The guitar is one of the most popular and pleasing of all musical instruments. In addition, it is cheap, easy to transport, and is always a success in a group of friends!

For this reason, congratulations! You are making an excellent choice on learning to play the guitar. We have prepared the best content on this course, so that you can start to prepare your first chords, and play your first song, in a simple and uncomplicated manner.

So, here starts your first classic guitar lesson. The first steps for beginners are the following:

1. Know the parts of the instrument

2. Choosing the right guitar

3. Learn to hold the guitar before you play it

4. Look at the numbering of the fingers

5. Play with the left hand for the first time

6. Compose your first chords and learn basic chord notation

7. Learn how to play with your right hand

8. Choose between playing with or without a pick

9. Play your first complete song.

10. Organise your study for progress

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO LEARN THE GUITAR? (AND WHY IMPROVING YOUR FOCUS IS KEY)

Whether you have tried to learn guitar a while back and stopped, or if you’re a beginner just starting out, learning how to play the guitar can be overwhelming. Even learning the basic chords as a beginner will take hours of practice. In this article, we will explain how long it takes to learn the guitar and why it depends on you.

Becoming efficient and comfortably playing an instrument can take countless hours and practice. Guitars are no exception to this. Learning how to play the guitar can be a hurdle if you don’t have the right motivation and don’t put enough time into it. Practising playing your guitar frequently will help you get better after each session, but there are other things that go into learning the guitar than just practice.

Creating an ideal learning environment, mastering the basics and getting enough rest after each session are some of the few things that are part of the process of learning how to play guitar. If playing the guitar with your goals and practice in mind becomes a habit, learning won’t be as difficult.

Even if you’re practising often, you may sometimes think that it’s taking too much time for you to learn the guitar, or feel hopeless that you’re never going to learn how to play. Keep in mind that there are plenty of well-known guitarists who took several years to learn the guitar.

How long did it take famous guitar players to learn the guitar?

• Steve Vai started to learn to play guitar at the age of 12 and joined Frank Zappa’s band when he was 18.

  
  

  
  

  
  

• Kirk Hammett from Metallica started learning to play the guitar when he was 15 and formed the Exodus when he was 16.

  
  

  
  

  
  

• Eric Clapton asked for a guitar for this 13th birthday and stopped playing after he struggled with it. He gave it another shot two years later, and it took him until he was 17 to play in local pub bands.

  
  

  
  

  
  

• Mark Knopfler started playing guitar when he was 15, and it didn’t take him long to record his first demo – Summer’s Coming My Way.

It depends on the person

As you can see, everyone is different. It even took some of the most famous guitar players years to learn the guitar. 

How quickly you’re going to learn how to play a guitar depends only on you. The progress will be a lot easier if you have a natural flair for playing instruments and have enough time to practice. Playing other instruments will help you learn the guitar much faster, especially if you know how to play another string instrument. 

While some of us can create enough time and a good learning environment for learning to play guitar, some may not. Some people are naturally good with instruments, some aren’t. Some have goals for playing guitar, some don’t. These are just a few things that will affect how long it’s going to take someone to learn to play guitar. This is why there isn’t a precise answer to how long it’s going to take for you to learn the instrument. 

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It depends on motivation and focus.

As long as you create enough time to learn to play guitar with the right mindset, you will feel how comfortable you become with not only playing, but even holding a guitar. The famous guitar players still practice for hours each day. The number of hours practiced nowadays may not be as many, but Steve Vai used to practice more than ten hours a day.

While ten hours a day will certainly help, a fraction of that time is all you’ll need.

One hour of playing the guitar every day with the right motivation will help you become a successful guitar player. On average, it takes about 300 hours of practice to learn the basic chords and feel comfortable playing the guitar. If you practice for two hours a day – every day – it will take five months to master the basics. If you practice for an hour every day, it will take you ten months. In other words, putting in double the effort will reduce the time it will take you to learn the basics by half. The math is simple.

As a very beginner, you will only need to start with 10 minutes per day. The key is to pick up the guitar and practice every day. That is how you will develop muscle memory. For instance, practicing 10 minutes per day 6 days per week will give you 1 hour of practice per week. In contrast, if you wait until Saturday and practice for 1 hour straight but then do not pick up the guitar all week, you will lose almost all of your gains and be almost starting over every week. Daily renewal is most important. Then, as you become more experienced, you can increase your practice time.

Practice is certainly vital for learning guitar but you also need to be confident, self-motivated, and stay focused along the way. These are essential to learning any instrument, particularly if you’re teaching yourself.

If you take guitar lessons, it will be a helping hand in speeding up your journey, but eventually it comes down to how receptive you are to learning new things and your ability to grasp new concepts. You need to have certain traits to learn guitar. Here are just a few you will need:

• Be consistent with your practices 

• Schedule your practices

• Motivate yourself to learn guitar 

• Set goals with deadlines attached

• Concentrate on smaller goals and advance through them

Since learning an instrument is a challenging task, you must have a focused mind. You can take short breaks when feeling overwhelmed and get back to learning. Even if you give yourself fully to learning guitar but you find it challenging, it may be the time to improve your focus first. 

You can take walks in nature, fix your sleep, train your brain by playing certain types of games, listen to what you want to play, and concentrate as much as you can to get a better focus when learning.

With your mind set on your goal to learn guitar, you will be able to see the improvement in how you play.

Conclusion

You can learn guitar faster with the right focus, motivation, and enough practice. It’s as simple as that. With enough time given for practice and with an efficient learning environment, it will be far easier. If you have a natural flair for playing instruments, it will speed up the process and you will learn guitar much quicker.

About Passcom Energy Nigeria (PEN)

PEN helps aspiring guitarists to learn the instrument – the right way. The PEN curriculum steers clear of shortcuts and quick fixes, ensuring students can become a polished guitar player, whether they intend to play for enjoyment or to make a living.