The Casual Guitarist

Ever felt like you were the only guy in your high school who didn't know how to play the guitar? I mean even the chess club geek knew the chords to Wonderwall. Has that guitar in the corner of the room been taunting you for owning it and yet having no idea how to make it sing? I had my Chinese beginner guitar for four years before I finally decided to pick it up and learn to switch between three chords. You see all these guitarists and how effortlessly they're fingers seem to glide over the fret board making beautiful, beautiful music and you think to yourself: "Yeah I can do that", till you actually buy a guitar and find out that you can't.

There's that first time you try to hold a chord on your acoustic and get to know that metal wires pressing hard into your fingers actually hurts. Most people after the first few failed attempts at playing their favorite songs try something a little easier and then it turns out even the easy songs require practice. For the masses this is the end of their rock god dreams but there are some who persevere.

These are the people who learn how to play more than three chords and put more effort into their playing than 5 minutes a week. Its not really all that complicated being a casual guitarist (much simpler than mastering guitar hero, less addictive and time consuming, but simpler none the less). There are two basic requirements which are also the basic requirements for everything else: Time and Patience. There is no such thing as becoming a great guitarist in an hour. I have honestly seen courses that promise to do so. A practice routine of fifteen minutes a day for a month should be enough to make you play so that things don't get thrown at you and the more time you put into it the better you get (feel like I should write "duh" after that line because you're gonna say it anyway).

Picking a song you like to start off is a good idea but make sure it's not too difficult and you like it enough to put that little extra effort into it or you can pick an easy song for quicker results which is also a good morale booster. Try choosing songs with simple chords (most pop music these days is just three basic chords) instead of ones that have a lot of cool looking barre chords. And the beginner's bane : switching between chords, it may seem impossible at first but start out with simple "e" and "a" chords and the rest will become easier as you go. While it's good to concentrate on your chords don't forget your strumming because that's where the actual music get made. It's tempting to strum really fast and try different patterns but you get nowhere unless you learn how to strum in rhythm so simple down strokes should do at first. Once you're doing that in rhythm (and this just takes minutes really) try and master some more simple up and down patterns before going for that crazy blu grass strumming.