The Guitar Player's Resource
When you're starting out on guitar, there's so much to learn that it can feel overwhelming. But there are a few do’s and don’ts that can make your life a lot easier. In this article, I’ll share some tips on what to learn, what to skip as well as two tips to speed up your progress.
We’ll start with something that will make everything easier from day one: memorize your guitar string names. Seriously, do this first.
Whether you're watching YouTube tutorials, talking to other guitarists, or reading chord diagrams, everyone and everything assumes you know the names of the guitar strings. There are lots of mnemonics like ‘Eddie Ate Dynamite, Good Bye Eddie, but simply learning the string names by heart takes only a few minutes and is so much faster. When someone says "put your finger on the A string," you'll know exactly what they mean instead of counting strings and getting confused. Every instruction suddenly makes sense, and you'll follow along with lessons much faster. Trust me on this one: it's the best 5 minutes you'll spend as a beginner.
It only seems logical: you decide to learn the guitar, so you better learn where all the notes are. But when you’re first starting out, it really isn’t that important (or useful) to learn your guitar notes.
Instead, focus on learning simple songs or riffs you like and generally getting comfortable with the instrument. That alone is plenty of challenge, and in those first couple of months, the most important thing is to experience what makes playing guitar so much fun. Discovering that feeling is what will make you stick with it.
Note names will come naturally as you progress. First you’ll learn open chords, which will all have names. This is a good first introduction to note names that you can build upon later. Don’t get me wrong, later on it will definitely be useful to learn the fretboard note names. But for now? Just enjoy playing chords and songs.
As I just mentioned, I recommend learning chords when you start playing guitar. The
beginner guitar chords are called ‘open chords’. These chords are great because learning
just a few of them gives you a wide range of songs you can play.
So, how do you get these funky shapes into your muscle memory. The standard advice is to
simply practice that shape over and over again. Grab the chord, release, grab the chord,
release...
While this works, there's a more effective way to program your muscle memory. Here's
what you do:
- Fret the chord. Strum it slowly. Check the string one by one to make sure it sounds clean.
- If it sounds good, firmly press down on the chord for 20 seconds. Don’t press so hard as to hurt yourself, but try to push as hard as you can.
- After 20 seconds let go and give yourself a rest.
- Repeat this process once or twice.
What you’ll notice is that by pressing hard, the shape will become ingrained in your muscle memory much faster. It’s like the extra pressure is telling your brain: “this shape is important, remember it!” Whatever the exact reason, it’s a neat little trick that will help your fingers remember all these new shapes much more quickly!
After you’ve done the chord pressing exercises, it’s time to practice switching between chords. This will be slow at first, but with practice it will become faster. The problem with learning chord changes is that improvement can feel invisible. Maybe you go from taking 15 seconds to fret an A chord down to 10 seconds. That's real progress! But if you need to change chords in 2 seconds for a song, it still feels like you're nowhere close.
So here's a game that'll help you track your improvement (I learned this from Justin Sandercoe): One Minute Chord Changes. Here’s what you do:
Pick two chords you want to practice switching between, let's say E and A. Set a timer for one minute. Now play the first chord, make sure it sounds clean, then switch to the second chord. Make sure that one sounds good too, then switch back to the first. Do this as many times as you can in one minute and count your switches out loud. Maybe the first time you'll only manage 5 switches. But you'll be amazed how quickly this number improves. Soon you'll be hitting 20, then 30 switches per minute. And once you can do that, you'll be fast enough to play actual songs!
These tips might seem simple, but they'll genuinely make your guitar learning experience smoother and more enjoyable. Just learning the string names will save you much confusion, and the chord tricks will get you playing songs faster and find out what makes playing guitar so much fun. And that’s what it’s all about. Don't worry about being perfect. Learning music is a journey, not a race. Just focus on getting a little better each time you pick up the guitar!
Just Rijna is the founder of StringKick, a site focused on helping you learn the skills you need to explore your own taste and become the musician you want to be.
