do you understand what learning guitar is really about?

Most students think that learning to play guitar means learning chord shapes and strums; the real work however happens in an entirely different place.

For example, anyone can learn and remember where to put their fingers to form a D chord, that’s very easy. Equally, to memorize a rhythm and the correct strum directions is also quite straight forward to do, so where does the real work begin?

Well it’s in that stage where students have to ‘put it all together’. Once you learn the chord shapes it’s all about being able to change from one to the other quickly enough to keep up with songs. With strumming you need to have the pattern so well learnt that you can do it without thinking while going through chord changes required for the song.

This is what I mean by putting it all together. It’s not that you’re learning, it’s that you’re perfecting what you’ve learned. There’s a big difference.

I like to divide learning guitar into 2 distinct stages. The first stage is LEARNING and the second stage is PRACTICE where you drill the information around and around until it becomes second nature.

For your guitar playing to feel effortless you must have assimilated all your chords, strums and other techniques to such an extent that they are completely natural and require very little thought or effort on your part to perform.

When you see players who make it seem so easy to play guitar that’s because for them… IT IS! And it’s not through any great talent, only that they have practiced correctly and deeply learned what they’re performing.

What's The Most Common Beginner Fault?

One of the most common problems with beginners is LAZINESS. A lot of beginners will learn chords shapes but that is not nearly enough. What about how your chords actually sound? I’m talking here of the quality of your chords. Just holding the right shapes is not enough.

You have to put a lot of effort into obeying the 3 rules for clear chords (this is demonstrated in lesson one from the online DVD) to ensure that you achieve good sounding chords once you have formed them.

In the beginning stages this is why most students sound bad on guitar; even though they are holding the correct chord shape the sound quality of the chord is terrible due to a combination of laziness and not obeying some fundamental chord rules.

The website lessons are well aware of these classic beginner pitfalls through the experience of having taught hundreds of beginners in real life. As a result the lessons are designed to help you avoid these types of common mistakes, some of which can hold your guitar playing back from progressing for many years, even forever in some cases.

Talk soon, Paul

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