How long does it take to learn guitar?

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It is really difficult to give a definitive answer here. I’ve been a guitar teacher for 13 years now, and learning guitar comes at different paces for different people, even different ages. 

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When i’m teaching guitar lessons for kids aged 6-9, I look to be playing very simple songs or nursery rhymes by the 4th 30 minute guitar lesson, whereas with an adult I would expect to be playing that same nursery rhyme by the end of the first 45 minute session, certainly the first 1 hour long guitar lesson.

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A student’s progress in learning guitar can be measured more easily by following a set, structured syllabus, like those we teach from the Rockschool Guitar grades. This helps quantify progress easier. When teaching guitar lessons for adults guitar on a more ‘freestyle’ basis, I certainly hope to have a minimum of 5 chords after 4 lessons.

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After our first 5 easy guitar chords, from there I like to teach more songs, guitar riffs, and start delving into a little simple guitar theory.

What is the best way for kids to learn guitar?

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I started my journey of learning guitar at the tender age of 10 years old.

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My parents wanted me to learn guitar ‘properly’ by starting with an acoustic guitar, and there was no way I was interested in that! I didn’t want to be “plinky plonky”.

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I wanted to make lots of noise and make all those screaming and chugging sounds! I wanted to be like Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler and Jimi Hendrix, not Ralph McTell! I ended up using my birthday money and buying my first electric guitar!

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This brings me to my first point. If I couldn’t have had the guitar I wanted, I would have NEVER carried on playing guitar, let alone learning it! Therefore I always recommend that parents actively encourage their kids to find the guitar they want (within budget and reason of course!), a guitar that they will look at in the room and want to pick it up and play.

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Remember, the return on investment of guitar lessons is far more bang for your buck when kids actually practice!

I started learning guitar on my own. I had my book which I really enjoyed and I just worked through that.

 

As a child, I was so enthralled with the guitar that I would practice for hours and hours. Weekends it wouldn’t be uncommon for me to have the guitar in my hands for 12 hours a day! 8 hours on a school day!

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Not all kids can work on their own, and when we teach guitar lessons for kids, we actually use the very SAME book that started me on my road to learning guitar. So, I know it works!

 

Am I too old to learn guitar?

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NEVER! We know it’s harder for working adults with families to find the time to take up a new hobby, or even just to get around to activities they solely enjoy. It becomes a little easier once the children have flown the nest and weekday evenings have far more to offer than Eastenders or other such soap operas!

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With this, I maintain if you have time, patience and dedication, you can learn guitar, but also other instruments and more about music theory. 

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You will be amazed at how simple and easy guitar chords can really be, and how quickly you can learn to play guitar. My youngest students have been 5 years old, my oldest, 71!

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If you can find the time and put the hours in, you can enjoy playing guitar!

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How much should I practice guitar?

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Obviously disposable free time varies with age, occupation and dependancies. When I started learning guitar as a child of 10 years old, I had all the time in the world at weekends.

 

It wasn’t unusual to find the guitar in my hands for 12 hours of a Saturday, and I was able to squeeze 8 hours a day out of a school day by getting up EARLIER before school to play! Then there were GCSEs, girls and part-time jobs to get in the way.

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When I went to The Brighton Institute of Modern Music to study, I was back on full time guitar practice again. I would start to practice guitar at 7am each morning with an hour of ‘spider exercises’ (finger patterns all over the guitar strings and guitar neck), then an hour of ‘chord exercises’ before I even sat down to play a song.

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My ultimate message is to find at LEAST 30 minutes a day to play your guitar, even if it’s not necessarily guitar practice that you are doing… particular scales, chords or exercises maybe set in your guitar lesson for homework. Playing songs along with the original recording is an excellent way to practice guitar and learn more.

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Is it better learning electric guitar?

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OK, here is the truth from me: YES. For most people, learning electric guitar is far easier than acoustic or classical guitar.

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Several of these reasons include the fact that electric guitars are generally smaller than acoustic guitars, the electric guitar necks are mostly thinner and narrower, which certainly helps younger beginners and those with smaller hands. To younger players (especially boys!) the electric guitar is far more appealing, so they play guitar more, and they therefore LEARN guitar more!

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Electric guitars are also, in my opinion, far easier to maintain as their intonation, saddle heights, necks and bridges are easy to get to and easy to adjust and setup to a player’s preferred setup.

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I started on electric guitar, and when I went to the acoustic guitar, I had to learn to fret harder and deal with a bigger instrument, but already I had hours of playing guitar under my belt, and as the electric guitar was easier to play, I stuck with it!

How much is a beginner’s guitar?

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A beginner’s guitar doesn’t have to be expensive, but it definitely doesn’t want to be the cheapest!

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There are some fantastic guitars coming out of China and the Far East right now, the quality of budget instruments have never been so good; the guitar woods are better, the pickups are nicer sounding, the guitars stay in tune better, the finishes can be absolutely amazing, AND they can play like really nice guitars.

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That said, there is some terrible stuff coming from the Far East also. You must, with all your might, avoid these super cheap guitars. Band new electric guitar packages for example can start at £50, with a guitar, amp, strings, leads, plectrums. They’re like egg cartons with strings, and play like pallet boards!

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If you’re looking for a beginners electric guitar, I always recommend the Squier Affinity range from Fender. These guitars have always been super quality and are very nice to play. Far better than my first guitar! Prices vary from £129-£179, but are worth every penny.

For beginners acoustic guitars, I have always like Tanglewood guitars. I sold many good Tanglewood guitars to beginners and advanced guitar players when I worked in the local guitar shop near me. Customers were always happy.

 

Do you offer left handed guitar lessons?

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Absolutely! I myself am left handed, but I play guitar right handed.

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My advise to anyone looking to start learning the guitar is simple. Always choose to learn ‘right handed’ guitar, even if it doesn’t come naturally to you at first. 

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Music and guitars are like a foreign language, you don’t get LEFT or RIGHT hand French do you? (Well, I guess you can have ‘European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese, but that is another subject entirely!).

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Most guitar manufacturers will have as little as 10% output being left handed, which makes finding good quality new and used guitars harder, AND crucially more expensive.

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If you are dedicated to learn guitar lefty style, then guitar chords diagrams are simply reversed, whilst guitar tabulator and standard notation remain the same for both principles.

 

Should I change my guitar strings?

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Absolutely! Guitar strings are perishable, particularly with our finger oils, sweat and skin being able to create grime and rust. 

Depending on how much guitar playing you do, I always suggest you restring your guitar every 6 weeks.

 

As I am a guitar teacher and playing almost every day, I can change my strings every 4 weeks or less… sometimes 1 day of recording and my guitar strings are ruined!

A little known trade tip for longer lasting strings is to apply a little WD-40 or similar lubricant/rust remover to a cloth and wipe down your strings when you finish playing.

Which guitar strings should I buy?

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Guitar strings can be a very personal choice to the player. Guitar strings come in different gauges (thickness), some are coated with a film to help keep the strings sounding and feeling fresher for longer, and even the ‘feel’ of the string varies from brand to brand depending on the amount of nickel in them.

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Generally, for an electric guitar, the norm is to buy gauge 9’s for Fender Stratocaster or Ibanez style guitars, and gauge 10’s for Gibson style guitars, as they have a shorter scale width.

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For acoustic guitar, I play gauge 10s, which are very light guitar strings, but I like playing all those fast guitar runs, so it’s easier on my fingers. The thicker the gauge, the more volume you will get out of your guitar strings, but the harder they can feel on your fingers.

 

Try out several sets of string gauges and brands as you go through your restrings, and find what works for you.

What is a guitar setup and why should I have one?

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A guitar setup is a service for your guitar… just like you have on your car… BUT a guitar can be ‘setup’ to your playing style, so it would kind of be like setting your car to your driving style, adjusting the suspension to be harder or softer, tweaking the engine computer and air intake etc.

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If you play slide guitar, you would probably be keen to have the ‘action’ of your guitar raised higher so the slide won’t knock the frets on the fingerboard. If you are a mean fast shred metal guitar player, you might want the action set really low so you can make contact with the fret sooner as you fly up and down the neck.

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Not only does your guitar get a fresh lease of life, but it will be EASIER to play!

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When you have your guitar setup by Guitar In Your Home, the following items will be serviced and adjusted:

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• Frets polished

• Fingerboards cleaned and conditioned (Rosewood boards only)

• Electronics cleaned with switch cleaning lubricant

• Bridge and saddles lubricated

• Jack socket tested for good connection

• Restrung

• Truss rod adjustment

• Bridge saddle height adjustments (part of the action)

• Bridge saddle intonation adjustments

• Pickup heights adjusted

• Thougher clean and polish.

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I really recommend a guitar setup every 6 months. As the seasons and climate changes, wood expands and contracts, and this happens to your guitar too.

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After your setup, your guitar chords at the top of the neck will be far easier to play, and you will hopefully get more out of your guitar lessons as you will be able to have a better chance of progressing faster. The faster you progress in your guitar lessons, the more fun you will have, therefore the more you will practice, which means you will get better at the guitar, you’ll have more fun, you’ll practice more, you’ll therefore… you get the idea!

Call now for more information.

 

I’ve been learning guitar online with YouTube. Is there any benefit to having a guitar tutor?

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The internet is amazing. We can learn so much online other than who is getting married and what is going to happen on Eastenders!

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Youtube is great for 2 types of guitar players: the advanced guitarists who are already very good players and they want to learn to play guitar in a particular style/guitar chords/technique etc, and those who are complete beginners, just wanting to learn guitar right from scratch, better basic guitar chords under their belt.

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After that, there is a grey area. Learning guitar is a practical subject, and with that, there are so many muscles and parts of your arms/hands/back that need to be done right, otherwise you aren’t going to get the best out of your guitar learning. 

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An example I give is like trying to learn to plaster a wall. I watched I don’t know how many YouTube videos, and I learned so much. I plastered my walls, and they were ok, but when I started teaching a plasterer and he came a did a room for me, he must have been literally 3 days faster than me, and 50x better than me!

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Finding a guitar tutor near you is a good start. You need to make sure you learn how to play guitar without all the bad habit, because the bad habits in your guitar playing can cost you further down the line when you want to learn a particular song or lick, but you just can’t make the guitar do what you want!

Do I need to use a guitar pick?

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Not at all. There are some very famous guitar players out there who don’t use a pick, most notably Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits. See Sultans Of Swing.

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Guitar picks (guitar plectrums) come in all different shapes and sizes, colours, materials etc, so finding something you like can take some time. Again, like guitar strings, it’s a case of trial and error. I have been using the same brand and product of guitar pick, the Dunlop Tortex Sharp, for the last 18 years now!

 

I find learning electric guitar to be easier with a guitar pick, but this varies from player to player. 

Having both fingerstyle and flat-pick techniques is always a must as you can learn so many guitar songs. 

Is learning guitar easier than learning bass guitar?

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Even though the bass guitar has two strings less than your standard six string guitar, the instruments can be seen as two completely different beasts. 

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Learning how to play guitar tends to involve more guitar chords or harmony, two or more notes played together at the same time, whereas the bass guitar tends to use more single notes in construction of it’s riffs or bass lines. 

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Also, there is more to the bass guitar than just plodding along on one note or following the guitar player. Great bass players can play alot around the ‘off beat’ and know how to leave space in the music.

It’s a very different approach to learning six string guitar, but equally as enjoyable!

 

Can I learn guitar songs outside of the my lesson?

Yes please! I encourage all of my students to go away and find and learn more outside of their guitar lessons.

 

The more you do outside of the guitar lesson, the more bang for your buck you get when your guitar tutor is in lesson and able to provide even more answers to the songs, scales or techniques you are trying to learn.

 

So please PLEASE do learn guitar songs or riffs outside of your lesson!

What songs are easy to play on guitar?

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The most common easy guitar songs for beginners focus around 3 chords, and generally all down from the 1st fret / open position.

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Common songs I teach are: 

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Sylvia’s Mother (Dr Hook) - A, D, E
Rock Around The Clock (Bill Haley And The Comets) - E, B, A
Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door (Bob Dylan) - G, D, Am
Wild Thing (The Troggs) - A, D, E
Get It On (T-Rex) - E, A, G
Sweet Home Alabama (Lynyrd Skynyrd) - D, C, G

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There are many more that I teach, but here’s just a little idea!

 

Are you Rockschool guitar tutors?

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Yes we teach the Rockschool guitar exams and we love them!

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The Rockschool syllabus is great as the songs are in varying genres, they are good to learn lots of different guitar techniques, there’s backing tracks and full tracks for each song, and it gives the student a clear path to progress through their guitar playing.

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With the Rockschool course we have been able to offer more guitar lessons for kids, and even adults have chosen to take the courses. We love them, and hope you will too!

Can I pay for my guitar lessons on a ‘pay as you go’ basis?

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Yes you can, but by paying for your guitar lesson on the day you will miss out on our block booking discounts.

What if I need to cancel my guitar lesson?

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Please call us as soon as possible so we have a better chance of rescheduling the lesson to another time or day of that week. We ask a minimum for 48 hours notice and regret that should guitar tutors be unavailable to reschedule then you will lose your guitar lesson fee. See our terms and conditions for more information.

 

 

 

 

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