What is an intermediate guitar player? How long does it take to be an intermediate guitar player? What should I do to become an intermediate guitar player? How do you know if you are a beginner, intermediate, or advanced guitar player? When it comes to the development of being a guitar player, these questions frequently show up in the queue, which is why we felt we need to do something to help everyone who is still curious when it comes to this topic.
When it comes to trying to learn something, it is still better to have a goal to become better every day. Just like learning to play the guitar, it would also be better if you aim to be better every day. How to be better? Practice always; as the saying says, practice makes you perfect. Every guitar player you know or idolize has practice routines they frequently execute before becoming what they are today.
There are levels of development in being a guitar player: beginner or novice, intermediate, advanced, and professional. Although there are no exact terms for these levels, I believe most guitar players will acknowledge these terms to be correct.
So, how long do you usually take to these levels with consistent practice? With constant practice of half an hour per day, five days a week, you can probably get out of the beginner level after two to three months, maybe. Starting from the third up to the sixth month, you have learned how to play the guitar; this time will serve as your intermediate period, where you will have to learn more to become an advanced guitar player.
The number of months you have to spend practicing the guitar to become a professional musician from being an advanced guitar player will differ in how effective you are in your practice and how quickly you understand the things you need to learn to become a guitar player. It is also the same as becoming an intermediate and an advanced guitar player.
What Is An Intermediate Guitar Player?
So, what is an intermediate guitar player? And how to know if you are already one? There are many factors to consider when you are evaluating a person’s skill level in playing the guitar, whether he is a beginner, an intermediate, advanced, or professional. So let us start to check if you are now an intermediate guitar player or not.
To be considered an intermediate guitar player, you have to have a better understanding when it comes to music theory, especially with keys and chords. This is an essential thing to improve for yourself if you are trying to climb the wall to being an intermediate guitar player, as it will help you a lot in your playing.
Another thing an intermediate guitar player can do is to be able to change chords smoothly. You can really notice a beginner and an intermediate one when it comes to changing chords, as most novice guitar players still have difficulty changing chords smoothly. Whether you are using power or open chords, an intermediate guitar must be able to change its chords without any hitch.
Intermediate guitar players also have some knowledge of playing the scales. Even if they cannot play perfectly and are still a little bit slow, as long as you can play it and have a basic idea of how to play the scales and when to use them in your playing is a significant factor to be considered as an intermediate guitar player. Whether you only know how to play the Pentatonic or the Blues scale, you can be considered an intermediate guitar player.
All intermediate guitar players also know how to identify the key of a simple song by just listening to the song. At this level, you start to develop the skills to identify the correct chords of the song just by hearing and not by looking at any song books or tabs. For beginners, it is crucial to be able to develop this skill to graduate from being a novice to an intermediate guitar player.
Lastly, intermediate guitar players already have a solid knowledge of strumming, picking, bending, sliding, and vibrato, which is still lacking from novice guitar players. If you already have developed a solid knowledge of the skills above, it will help you to play many songs without any problem.
When it comes to strumming, intermediate guitar players have already developed a great sense of executing any basic strumming patterns without any problems. Basic lead guitar techniques like picking, bending, and much more are also an important part of the arsenal that any intermediate guitar player can execute without any issues.
What Is the Difference Between A Beginner And An Intermediate Guitar Player?
When it comes to guitar skills, there is already a huge difference between a beginner and an intermediate guitar player. They can be easily noticed as their playing will speak for itself. You can notice some things that an intermediate guitar player can do, but a novice guitar player cannot.
An intermediate guitar player knows more chords and is able to play more chords compared to a novice one. Being able to memorize chords and properly execute them on a guitar is a great meter to check as to whether you have already improved as a guitar player. It just means that the more guitar chords that you can play properly without any issues mean that you have already improved. It is also logical to say that intermediate guitar players can play more guitar chords than a beginner.
Intermediate guitar players also can play longer compared to novice players. Having consistency in practicing the guitar will give you more stamina to play with it for a long time, and this is still lacking for many who are still beginners in playing the guitar. Novice guitar players also still need to develop some calluses on their fingers to lessen the pain from holding the strings tightly.
Another thing you can see when you compare an intermediate guitar player with a novice one is that the former has good knowledge when it comes to playing the scales. Usually, those guitar players who are learning to play the scales start by practicing with the pentatonic scales, but it would still be harder to play for a beginner than an intermediate guitar player.
Intermediate guitar players can also easily play along with more songs than beginners. They can also determine the key of the song faster than a novice, as they have more experience in playing the guitar. It is really a noticeable skill when you compare the two levels as you can notice that intermediate guitar players can play better with any song thrown at them without teaching them any chords of the song.
Lastly, intermediate guitar players can also hold their rhythm better than beginners. It is just a result of more time in practicing the guitar and more experience, which is crucial for a guitar player’s development.
So, how to know if you’re an intermediate guitar player? There are many factors to determine whether you are one or not. One of these is whether you can play many chords and whether you can play them smoothly while you frequently change chords. Another thing is how deep your learning is when it comes to music theory, and the last is whether you can already play some basic scales, preferably at an average speed.
