subject: Learning To Play A Guitar Requires Practice [print this page] Playing a guitar is a skill that requires time to develop. For when you first start out, learning to play the is like a baby learning how to walk for the first time. Only a handful of people can pick up the guitar, or any instrument for that matter, and learn by listening. Only a select few can play the guitar without the need of first learning guitar chords.
Studying how to play a guitar requires plenty of training. It takes an awareness of the way the instrument works, where you should place your hands and fingers, and how to put them all together to create tunes. Whenever you observe and listen to how a guitarist does his stuff, he makes it sound so simple as pleasant tune flows from the instrument, and his fingers blur across the strings and frets. Additionally, only a great deal of practice can make such a complex musical instrument appear very easy to play.
Holding A Guitar
In learning how to play a guitar, the very first thing you have to rehearse is how to properly hold the instrument. To start off, put the instrument under the crook of your right arm so that your right hand is directly over the hole where the strings are. Remember that this is for right handed players. Second, place your left hand along the fret, or the arm of the guitar. You should hold the guitar in a way that your left thumb sits over the the surface of the fret bar, allowing all your fingers easy access to the strings along the fret. You need to rehearse strumming the guitar, without learning any of the actual notes or chords yet, so that you get confident holding and playing the said instrument.
Tuning A Guitar
One of the most fundamental elements of learning to play the guitar is tuning it. When the guitar is playing each note appropriately, it signifies the guitar is accordingly 'tuned'. If the guitar is out of tune, then every single note will be wrong and you won't be able to play properly. The music will be off and you will soon become frustrated, and quit--thinking that it's you who was messing up. It's not you; you just need to properly tune the instrument. You can study how to tune the instrument by ear, or you can do what a lot of people do when they're first learning to play the guitar--using an electric tuner. An electric tuner will automatically assess if the guitar is in tune. Simply strum each string and then adjust the guitar until the tuner registers that every things in their correct tuning.
There, now you are ready to study how to play notes, chords, and even songs. Just keep in mind that it requires patience, conviction, and interest to completely learn how to play a guitar.
