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Beginner’s Guide to Guitar: Tips, Myths, and Mistakes
And you’re really not going to like the first tip
I’ve been teaching myself the guitar for about four years now.
Did you catch that? I didn’t say I’ve been playing the guitar for four years. That would imply something I’m not quite ready to claim. But I do practice every day for two to four hours.
Every. Damn. Day.
Besides the myriad of online lessons and tutorials, I spend a fair amount of time in guitar-related forums, groups, and subreddits. A common theme pops up daily: some variation of “How many weeks will it take me to learn guitar?” One person even said, with complete seriousness, that he had been trying to learn a song all day and still couldn’t play it.
A whole damn day.
I understand the frustration. I knew it would take a long time to get good, but I had hoped to improve much sooner. In my first few months, I subscribed to a guitarist’s Patreon page. I admired his music — short, melodic, original pieces that sounded beautiful. And he’d always start by saying, “It’s so simple, guys.”
