How To Learn to Play Guitar... Fast!

Learning to play guitar is like a journey.

You start at point A - newbie - and end up at point B - e.g., playing guitar in a band as a popular in-demand guitarist.

You can take a slow journey - stopping off anywhere that attracts your attention, or... you can take the fast-track - by being very focused - and complete the journey in a fraction of the time it takes most people.

So these pages are about the fast track. About how to become the best guitarist you can in the shortest time possible. Yeah baby.

That means in 12-18 months you can have skills that take most others many years to develop - if they develop them at all, that is. (Most don't.)

But there are some very important steps along the way to becoming a good guitar player that you'll want to be aware of if you are serious about being the best you can as soon as you can.

The Play Guitar Jigsaw Puzzle

Developing the skills to be a good guitar player is a bit like a jigsaw puzzle... you need all the parts to complete the picture.

FACT: Most people neglect to develop the correct skills because they never really know what they are. So read these few pages and avoid depriving yourself of some simple tips that will help you big time -- especially if you plan on teaching yourself.

What Play Guitar Skills Do You Need?

Let's look at some basic facts and the pieces of the 'puzzle' that you need to be aware of that will help you learn guitar faster.

1. The Basics: It doesn't matter whether you want to play rock, blues, metal, funk, jazz, folk, reggae, or any other style. You have to understand and learn the basics first! Every style uses the same basic skills and knowledge. So don't fall into the trap of thinking you will only try to play blues, or rock, or whatever your favorite style is. Learn the basics first and it is an easy matter to play any other style you like. That will make you a versatile and very popular guitarist with singers and other musicians.
2. Be A Musician First: Realize that what you need, is to be a musician first and a guitarist second. You need to be adaptable to many styles and you need to be able to play any song in any key. Understanding how to do this will save you countless hours of frustrating and time-consuming trial-and-error 'fiddling'. What you need to focus on is developing skills all musicians need. That you have chosen guitar is secondary in that you just need to learn the fret board and discover how to apply your musical knowledge to the guitar.
3. Music Theory: Learning to play a musical instrument is a combination of the head and the hands. Most guitar players focus too much on the hands and fingers and not enough on the head. To make the fastest possible progress you need a map you can follow to reach your destination. Some basic knowledge and understanding of simple music theory is your map. This simple theory demystifies how music really works and makes learning it much faster and easier. In particular, an understanding of how scales and chords are made, and what 'keys' are will put your learning on 'super-steroids'.
4. Muscle-Memory Skills: This is the part most guitarists focus on to the exclusion of the other puzzle pieces. But they still get it terribly wrong! You need to 'train' your fingers to play chords, scales and guitar notes easily without even thinking about it. You need to train your fingers to play perfectly on 'auto-pilot'! That means, slow, perfect practice with minimal finger movements (shortest distance between 2 points) and as relaxed as possible. 

Getting a solid grounding in the basics will set you up for a life guitar playing fun, creativity and excitement. If you go about it the right way.

This is the first page in this series... more will be added over the next few weeks. But in the meantime...