Beginning Guitar Tips – A Great Article

Beginning Guitar Tips is not only for Beginners, it’s worth  a read by players of all standards.

I was talking to a friend today about guitar lessons and during the conversation it occured to me that many guitar teachers, even those teaching professionally are leaving out pieces of puzzle. 
I thought I’d do a short article to help players who are just starting out. Often they will just teach students just how to play songs, and that’s great but there’s a lot of missing elements required to help the student develop outside the music teaching studio environment. I’ve listed a few things that I know are essential to laying a good foundation.
Learn how to to tune the guitar.  Being out of tune is a bad way to start, it will annoy you and it’s important to develop an an ear, if you can’t hear that you’re out of tune you’ll be in strife.  Get yourself a simple electronic tuner, this will save the problem.
Learn the notes on the fretboard.  This is something that even seasoned players often forget to do, some people have a great technique but they are often slowed down by not knowing the basics. Note identification on the fretboard will aid you in making sense of many of the great tutorials that are available.   
Learn to understand chords, not just where to put your fingers but listen to the sound of them once you can play them, chord families have a texture to them, example majors sound happy and solid, wheras minors are sad, seventh chords sound as if they are going somewhere, they imply movement.  Often, chords with complex sounding names are not that complex after all and are basic chords with a few extra notes to give them character, don’t be fooled by the names, underlying every chord is a basic sound.   Learn what notes make up a chord e.g. an Am9 (A minor 9th) consists of A C E G B notes. If you know your fretboard notes and the notes that make up chords, you’ll very quickly start to make sense of improvisation and how to work with other players.  
Work on some basic right and left hand exercises, be consistent, there is a need to have a good technique, not for the sake of looking good or being correct but more so for you not to be hindered by the physical limitations of not have the right muscles in the fingers developed. There’s a need to have good thought-to-finger response, by doing regular simple exercises it will alleventually become natural.  

Be organised, plan what you are going to work on. If you are too organised that can also be a but of a nuisance because everything can end up a bit mechanical.  Go for the middle ground, look at alloting time for woodshedding (workshopping) and times when you can explore the instrument.
Scales are useful but be careful, they will help you become a fluent player but don’t get caught in the trap of being a fast player that is more of a technician than musician, keep it musical always.

Keep an open mind, everyone you see can be your teacher, you can learn from other peoples mistakes as well as all the useful tips people can give you.
These are few of the things that are essential to start thinking about and researching if you are new to the guitar. 

It’s advisable to also check out my other Guitar Blog Site which includes many articles to help guitar players of all standards at acoustic guitarist