February 26th, 2009 by admin

When I first started learning the guitar my father taught me. However as my old man would always tell, “you can’t cut corners, you have to practice!”. Well of course to my horror he was right.

Eventually I did practice and developed into a pretty good guitarist over time. However thinking back I remember some of the things that I did wrong when I started that actually created bad habits which were a lot harded to break than I thought. So for all you new guitar players out there you may want to read this article and avoid the mistake that I made.

The first thing I did wrong was not tapping my foot while I played. Tapping your foot allows you to keep time and is very important if you want to feel the rythym. When I realised this, or should I say it was pointed out to me, I tried to just start tapping along, and found it really hard to keep playing. Eventually I got it, but it would have been alot easier if I had done this from the beginning.

Another thing I did wrong was not learning how to play with a pick. I use to just strum with my hand, and use my middle finger and thumb together like a pick. Yes I was still able to play well and produce nice sound, but I was limited to what I could do without using a pick. So when I stated to play with a pick I once again found it really tough and it took me months to correct this error.

Mistake number three was not learning to play the guitar while standing up using a strap. I would mostly always play the guitar when I was sitting on the side of my bed, and so when I went to a friends house to have a jam one day and had to stand up, I could barely do it. My hand and arm just weren’t used to it and once again this took months to correct.

Finally another thing I would have done differently if I were learning is to have taken lessons a lot sooner and also taken them online. Now in my own defence they didn’t have the quality of the online guitar course that there are today, however if I did have that opportunity I would definitely had taken it.

The great thing about learning the guitar online is that you can take guitar lessons in Melbourne or guitar lessons in Los Angeles, or anywhere in the world, and the best part is that you only pay once. Plus you can take your lessons when and where you like. Had I had this opportunity I know I would have learned guitar a lot faster.

You will find more information about learning guitar here: Guitar Lessons Chicago