The Stages Of Guitar Lessons

Growing up, the two best things in life were playing hockey and my weekly guitar lesson! The satisfaction from guitar lessons happens on many levels, and it's as true now as ever. The gift of music is priceless, and with the right teacher one can experience boundless joy during the journey from novice beginner to capable player and hopefully to even greater heights! We don't all become Jimi Hendrix, but we can all have fun learning at least a bit of Purple Haze. Here's what you can expect from guitar lessons at different stages.

At first, the student can expect some time to get adjusted to the instrument and its requirements. Pressing down on strings and strumming is totally foreign, and nothing prepares you in life for it. As well, you'll need to learn how to read chords. You may be taught how to read music from the staff, or a system of notation for guitar called "tablature." Either is fine. So between getting your fingers adjusted and your head wrapped around new concepts it may take a while, depending on how keen you are and how much time you invest in practice. As always, the more practice the better! That said, it is important not to rush here in this early stage: don't pick up bad habits by hurrying through the fundamentals. You'll want to play chords and have your practicing sound musical, but the two key words are patience and practice.

The next stage really begins when you can play chords smoothly and transition from one to the next in rhythm. You have a basic strum pattern and it sounds like music, but it's basic. Good! This is the first foundation on which to build, and depending on the style there's ways to make your playing more ornamental and more meaningful. After the basics, you can start traveling down the road of the musicians whose sound you want to replicate-their basic techniques at least. You'll learn more advanced strum patterns, perhaps some finger-picking, and of course some more sophisticated fretting. As you play you'll gain control and it'll sound somewhere between the ten fingers of a piano and your old basic strum; you'll be able to isolate bass notes, treble notes, and break up your strumming to make sharper rhythmic accents. You can expect the way you hear music to change at this stage too. Playing does this.

The final stage of guitar lessons is really endless. There is no limit to how far you can go on the instrument, so the question is really about blending together different influences and making music you love. Perhaps you are passionate about one genre and want to take it further. By this time in your development you'll know! You'll be the authority, and you will have realized that all the earlier practice was totally worth it, even if it was a struggle or seemed like less than fun at the time. Even for non-experts, guitar is just fun!