How Long Does it Take to Get Good at Guitar?
This is a question we get all the time. And we know you don’t like the answer, but it depends. Read on to learn seven steps that will get you to good as fast as possible!
Learning guitar can be so rewarding for a beginner. You pick it up and sound good in a few weeks, playing a simple line melody or a couple of chords—with a lot of work. But playing it well, knowing how to use it musically and being able to do that competently is a much longer journey. It requires you to make decisions. For example, do you want to be a classical guitarist? f so, spending time on an electric guitar learning how to play power chords is wasted time! On the opposite side, if you want to be an electric guitarist you can waste a lot of time learning to play an acoustic first because of the myth, “It builds character.” (A blog post will be coming on this soon!) The hardest thing to accept for the beginning guitarist is how complicated it can be to learn to be a great guitarist but you can do it if you can follow a set of principles.
You’ve got to find the easiest, fastest way possible to play music in the way you want to play. If you don’t make hard choices, then you end up saying what many guitarists say, “I’ve been playing guitar for since I was a kid!.” But what they don’t say is that they know a few songs, but they really can’t play guitar the way they want to. At best they are an intermediate musician. Or you do what I did, learning guitar relatively late in life because someone else wanted you to do the sensible thing, the realistic thing, and that certainly wasn’t being a musician. Musicians aren’t realistic, they are passionate, they are driven. And they do things that seem impossible to most people.
Do you want to play guitar? Do you want to be a real musician? Do you want to do things that most people, including other musicians, see as incredible? If the answer is yes, then here are seven principles to guide your journey.
1. Be a guitarist
Realize you are in it for the long haul—this is you from now on. When you commit to being a guitarist, you do the work of identifying as a guitarist. You proudly state you’re a guitarist with no excuses. It’s OK to say you are a guitarist even if you are brand new to the guitar but follow up that statement with, “I’m not very good.” That is counterproductive. You can say, “I’m learning all the time.” As soon as you commit, you are. It’s like a driver of a car. There’s no such thing as driving a car without being a car driver. You can be brand new and still be a thing. It’s OK. Revel in the journey.
2. Play every day
Spend time every day in focused practice based on the skills you need to become the guitarist you want to be. This changes every couple of weeks because you are adding new skills and identifying areas you need to improve as your skill set evolves. Spend at least 10 minutes every day focused on those skills. You ask, “How can 10 minutes a day make a difference?” The answer is that when you devote 10 minutes a day, you will find ways to make guitar a part of you. Ten minutes is just the amount of time you spend at a minimum on your technical skillset each day. The time you spend on songs, surfing the internet, writing songs, or dreaming of being a rock star doesn’t count. When you devote 10 minutes a day for the rest of your life, you will progress faster than those who spend two hours a day pretending to practice two or three days a week. This is one of the most proven principles with our students. Ten minutes will make you a guitarist, and you can always spend more time, but you just agree you will NEVER do less than that.
3. Get the right teacher
Do you need a teacher? Yes, if you want to progress quickly. Won’t YouTube cut it? No, not if you’re serious. So, who is the right teacher? One who can get you where you want to be. Just because they can play the way you want to play doesn’t mean they can teach and mentor you to become a player. In fact, some of the best guitarists are terrible teachers because they focus on playing, not teaching. Teaching is a skillset that requires as much work as playing guitar. Don’t waste time on mediocre or poor teacher. Interview prospective teachers. Find out if they are trained in how to teach. Determine their commitment to your success. Find out if they have a curriculum that beginners follow.
4. Practice what you need to learn not what you know.
Becoming a guitarist requires you to constantly grow. It requires focus so you need a strong mental game. This means you need to identify your weaknesses on the guitar (along with your teacher) and work to eradicate them. Most guitarists get to a spot where they find something hard to learn. They are stuck at this point for years or forever. They decide they’re not ‘that type of guitarist.’ This is because they find it hard to work on things they’re not good at. Learn to like learning new skills and blowing past previous stopping points and you can become a virtuoso if you stick with it. Avoid YouTube and other distractions. Spend the time you would spend surfing YouTube for tips and tricks becoming a better guitarist by actually working on your weaknesses.
5. Get the guitar you need and want
This means no budget guitars unless there is no other option. If you are limited on funds, look for a used instrument that is in good condition. Once you commit to becoming a guitarist you need a real instrument. If you buy a cheap instrument, you will make a difficult task impossible. Cheap guitars don’t stay in tune, aren’t easy to play and don’t sound good. If that’s the case, WHY would you play it…answer, you wouldn’t. Getting a cheap guitar because you don’t know if you want to play guitar is another way to almost guarantee failure. If you play 10 minutes a day, plus songs, the cost of a $1000 guitar is literally pennies per day. Find a guitar you love. If your tastes change, sell it and buy another guitar. Always get the correct tools (electric guitarists need an amp and effects) you need to do your job as a guitarist as well.
6. Do everything you can to make playing easier. Often, we hear of guitarists who NEVER took lessons who became stars and it is often a point of pride to say, “I’m self taught.” Maybe. But would you want to have a doctor who never went to medical school? Would you want to be on a flight with a pilot who was so busy that they just couldn’t go to flight school? Learning guitar from a good teacher isn’t a weakness, it shows you are serious. Playing the guitar is hard enough that you want EVERY benefit that you can get. No one wants to learn music theory. No one wants to learn to read rhythm notation on sheet music – until you find out that these things can really make playing the guitar easier. Buying the correct guitar makes playing easier. Holding the guitar and pick correctly makes playing easier. Don’t be so stubborn that you make your guitar journey hard or impossible by refusing to get a good teacher or tackle tasks that make you feel incompetent.
7. Play with and for other people from the start
Most people think that they will become “good” and then play music with or for others because they are embarrassed. This thinking will hold you back. You will never be a good guitarist, a really good guitarist, until you freely show what you can do in front of others all along your guitar journey. It takes courage to do so, but it is so important. This simple realization will drive your playing forward faster than anything else. You practice every day because you want to sound good in front of others. If you hide, then it’s easy to not play today because no one can hear you. Music brings joy and happiness to others, share your music, the world needs it! And by doing so, YOU become a better guitarist.
At Peak Music Studios, we teach guitar and singing in upstate New York where we serve Latham, Clifton Park, Albany, Troy, Niskayuna, Schenectady, Watervliet, and surrounding communities.
