The ESP Guitar Company

For the most part, I think I can speak for everyone when I say that learning guitar, at least in the early days, isn’t fun. Trying to figure out how to bend your fingers into weird chord shapes and killing your index finger trying to make your first barre chords is horrible.

Here are a few things that I’ve figured out over the years that will help you skip past these annoying stages of learning guitar and get to the actual playing stage of your musical journey.

#1 Practice Things Slowly

Too many people think that they need to practice at full speed or that they sound stupid when they play something really slowly. That’s nonsense. If you practice something slowly, you will pick it up faster and more efficiently than if you try to play it at full speed from the beginning. Learning scales and riffs at high speed is a waste of time. Slow it down and learn it faster.

#2 Get a Schedule

There is nothing more devastating to your guitar learning progress than practicing when you feel like it. If you practice everyday, even for a short period of time, you will increase your skills WAAAY faster than if you put in 8 hours every other Saturday. Keep a consist practice schedule and you will start playing in no time.

#3 Practice Songs

A lot of guitar teachers try to tell you to play scales or pointless exercises to get better at playing. That gives you some dexterity, but it doesn’t teach you actual music. That’s why I like places like JamPlay so much. JamPlay guitar lessons focus on teaching students actual songs and helping them learn how to play music not how to play mindless exercises. After all, you are learning guitar to play music aren’t you?

#4 Practice Singing

I know this kind of sounds weird, but the reality is that you want to become a better musician—not just a better guitarist. If you practice working on your internal voice as Steve Vai calls it, you will be able to play the guitar in your head. This will not only help come up will melodies in your head, it will also guide you when you are writing solos or just doing some improvising.

#5 Learn Things You Like

The main reason why people give up learning the guitar is that they stop focusing on what they enjoy doing. This makes sense. If you are learning Mary Had a Little Lamb, you probably going to have as much fun as if you are learning Master of Puppets. That’s something that plays like Guitar Tricks excels at. They have so many different types of lessons that you will always be able to find something you want to learn. Pretty much every GuitarTricks review that I have read says they are one of the best guitar lesson websites out there.

Well, that’s it. I think that’s what you need to do if you want to learn guitar quickly and stay committed to it. I know this doesn’t help you with tricks on learning guitar chords or other playing basics, but that stuff will come with time. You just need to practice.

As Zakk Wylde said, “There is no shortcut. You just need to put in the time.” The main thing is that you need to stay motivated enough to not quit when you are putting the time in. Stick to these 5 tips and you will be rocking in no time.