Five Shortcuts to Playing the Guitar

Learning the guitar can be difficult and time consuming not to mention expensive. In fact buying the guitar is the easiest part for most people. It sure looks like fun on the video clips but guitar playing can become frustrating and stressful. After all, the last thing anybody needs at the end of a hard day at work is another boring chore. If your guitar playing has hit a brick wall try these shortcuts and you will automatically by-pass the frustration of learning the guitar.

Tap your foot.

This is where it all starts. It doesn’t matter how many chords or scales you know. If you don’t develop your groove your guitar playing will never get off the ground! People respond to music in the following order: first the beat, then to the melody and lastly to the harmony. Your audience may not notice the occasional wrong chord but they will immediately be aware of your lack of ‘beat’.

Learn simple chords shapes.

Each chord has its own unique spelling so learn the formula for each chord and design your own chord shapes on the guitar. Once you realize that it’s not the physical shape of the chord that is important but rather the combination of specific notes that create a particular chord, you will be free to create you own ‘guitar friendly’ chord shapes.

Learn to read music.

Believe it or not, the quickest way to play by ear is to learn to read music. It sounds like a contradiction but, as you will discover, reading music gives you clarity, precision and structure. You ear quickly remembers and retains the correct sounds. Conversely, trying to learn guitar via TAB puts you at risk of learning mistakes. Once you understand how difficult it is to “un-learn” a mistake you will value the importance of quality information. Many guitarists trying to find a quick way of learning the guitar are seduced by the promise of TAB. In reality, learning via TAB is the longest and hazardous route.

Play by ear.

Try to play any song that comes into your head. Start with simple melodies. Songs you remember from your childhood or Christmas carols are a good place to start. Try to play these melodies on a single string. Eventually you will most likely want to use a combination of strings to eliminate unnecessary movement but start with a single string to develop your ear. By restricting ourselves to one string our ear has a better chance of finding the correct notes and we develop a sense of musical intervals.

Learn the notes on the fretboard.

There’s no escaping this one! Regardless of musical style, in order to make progress on the guitar it is essential that you know all the notes on the guitar fretboard. Start by learning the first string notes and associating the notes on the first string with notes of the same name on other strings. For example the notes on string six have the same letter name as the notes on the first string i.e.,

first string, first fret = F / first string, third fret = G /

first string, fifth fret = A / first string, seventh fret = B /

first string, eight fret = C / first string, tenth fret = D /

first string, twelfth fret = E

I invite you to use these tips and tools when you play the guitar.

About the Author:
Mike Hayes is a guitar teacher, author, performing musician and session guitarist with over 30 years of professional experience. Find out more about how to learn guitar fast with his popular FREE e-course

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