What Every Guitarist Wishes They’d Known as a Beginner

If you ask a guitarist who has played for two decades what they wish they had known in the beginning, you will hear a surprising degree of overlap across genre, background, and ability. The things that cost time and money, the things that take years to break, the things that would have helped in the beginning are depressingly common. Few are apparent at the time, which is why every generation of players repeats them. 

Tuning Is Not Optional

There is no better way of restricting initial development than playing an out-of-tune guitar. The ear trained to hear incorrect pitch relationships learns slowly and inaccurately, and the subsequent task of developing relative pitch is more difficult. An accurate guitar tuner is not something to buy later. It is the first piece of equipment needed, and should be used before every practice session. Those who learn to tune before playing tend to develop their ears properly from the beginning, rather than having to work through months of subconscious misinformation caused by playing out of tune.

Cheap Guitars Create Specific Problems

It’s tempting for a beginner to buy the cheapest guitar possible, but it is often unwise. Cheap guitars are often really hard to play due to high action, poor tone, and unadjustable hardware. A novice playing a difficult instrument cannot separate the difficulty of learning guitar from that of playing their particular instrument. A guitar from a well-known company that costs a bit more and is playable at the lower mid-price point is a better choice than the cheapest guitar, and can make a significant difference when learning to play guitar.

The Left Hand Does the Work, the Right Hand Gets Credit For

Students pay equal attention to chords and strumming patterns. Advanced players know that the majority of tone results from clean fretting technique and that any note played cleanly through any pickup will sound better than any note played sloppily. Spending additional time practising the left-hand technique, clean chord changes and avoiding buzzing or muted strings lays a foundation for all that follows. The right hand can only embellish what the left hand has done.

Calluses Take Time

Finger pain during the first few weeks of playing is inevitable. Those who attempt to practice with severe pain before their fingertips develop calluses are prone to injury and irregular practice. During this time, it is better to practice in short, frequent sessions than to practice for longer periods and then stop because of pain. Calluses will form in a few weeks of regular practice, and the pain will disappear. This is a passing phase that calls for patience rather than either superhuman stamina or quitting the guitar.

Rhythm Matters As Much As Notes

Beginner guitarists often focus on getting the notes right rather than the rhythm, partly because it is easier to hear when notes are wrong. This leads to musicians who can play the right chords, but whose rhythm detracts from the musicality of their playing. Rhythm is essential in music than harmony or melody, and it needs to be learned explicitly. Using a metronome, developing a sense of beat subdivisions, and emphasising consistent timing over note complexity are great ways to build a musical foundation rather than focusing solely on the notes.

Theory Is a Tool, Not an Obstacle

Too often, new guitarists shun music theory, believing it to be a sterile academic subject that somehow restricts the creative process. This is a mistake. Understanding the relationship between scales and chords, which notes work over which progressions, and how keys work, provides the player with a map of the instrument, rather than a series of shapes to be memorised. This map does not constrain creativity. It speeds up the process of discovering what works and why, leading to rapid musical improvement and more assured improvisation.

Recording Yourself Is Uncomfortable for Good Reason

The unpleasantness of listening to your own performance is well-documented and almost universally shunned by novices. This is the opposite of what is needed for development. It shows where improvement is not occurring, where timing is inconsistent (which is impossible to hear in real time), and where tone is weak (which is difficult to hear when playing). An audio recording made with a phone, left on a music stand during a practice session, and later critically analysed, is one of the most effective and least utilised development strategies. While it is uncomfortable, it can lead to significant improvement in playing ability. 

Accessories That Are Actually Worth Having Early

A capo, spare set of strings, tuner, and decent cable are accessories that are well worth the investment from the start. A capo makes more songs available with a limited set of chords, which is a motivating factor during the period when the repertoire of chords is small. An extra set of strings avoids the particular frustration of an early practice session being cut short by a broken string. A good cable prevents the confusion of a bad cable’s noise in an already complex learning process. A tuner ensures a guitar is always properly tuned when practising. These are small purchases that can remove obstacles to learning.

Progress Is Not Linear

Learning the guitar is not a linear process. Plateaus are expected, weeks of apparent backsliding are common, and the unexpected breakthroughs that follow long periods of stagnation are an integral part of the learning process. Those who know this are less likely to see a bad week as a sign they are not “guitar material”. Those who stick with it through the plateaus come out the other side with skills that seemed impossible to learn just before the breakthrough.

Foundations That Make the Difference 

It’s not the guitarists who practice the longest who improve the fastest, but the ones who practice the right way. They focus on the fundamentals, endure the initial discomforts of learning, and persevere despite apparent plateaus in their learning. As a result, they avoid many of the pitfalls that lead others to abandon the guitar before they reach a point where it’s satisfying. Learning guitar isn’t about taking the easy route, but about taking the right route. By focusing on the right things in the beginning, beginners can avoid the frustration of fixing mistakes that shouldn’t have happened and can focus on what they really want to do: play music that sounds good.