5 Skills Every Beginner Guitarist Needs

Learning the guitar from the ground up can be a scary task, often leaving us wondering what areas are the most important to work on whilst we take our baby steps. There are many skills we need to hone over our years as guitar players but choosing the right ones early doors can be make or break in the long run. Installing a system to help us improve these skills is critical to get you comfortably and confidently started, here are 5 skills that are more than worthwhile taking a look at.

Learning the guitar isn’t something that happens in a flash. It takes an understanding that this is something that you’re going to be perpetually improving and with that in mind, patience is skill we must look to as our friend in our freshman years. Yes, before we even think about theory or technique!

There are going to be times where your frustration is going to want to make you pull your hair out. Learning isn’t always a walk in the park and takes dedication, which can be hard to upkeep if your motivation is being marred by slow progress. Keeping a positive mindset, taking your time and trusting the process is the key to achieving your short and long term goals.

Become a master of patience to master the instrument!

Making sure your instrument is in tune every time you pick it up is surely the first thing we should do before begin playing, right? Yet, so many new guitarists get this so very wrong. Maybe they don’t own a tuner but certainly, because they haven’t dedicated the time to learning how to tune to guitar by ear. Now I know what you’re thinking, “wow Mitch, perfectly tuning every string to 440Hz is a super high standard...” but of course; we can do this relatively. You don’t need perfect pitch to be able to tune the strings of a guitar so that they are relative to each other. Though, because we won’t always be playing on our own, setting such a high standard for this as a beginner will reward you ten-fold down the line.

Using a tuner, take your time to get familiar with the correct sounds of each string and then how they sound all together once perfectly in tune.

Once you’re feeling confident, try the same thing without a tuner and once you’re done, use the tuner again to see how close you were overall.

Rhythm is the fundamental foundation of every aspect of music and we are going to encounter it from the get go as a beginner. Many things we may learn in our very first guitar lesson are associated with rhythm: strumming patterns, learning scales, melodies and their note lengths, the duration we stay on one chord, how quick the chord changes are...These are all things we will face early on and if we don’t get a grasp of rhythm theory and learn how to implement it, we’re going to run into some trouble.

Take the time to understand the length of notes, counting bars when learning things because if you don’t, when it comes to playing and keeping your rhythm; there’s absolutely nowhere to hide and your discrepancies will be revealed. Putting the work in early makes for effortless time keeping and feel as the years go rolling by.

Being a versatile guitar player should be every budding shredder’s long term goal. The more styles and techniques you can master will help open doors along your journey as a musician. This is something we can take a hold of right at the very start by trying learn as many styles of music as we are able. Even if you’re a country strummer at heart and metal isn’t your thing, learn a metal riff; it could spark a newfound appreciation and inspiration for the genre. The same applies in the reverse situation.

Learning different genres from the beginning will propel your learning progress and make you a much more rounded guitar player for doing so.

You may even find your musical calling under stones you usually wouldn’t pick up.

Ultimately though, challenging yourself to learn things outside of your comfort zone will sharpen your technical tool set and expand your knowledge of theory. It’s also a rewarding experience when you perfect a piece you weren’t expecting to play!

Whilst nobody likes being confronted with an ego, it’s important to remain confident when learning how to play guitar. It’s also something that you can learn to quietly carry with you as you manoeuvre through your career because ultimately, confidence is a hugely important skill to have and hone. Playing music also falls under performing which is something we will all face in our musical journey and can be a tricky thing to get used to if you don’t prepare for it.

We can do this in the beginning by getting comfortable with seeing ourselves playing the instrument. Practice in front of a mirror. Record a video of yourself playing the song you’ve mastered. Pat yourself on the back for the small wins along the way to becoming the shred lord of the universe. Confidence is a vital ingredient to staying dedicated and motivated. Though, it should be used constructively, responsibly and introspectively. Don’t be a diva!

If you have found yourself struggling to find your feet with the guitar, taking note of these skills will definitely help you retain some balance. Learn to be patient, train your ears, keep the beat, mix it up, turn up the heat. All of these things can be utilised to put together a learning path and a means to track your progress, honing these skills in a way that works best for you. Putting the work in now makes for all the fun later, setting you up to positively progress in your guitar mastery.