Learning how to play guitar can take a lot of time. Guitarists often take years and even decade to master the fretboard. that being said there’s no reason you can’t learn the basics of guitar much faster.
If you want to understand how to learn guitar faster, there’s a few tricks and principles you need to know.
Playing guitar for a period of time doesn’t narrowly indicate their skill level. There are many guitarists who learn basic chords so they can play and sing along with their favorite songs.
They never really progress past basic 4 chord songs and maybe they know a B7 simply because a song they learned has it.
Someone could be at this skill level in 2-3 months, or someone could still be there for 10 years.
The difference is two things, the level at which the guitarist wants to play at, and the amount of time they’re willing to dedicate to learning and practicing.
I taught beginner lessons to kids whose parents would drop them off every week, whether they practiced or not.
It was painfully obvious when a kid didn’t practice, I would often tell them to just sit down for 5 minutes each day and play through what we worked on the previous week, even just one run through.
The kids that listened made progress, not as fast as the kids that wanted to be there to learn, but progress is progress.
The kids that wouldn’t practice would get frustrated that they couldn’t get a handle on the few songs they wanted to.
They could play those songs because they thought all they had to do was go to lessons once a week and that was it.
If you’re going to learn guitar, you may as well do it efficiently, so you can learn the fundamentals and get the boring stuff out of the way quickly.
This will leave more time for you to play the things you enjoy, and open up new styles and techniques.
What is the fastest way to learn guitar
If you want to learn guitar fast, you’ll want to be taking weekly lessons.
Yes you can learn guitar without taking in person lessons, but you will absolutely, under no circumstances learn faster by yourself, than you would if you take at least a few intro lessons.
Even just taking lessons for two months will set you up to succeed, the teacher will be able to point at your fingers, and tell you which ones need to move where.
They’ll help you correct poor form or bad habits, someone that can’t be done by yourself, or via online lessons.
It’s also not like you either learn on your own OR take lessons, you need to be learning on your own WITH lessons.
Your teacher isn’t going to read you mind and know what exact style or songs you want to learn.
You need to seek out and progress your skills on your own even when you’re still taking lessons.
Lessons are there to give you a solid foundation and point you in the right direction, you still need to put in the effort for yourself.
How fast can I teach myself guitar
If you don’t want to take lessons I completely understand. They’re expensive, trust me I know.
You can still learn guitar fast even without lessons, but you will need to put in a little more effort to get things moving in the right direction.
First you’ll need to decide what style of guitar you want to play, and at what level you’re aiming for.
Of course, you can, and probably will change these, but it’s a good idea to have a target you’re aiming for.
Do you want to rock out, shred metal, noodle some jazz, or play acoustically around the campfire?
While the beginner steps to learning guitar will all look fairly similar at first, you’ll want to be learning techniques that work for the style you’re aiming for.
It won’t take too long before you start learning full songs, those songs may as well be ones that you enjoy and listen to.
If you put in the effort you can realistically go from zero knowledge and ability to strumming along to 4 chord songs in a couple weeks.
From there it would only be another couple weeks to learn some basic soloing techniques or riffs.
Again, if you don’t practice enough, this same target could take you 4 months; with dedicated daily practice you can easily be there in 4 weeks.
How long does it take on average to learn the guitar
Depending on how often you can practice expect to learn the basics within the first couple of months, and move up to an intermediate level within the first two years.
Guitarists have mastered their instrument, self taught, within a couple years, but their level dedication is likely unrealistic for the averages student.
No one has ever “finished” learning the guitar as music is an art and art is never completed.
That being said, beginners are usually those who have been playing under a year, and intermediate are those in the 1-3 year mark.
People who might be seen at expert level usually are in the 3-7 year range.
Again, time isn’t a precise measurement of ability, as saying “i’ve been playing for 2 years” doesn’t tell me how much you’ve practice in those two years.
The more you practice, the faster you’ll learn guitar, it’s as simple as that.
How to learn guitar by yourself fast
If you want to understand how to learn guitar fast, you need to set yourself up for success.
Here’s what I recommend as a starting point, learn 4 chords and 2 scales, and work on those for a week.
G, Em, C and D are the chords, and then learn the G and C scale. Scales are just to build note playing technique in a simple fashion.
Those four chords will be chords you use for the rest of your time playing guitar.
With those chords you’ll be able to play a few hundred songs, as these are arguably the 4 most used chords in music today.
While you’re working on those four chords and two scale start poking around the internet to find more resources and areas of interest.
Figure out a fun song that you want to learn, look up the tab or chords and start practicing it, even if it sounds terrible at first (it will trust me).
Dedicate a set amount of time to regularly practice. Playing for 5 minutes once a day will make more progress than playing for 2 hours once a week.
You need repetition and repetition and repetition. This is how you’ll build muscle memory.
Guitarist that have been playing for even a couple years don’t need to look when they change basic chords, this is thanks to muscle memory.
You can’t form muscle memory if you’re only practicing once a week. DAILY PRACTICE!
With these tips you now know how to learn guitar fast.
Here’s a video with some beginner tips to get you started off on the right foot.
