- Do you think that only people with natural talent or those who played instruments as a child can play guitar?
- Do you wish you began to play when you were younger but feel it’s too late to start?
- Have you always wanted to play guitar but keep putting it off, don’t know where to begin, or can’t get started?
Believe it or not, you don’t actually need natural talent to play guitar. Yes, there are some people out there who are naturally talented at music and who can pick the guitar with ease. I’m not one of them and, most likely, neither are you. I know a lot of professional musicians all over the country and some from around the world. Just about all of them had to work extremely hard for a long time to become great players. Most of them had to practice and struggle for many years, even decades in some cases, before they became accomplished. Some of these musicians without natural talent have had very high profile gigs over the years.
Remember that an expert in any field was once a total novice! And if you don’t want to become an expert, it takes considerably less work to get good at the guitar. Perhaps you just want to be able to play for pleasure or as a way to relax. Maybe you want to get to the point where you feel good about playing for family and friends. As long as you’re persistent, willing to work through your early struggles, and able to put in a little bit of daily practice, you can get to that level in a matter of months – not years!
While there are examples of self-taught musicians who play professionally at the highest level, most needed to study music formally with a private teacher and/or at the university level.
It can be frustrating trying to teach yourself for many reasons. You aren’t able to get feedback on your playing from an expert teacher. You fall into bad habits. You don’t have someone making sure that you stay on track. And you can reach a plateau even if you’re just starting out. Plus with all the Internet sites and books, you can’t even be sure that you’re even learning things the right way!
Over the years, I have taught numerous beginning adult guitar students. Some of them started with me with no knowledge of how to play the guitar. I have been able to help those students develop correct habits from the beginning which served them well as they’ve progressed.
Other beginning adult students have come to me with a little playing experience and with some bad habits they’ve developed. Most of the time, these habits can prevent the student from progressing as quickly as they’d like. While it can be more difficult and time consuming to correct habits that are already in place, I have been able to successfully help my students with their old habits. Although everyone is different, I’ve helped people with finger placement problems, thumb issues, bad posture, too much tension in their arms, and other physical issues. These students were able to overcome the struggles that prevented them from learning to play the guitar well.
Without the help of an experienced teacher like me who’s helped others overcome their bad habits, it can be difficult for a beginner to know exactly how to position their hands and arms and how to align their body to play the guitar most effectively.
My students are not only taught how to play their favorite songs. For beginners, I teach a combination of chords, strumming, rhythm, and how to play basic melodies. Students always learn their favorite tunes although it can take some time before they’re ready to play some of the harder ones. I have many ‘universal’ songs (such as Beatles and Bob Dylan songs) that I teach in the beginning to help people gain skills and confidence as they’re starting out. If you’re interested in hard rock or metal, there are Metallica and AC/DC songs that beginners start learning right away.
I speed up learning process for my students by breaking down the key information into easy to use parts. I also have a step-by-step curriculum that I use for beginning adult students. This program is easily adaptable depending on the needs and interests of each student. It’s easy to progress and see big improvements in a relatively short amount of time with the curriculum I use!
I also teach music fundamentals to beginners. You will get an understanding of how and why you strum in a certain way. Contrary to what some believe, you don’t randomly strum up or down. There’s a method and science to strumming the right way and once people grasp it, they see major improvements!
All of this is laid out in an easy to digest way that’s designed for you to get maximum results!