How Do I Know if I'm Still a Beginner?

What makes a guitar student a beginner?

I was teaching the other day and a guitar student of mine, after having played for 6 months, told me he felt like he was still a beginner. My reply? You ARE still a beginner. One of the hardest things to accept about learning an instrument is that you can't speed the process up very much. Yes, you can practice more, take more lessons, do research on the internet and buy books, but your muscle memory has to catch up. So, what does indicate that you're a beginner? If your chords are still sloppy, you have trouble changing from one to the other, your fingers don't move very quickly and you can only play a couple songs all the way through, you're still in the beginning stage.


How do you make the jump?

First and foremost, take a deep breath, relax, and understand that everyone makes progress at a different rate. If you've never played guitar or any other instrument, haven't had a musical background, your parents or siblings don't play, you'll just have to go slow and learn at your own pace. With the wealth of information out there today, sometimes it does more harm than good. More and more lately I have students asking about theory and techniques that really aren't going to be useful at this point. They want to learn songs that they're not capable of playing, and that just makes it more frustrating. The ability to focus, go slow, and really learn a song, concept or technique is where the emphasis should be placed. Getting to the next level requires basic skills, at least an elementary understanding of the music you're trying to play and the ability to play it well.

Don't be tempted to multitask.


Having a clear goal in mind and concentrating on one thing at a time is the best way to make steady progress. Don't worry about trying to master chords, notes, scales, or intervals all at once. Your guitar teacher can help you decide what to learn first. How you start learning guitar depends on what kind of music you like, whether or not you're going to sing and how much of a musical background you have. So work with your teacher on finding what will help you get where you want to go with music.