Hey, if you want to learn to play the acoustic guitar that’s awesome. Once you learn to play this can become a hobby and if you really enjoy playing it, you just may someday become a member of a regular band.

Personally, I would rather play an acoustic guitar than an electric guitar. I just love the feel and the sound you get from this kind of guitar. It’s great to play anywhere and its sound doesn’t drown out the vocals or other instruments like an electric guitar can. It’s much easier to bring it along with you than an electric guitar and also requires far less maintenance.

If you so chose to learn to play acoustic guitar, at first it will be difficult but will become easier if you practice it regularly. Believe me, after a couple years of steady practice you will be playing it with ease. Just follow these five rules and you’re likely to learn it with much success:

1.    Before you start acoustic guitar lessons purchase a rather cheap guitar that you feel comfortable with playing. You need not sink a whole lot of money into a fancy, new guitar. Consider a more expensive guitar once you’re serious about playing and you’re at a more advanced level.

2.    Pick a good time of day to play. You’ll want to choose a time when you’re least likely to be disturbed and you can fully devote that time to playing. Practice 5-7 days per week. Never attempt to play for more than an hour. You’ll become more likely to pick up bad habits.

3.    Grasp the guitar and hold it how it correctly. Become more familiar with the sound each string produces by striking one string at a time. Work your way down the string then back up by picking one string at a time.

4.    Once you become well acquainted with the strings, focus on the guitar’s neck. Practice playing new notes one by one. Check the position of your left hand and pay attention to how the note sounds.

5.    When you’re ready, move onto playing individual chords. First, learn the simple two or three fingered chords and progress from there. These chords are the “E Minor”, “A Minor”, and “D Minor”. Chords are a great place to start when learning acoustic guitar basics.

The most traditional method of taking acoustic guitar lessons is through a private instructor at least once a week. I’m not saying you shouldn’t consider this, but personally, I’m not in favor of it either. This is because there are several disadvantages to private lessons. These lessons are rather expensive, at least $150 for 2 lessons each week. That was the rate when I thought about taking lessons myself. You’ll also be spending several hours per week traveling to meet with the instructor. The instructor will work along with you and will be there if you get stuck, which is nice. Still, I’ve seen many instructors who care more about the money than they do teaching. You must also realize that these instructors work with a number of other beginners and may not be as “personal” as you’d like them to be. Still, that varies from one instructor to another.

Some beginners struggle learning and playing in front of another individual whose skill level is way above theirs. Many of them would just rather learn by themselves which I found to be quite common. When I refused to spend money on private lessons, I tried to learn on my own. This did not work out too well because I simply didn’t know enough about the basics to teach myself acoustic guitar lessons.

If you can’t afford private lessons or simply refuse to go that route, you need not go it alone. There are some handy online and print resources such as Jamorama Acoustic. This course offers downloadable videos and furnishes a beginner with all the material, techniques, tricks, and lessons needed to get started. In fact, I learned a lot of valuable information from this site.

These online acoustic guitar lessons teach you nearly everything a private instructor can teach. Not to mention that they charge only a one-time fee plus enable you to use their course whenever your schedule permits. Learning online is more cost and time effective than taking private lessons. The material is just as good. And with the fast-forward and rewind features in their videos, there’s nothing handier than that when you’re learning to play.

I strongly feel that an online course is much better than taking private lessons. Taking private lessons can easily cost you $1,000 to $2,000 per year, especially when the monthly lessons cost $150. Yet some prefer learning via a private instructor. As long as you feel OK learning how to play the acoustic guitar online then I’m confident that a home study course would be just right for you.

How you choose to learn is up to you. This all depends on how much time and money you’re willing to invest while you learn to play the acoustic guitar.

Copyright Liam Gibson (Stage Guitarist)

Guitar chords can come about hard in favor of the beginner, nearby seems to come about so many chords to become skilled at and how make you remember all of them? Everyone who has endlessly tried to become skilled at the guitar long for remember, endless hard chord shapes, buzzing strings and unmusical sounds.

Try these four tips and you will be well on your way to overcoming the guitar chord blues.

Memory Cards

The best way to recall chord names and associate the chord name with the correct chord shape is via data memory cards. Simply use a blank index card with the chord name on one side of the card and the correct chord shape on the other side of the card.

Use these data memory cards like question and answer cards, look at them each day adding new cards as you learn more chords. The concept is, you would have three piles of cards — a daily pile, weekly pile and monthly pile.

Previously you search out the answer correct place the certificate in the field of a weekly mountain, by the side of the come to an end of the week, test manually with all the chords in the field of the weekly mountain, the data cards so as to you properly answered from the weekly mountain move to the monthly mountain, the cards so as to were answered incorrectly die back to the every day mountain.

You will be able to remember an enormous number of chords using this method:

Easy Shapes

Most of the chord shapes presented in commercially available guitar lessons are too difficult for beginners. The generic chord shapes contained in these books are technically correct however highly impractical for the guitarist, even an experienced player.

The solution is to re-design the chord shapes in a way that only requires 2 or 3 fingers with minimum finger movement between chords. Modify any chord shape so that you are only playing the first 3 or 4 strings. this will give you a good sounding chord without all the unnecessary stretching.

Chord Stamp

When you are changing chords take special note of how your fingers make up the chord shape.

The idea is to have all your fingers stamp down on the chord in one single movement, not two of three movements. Think of your fingers coming down on the strings like a rubber stamp.

Metronome

Once you know the chord shape you will need to develop speed and accuracy with your chord changes.

Use a metronome to monitor your progress. Start by setting the metronome to 60 beat per minute. Select a chord progression to practice, strum the chord on the first beat of the bar and listen to the metronome for the remaining three beats. The idea is to get the next chord change accurately on the first beat
of the next bar, if the chord change isn’t accurate, slow the metronome down.

We want to use the metronome to track our progress, don’t set the metronome and try to reach the tempo, rather use the metronome to monitor our daily progress. Gradually increase the tempo over time.

The on the whole imperative matter to keep in the field of mind is to tap your base and concentrate on on the increase your rhythm.

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