How I Began To Learn How To Play Guitar By Myself

After my first ever guitar practise session where I tried to learn how to play my first ever chord on the instrument (the C chord, what else?), I was a little disappointed with myself and the progress I displayed. Sure, it was only the first four hours I ever had on an electric guitar, so I couldn't possibly ask for too much. But it also showed how little talent I had for playing the guitar (or so I thought at that time). The whole thing needed a proper plan and it was time to sit down and come up with a good one, before I could ever hope of gracing any stadium arena and rocking out to anthemic rock tunes in front of adoring fans. There was the prerequisite guitar chord book that I already had. It was no point getting any guitar sheet music since I did not really know how to play any chords yet, much less in changing from one to another. Now at this point let me just say that the advice given by many guitarists to beginners is to learn songs as soon as you can. I agree that you should do that, but before you jump, please learn how to walk. Spend some quality time learning how to play your chords and practise changing them, before you go on to your first ever song on the guitar. And always choose the easiest song you can play on the guitar as the first to learn, otherwise be prepared to be demoralised.

Back to what I should get in training myself how to play my guitar. I had my chord book. I figured that my fingers were struggling to have any strength in fingering the chords and changing from one form to the other. Perhaps it might be worth the money to get one of those grip strengthening gadgets for guitarists, where you could simulate doing push ups with your fingers to get them finger muscles growing and making pressing on guitar frets a breeze. But that was not a priority. I could get just as strong by practising more and often on the guitar neck. A decision was finally made that my next purchase should be an guitar instructional book which would provide me with some guidance while I learned how to play without a formal guitar teacher or attending lessons at Yamaha or with some other dodgy part-timer struggling to make ends meet as a professional guitarist cum musician.

Making my trip down to the music shop which stocks guitar sheet music and instructional books and videos, the next hour or two were spent flipping through the many books and trying to figure out which to buy. Honestly, I had no idea. In the end, I just hopped on a generic title (which I cannot remember now after so many years) and sped home to get started. My second ever guitar lesson on my own was then spent learning how to play the C chord (again) and then G and E chords. I was told that you could write a song on the guitar with just these three chords, and there were the essential chords that all guitarists should have in their arsenal. And so I strived to master them. This second guitar lesson was thus all about the C, G and E chords and struggling to change from one to the other while my fingers continuously slipped on the guitar neck and felt sore from pressing on the frets. In fact, my next few self taught guitar lessons encompassed trying to master these few chords. It was C, G, and E over and over again till I got absolutely sick of playing them. Until eventually, miraculously, my fingers moved faster, smoother and I was incredibly playing three chord self composed tunes of my own imagination on my electric guitar. This was how I began to learn how to play the guitar by myself.

There was no secret to it. And there is no secret to how you can do it either. It is down to pure hard work and perseverance. The first chords and changes are always the hardest, no matter how simple the chords are. You just keep practising on the guitar until one day, you find yourself being able to switch from one to the other with ease and your eyes closed. Of course, it really helped a lot with the musical background I had, as it made learning the basics like how to tune your guitar and read music theory a breeze and gave me a headstart. But no matter what, learning how to play the guitar by myself required the same discipline and dedication, sometimes even more, as learning it from a formal music school and lessons. The advantage is that you are actually free to try anything you might think of and can imagine, while rote learning in a music school can sometimes be restrictive or they might subconsciously get you to move in the same direction as they believe in themselves, which does not take into account the fact that everyone has different musical abilities and levels, and everyone should be given a choice to express their own musical vocabulary and freedom, especially with an instrument like the guitar. It was also why I chose to learn to play the electric guitar, where freedom and wild creativity is often the symbol of the instrument and what it represents.