Tips for Guitar Beginners by Six Strings Music Publishing

I want to start playing guitar. What kind of guitar should I get? What type of guitars are there? What should I look for in a guitar?
What is the average number of strings used for a guitar?
I just began playing. I find just about everything difficult and challenging. Where should I start?
I’ve been playing only by ear. Reading music seems foreign.
I have a hard time tuning the guitar. I can’t tell exactly if it’s in tune or not.
I’ve just started. Finger control is difficult.
What is TAB?
How are guitar tabs different from bass guitar tabs?
What kinds of picks are there?
I've just started playing guitar. I play a lot every day and my fingers are blistering. Will they toughen up? How?

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I want to start playing guitar. What kind of guitar should I get? What type of guitars are there? What should I look for in a guitar?

It’s important to get yourself a decent guitar. It doesn’t matter whether it is electric or acoustic, but choose the one that sounds good to your ears and common to the type of music you plan to play. You don’t need to spend fortune, but keep in mind that many inexpensive guitars can be problematic (bad set up, inappropriate neck action, inaccurate intonation, etc.). Even an experienced player wouldn’t be able to make it sound good with a badly made guitar. So, do a little bit of research if you can. Talk to your friends or teachers, search internet, browse some guitar magazines and call several guitar companies and ask for their catalogs. If your local store happens to have a knowledgeable and helpful sales person, get his or her advice. But it always helps if you have some kind of ideas what to get before actually buying it. Try to buy the best guitar you can afford and make sure it has been properly set up. As far as type of guitars, there are electric, acoustic (steel-stringed), classical (nylon-stringed), and dobro guitars. They produce different sounds and are used depending on various music styles and settings. What you want to look for in a guitar depends on what kind of music you would like to play and what type of sounds you intend to produce with it. If you, for example, love hard-rock sound, electric guitar may be an ideal instrument. On the other hand, if you like quite & romantic sound, nylon classical guitar is a good one to start with.

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What is the average number of strings used for a guitar?

The most popular type of guitar has 6 strings. There are also a 8-string and a 12-string guitars.

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I just began playing. I find just about everything difficult and challenging. Where should I start?

Beginning is always extra hard and maybe a little frustrating. This is quite a common experience among beginners as your fingers, hands and mind are all trying to do something they have never done before. If your budget allows, private lesson is an excellent start (see below for details). Or you can take guitar classes at adult school or group lessons or seminars offered at your local music store. Another alternative would be to buy and practice with a method book or video on your own. Many guitar method books exist, but carefully choose a well structured and written book which will make your life easier. Many self-taught players also pick up a lot of things from listening to and diligently copying from records, CD, radio, or friends. Combining several methods mentioned here is often more effective than just sticking to one way. Whatever you choose to do, keep in mind:

To always play very slowly whenever you have a new material to learn in order to correctly program your hands and brain or you’ll acquire bad habits that are difficult to break later on.

Practicing every day even if you can only do 10-15 minutes facilitates your learning. Learning new materials may take extra time and effort at first, but you’ll find that the more you learn and play, the easier and faster you’ll be able to absorb.

To set a goal and visualize how you want to be playing a week, a month or a year from today. Put a picture or poster of your favorite guitarist in your room, learn what took him where he is now and apply it to yourself.

To listen to your favorite music, songs and guitar parts that excite you every day.

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I’ve been playing only by ear. Reading music seems foreign.

There's really nothing wrong with *playing by ear.* Many great musicians such as Keith Richards, Wes Montgomery, Eddie Van Helen and Jimmy Hendrix all played or plays by ear all their life and never learned how to read music. Even so-called academically trained guitarists primarily rely on their ears when it comes to playing. However, the inability to read sometimes becomes a problem when you are presented a sheet of music in a session or when you need to learn something quickly. Also, it’s easier to communicate with other musicians if you can read music. As opposed to a common misconception, reading music is actually a lot of fun and not difficult at all if you approach it appropriately.

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I have a hard time tuning the guitar. I can’t tell exactly if it’s in tune or not.

Tuning is one of the first hurdles a beginner encounters. Unfortunately, it takes some time and agonies for some until they are 100% comfortable doing it right. As shown in the excerpt, tuning guitar is not a tremendously difficult process, but one needs some patience until he or she can hear the subtle difference in pitches between strings. Here are a few suggestions:

If you are not certain if a string you are tuning is in tune or not, tune it down and bring it up slowly and gradually.

Don’t spend 10-20 minutes trying to tune your guitar. There’s a time when you just can’t seem to do it no matter how hard you try. Before you lose all your interest, take a long break, come back fresh, tune all the strings down and start over.

Use a tuner to test if your tuning was done right.

Tuning may take time until you can do it comfortably. But, it’s a very important process. There’s nothing worse than listening to an out-of-tune guitar even if you are playing a hot, sizzling lick or solo.

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I’ve just started. Finger control is difficult.

Guitar is a relatively physical-demanding instrument and requires certain finger strength and control necessary to play it. Many people get frustrated as their fingers hurt constantly and feel clumsy until they are used to playing. Here are a few suggestions:

Start with a very simple and easy movement at first.

Whatever you do, do it very SLOWLY until your fingers and hands can play it correctly.

Whenever you play, strive to play as clear as and as clean as possible with a good, strong execution. That’s much more important than speed.

Find your weak areas and make up a simple exercise to overcome them. For example, if moving between the 1st fret and the 3rd fret of the 1st string gives you a headache, isolate and repeat switching the movement VERY SLOWLY over and over.

There is no better way to improve your dexterity than playing guitar every day. Furthermore, if possible, practicing several short sessions a day rather than one long session works better.

Don’t get frustrated. Be patient. If you can’t seem to master a certain thing today, set it aside for now, do something else that you can do and come back to it later on.

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What is TAB?

TAB is a six-line staff graphically showing the fingerboard. Each line represents one of the guitar strings. The numbers that appear on the lines are fret numbers indicating where to press down. TAB has been used since 100-200 years ago, but it still remains secondary to the standard notation. Some TAB contain many other technical information such as bending, hammering, pulling, and slides which make it a little hard to read for some people. If you have trouble reading TAB, don’t worry. Being able to read standard notation is much more important and useful to you in a long run. Remember that TAB is added only as a supplement and not as a substitute to normal music notation.

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How are guitar tabs different from bass guitar tabs?

A guitar tab has 6 lines whereas a bass guitar tab has only 4 lines. The number of lines coincide with the number of strings each guitar has. Everything else--how to read it, what it notates, what each number on a line indicates, etc.--is exactly the same.

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What kinds of picks are there?

There are many different kinds of picks including the ones made of plastic (most popular), nylon, shell, stone, and steel. Some people even make it out of a coconut!

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I've just started playing guitar. I play a lot every day and my fingers are blistering. Will they toughen up? How?

If you've just started out, I'm afraid your fingers will hurt for a little while. However, the more you play consistently, the thicker and stronger your finger tips will become. It won't happen overnight and takes more time if you don't play regularly. Once your fingertips develop corn or blister, it shouldn't hurt to play the instrument any longer. It is somewhat a painful experience to some people, but this is something all guitar players have to go through especially when starting out or after a long break. The key is to just keep practicing and playing.

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