Want to be a cool rocker or a country singer? Yes, it's possible! All it takes are mastery of guitar playing and an acoustic guitar. Many people cringe at the idea of learning to play the guitar especially when they are past their high school or college days. They say that they are too old to learn and absorb the lessons of guitar playing. Quite on the contrary, anyone at any age can learn easily.
Lesson 1: Learn How to Sing
Eventually, you will have to sing. If you are practically tone-deaf, you need to hone your ears as far as tune is concerned. The fact is, you will never learn how to play if you do not know how to tune the guitar.
Without singing, you will never be able to time your strumming and plucking. Without this ability, your guitar-playing skills will be impaired. Practice singing daily and never stop until you can sing in tune. You do not have to be a star or a diva or anything like that; your goal is to simply sing in tune.
Lesson 2: Practice Your Strumming
Assuming you already know how to read your chords, you need to practice how you strum the guitar. The up and down strokes have a great impact on how you sound. It may take a while to be able to strum properly but it is part of the entire process when you are learning to play guitar.
Before you can strum properly, you need a pick and you need to trim your fingernails, especially on the fretting hand. The pick has more power and grip than your fingers. Next, listen to the music and do not sing; listen at the strokes and imitate it.
Listen carefully and strum with it. Get the beat of the music you are trying to play and listen carefully if the strumming is downwards or upwards. Soon you will be able to get it the way the original music sounds.
Lesson 3: Watch Live Performances
One weird practice of all acoustic guitar lessons is to watch performances but it works. Whenever you have the chance, go to bars or places where people play acoustic guitars. This is one essential venue where you can pick best practices. Observe how the master guitar players hold their guitars and how they strum.
Witness how they gracefully move their hands and shift fingers when moving from one chord to another. During these occasions, you will also be able to list down chords they use for particular songs that you may like.
Lesson 4: Read Theory and Use It
One pitfall of many people learning to play the guitar is that they read so many books but they do not put to use whatever it is they have learned. We are not saying that it is bad to be bookish. What's bad is waiting time reading a lot of guitar lessons without putting them into motion practice.
After several days of practice, you will be happy to observe your own development. As you progress, you will also be able to share your new found knowledge to other individuals. Guitar playing is a craft that you can be proud of and it is something that will take you to new heights of fulfillment.
