way to learn the guitar?
- Can anyone learn to play the guitar? In other words, am I too old or too young to start learning the guitar?
What is the best guitar for learning?
There are two main types of guitars (there are more, but for this article, there are just two). An acoustic guitar and an electric guitar. The guitar you choose to learn on comes down to three things; your personal preference, the kind of music you like to play, and how easy the guitar is to play.
Acoustic Guitar
An Acoustic Guitar is made of wood and has a sound hole in the front face which creates sound modulation increasing the volume of the vibrating string. This produces a nice large sound when you strum the strings. This is perfect when you are playing songs together with others.
You do not need any additional equipment with an acoustic guitar. Just pick out the one you like and you are ready to start playing.
The body is larger than an electric guitar because it is hollow. This can make an acoustic guitar more difficult to hold on to for a younger person. However, now you can buy a smaller sized acoustic guitar which makes it easier for a young person to play.
The neck of the acoustic guitar is slightly larger than an electric guitar and the string gauges are heavier. You need heavier string gauges for the acoustic guitar to produce that nice large sound.
When learning to play open chords, that is not a problem. It actually sounds great! However, when you are learning barre chords (or bar chords), it takes a little extra to learn how to hold your fingers across the strings.
Electric Guitar
The electric guitar is a solid body and is smaller than an acoustic guitar. In order to produce the sound, you must plug the electric guitar into an amplifier. If you are just starting out, you would need to buy both the electric guitar and the amplifier.
The neck of the electric guitar is smaller, and the string gauges are lighter which makes the guitar easier to play. Holding down a chord, especially a 
barre chord, takes less effort and stress.
The tips of your fingers do not hurt as much, but you do not build those beneficial callouses as easy either. Callouses on the tips of fingers are important for guitarists!
If too much volume is an issue in your house, an electric guitar may be the better setup. You can practice your electric guitar while unplugged and nobody will hear you (This is what I do!) You can also plug headphones into an amplifier so that you can hear the effects without disrupting everyone in the house and neighborhood!
The blazing rock soloist and the cool jazz/blues guitar soloist is likely to play the electric guitar.
For either an acoustic or electric guitar, buy a guitar that works for you. Make sure that the action (the distance between the string and fretboard) is set low. When the action is set high, you have to work harder to play the guitar, and the sound is not as good.
What I have found (my opinion) is that it is slightly harder to learn on an acoustic guitar. With the heavier gauges of the strings, it is harder to hold chords on the neck. Until you build callouses on your fingers, it can be more difficult than an electric guitar. Barre chords can be even more difficult. But you do build nice callouses on your fingers faster.
I personally love to play the acoustic guitar, especially when jamming with friends.
I learned on an acoustic guitar. When I switched to an electric guitar, it was like “warm butter”. I could not believe how easy it was to play.
My son learned on an electric guitar but wound up switching to acoustic because of the sound, portability, and the strength that was produced in his fret hand. He became a very good guitarist.
At the end of the day, only you can decide which guitar is best for you. If you are in this for the long term, you will wind up owning both.
The good news is that guitar makers have produced acoustic and electric guitars for beginners that are easier to play. You can buy smaller scale guitars with lower string tension that sounds great. The set-ups are better, with lower action, and the sound quality is excellent. There has never been a better time to start playing guitar.
What is the Best Way to Learn the Guitar?
I have taught many beginners how to play guitar.
I have watched a lot of these people throughout the years start out and then get really good in a short time. All it took was patience, persistence, and practice. It really does not take that long if you work at it every day. You will find that in no time, you are able to play along with songs that you like.
I believe that once you learn the foundational skills, then it becomes much easier to learn the advanced lessons of the guitar.
When I first started playing guitar, I found it tedious, frustrating, and painful. I did not like it at first. Over time, I kept at it and it started to get fun. All guitar players start this way and if you are a beginner, you will too.
Below is what I tell beginning and intermediate guitar players is the best way to learn how to play guitar.
1. Stay Focused, Set Goals, and Be Persistent.
It is really easy to get distracted. Just because there are thousands of materials on guitar scales and chords on the internet, does not mean you should use all of them. The more learning materials you resort to at a time, the more likely you are to get distracted, confused, or even frustrated. Most 
people quit at that point.
Set a goal. A realistic goal is to learn five or six open chords and then play along with the songs that have those chords. The goal is to build your finger strength and coordination to master chords. You will start to find your own unique sound.
Be persistent about your practice and your learning. Everyone that starts out learning the guitar gets discouraged and frustrated. Until you build your finger strength and coordination, it will seem difficult.
If you are an intermediate guitar player, learn new songs and techniques to keep the guitar playing fresh.
2. Learn the Easy Chords First
Learning how to play open chords is the easiest way to learn how to play guitar. I would say that in 30 days or less, you can learn to play open chords and open chord progressions to a point where you can play ten or more songs really well.
There are five major open chords and three minor chords to learn right away: A, Am C, D, Dm E, Em, and G. These are the eight essential guitar chords to learn. There is also a minor and 7th version of these chords that you will need to learn. These are all simple and you can learn them on this site. See all guitar string notes for a bigger overview of the chords and notes
There are hundreds of songs that have these easy chords that you can learn right away and sound like a pro. I will teach you how to play these chords on this website as well as songs that contain these easy chords. Stick with me here and you will be on your way to learning the guitar.
It makes a lot of sense graduating from the ‘easy’ chords to the ‘tough’ chords rather than vice versa. Also, there is always an easy version of a guitar chord and it makes sense you master the easy versions first before moving to the tougher ones.
For example, instead of starting with the standard A-minor on the neck (which is easy), you can start with A-minor7 (still on the neck) which a lot simpler than the standard A-minor chord.
The C-major7 chord (on the neck) is a lot easier to start with compared to the C-major chord, and also, the G6 is much simpler, to begin with, compared to the G-major chord. The goal here is to enjoy every step of your learning and make sense of every bit. Learn and enjoy the C major chord first. Then you move on to the G major and B chord on guitar. It’s all in enjoying the journey along the way!
If instead, you’d rather start with a scale and familiarize yourself with the notes, start with the A Major Scale for guitar
3. Learn the Basic/Universal Strumming Patterns
Strumming is an important part of learning the guitar. Strumming creates the rhythm and can make a difference with how a song sounds.
But, you don’t have to go all out to learn the tricky and seemingly fancy strumming patterns in the beginning. The most basic and universal strumming will do as this will enable you to play most songs.
So how do you do that? Play along with common songs and songs that you like. Learn the strumming patterns and chord changes. Strumming is the rhythm behind the guitar playing and there are universal methods of strumming. Learn the basics.
Keep it simple at first!
4. Play along with Songs
This is the secret to learning guitar; learn to play along with songs. Find a song on your music app and play right along with it. You can pause and restart until you get the song down. This is what I do all the time, and what I teach others to do.
Start with simple songs. Learn the strumming patterns, the timing, and the chord changes. Also, pick different songs with different musicians. You will find after a while that all musicians have their own style. You can pick up different styles of playing as you play along with different songs
It helps to play along with songs that you like. It makes the entire learning process much easier, encouraging, and much more fun if you are learning songs you enjoy. It is just a lot of fun to play along with cool songs that you like and then you can play with your friends.
Don’t bother yourself with complex Jazz and Blues standards you do not enjoy because you want to impress a tutor or even your friends. Love every bit of it!
5. Learn the Musical Notes on the Guitar
Yes, you will need to learn some music theory. It is important to learn all the notes on the guitar. The time to start learning them is right away.
You do not need to learn them in order to start playing, but you need to learn them – it is not that hard. It will help you in the long run to know the notes on the guitar.
How to easily remember the notes on the guitar
The simplest way to remember the guitar string notes is to make use of a mnemonic:
- Elephants
- And
- Dogs
- Grow
- Big
- Ears
6. Practice
The more you practice, the faster you will learn how to play. The way that you get good at playing guitar is by knowing the chord shapes and building finger muscle memory. That happens by practicing every day.
You should be setting aside a minimum of thirty minutes a day to practice guitar and learn the guitar. How should you practice?
- Warm-up your fingers each time.
- Learn two chords right away and learn them well. Try to do this in the first week.
- Learn the notes in all of the chords (this is very easy to do).
- Pick a song with those chords in them and learn the song.
- Play along to the song and learn the strumming techniques in the song.
- Learn a new chord each week.
Anyone Can Learn to Play the Guitar
For some reason, there is a mindset that you have to be the perfect age to start learning guitar. There is no perfect age to start playing the guitar, just a perfect time – which is now!
Anyone who loves the guitar can learn how to play. It does not matter how old or how young you are, you can learn to play any musical instrument. There has never been a better time to learn! With consistency and the right approach, you can play the guitar no matter what.
I have seen people in their forties and fifties pick up the guitar for the first time and in a short period become very good guitarists.
I watched a guy first learn how to play guitar in his forties. He started by learning chords and playing along with simple songs. At first, he wasn’t doing very well- he did not sound good at all. He complained about his fingers hurting and how hard it was to hold down chords. I thought to myself – he is not going to last very long.
But, he kept at it.
He found a group of people who also played guitar, and he started playing with them. A few months later, he was playing songs and sounding really good. I was impressed!
After a while, he started taking advanced lessons to learn more about the guitar and music theory. He continued to practice and play and wound up becoming a very good guitarist. He now plays jazz guitar and performs regularly in clubs with his jazz band.
Age and musical talent do not matter. All it takes is the right motivation and persistence; anyone can learn how to play. After a short time, playing guitar is fun and the momentum builds from there.
Let’s get this going!