Powerful tips for beginner guitarists
Here are some ideas that most beginners don't even consider when they are starting out learning the guitar.
These ideas aren't obvious but can have a massive difference in how you progress as a guitar player. So, they are worth talking about!
Let’s get into it.
Don't be a phrasebook guitarist…
Have you ever traveled to another country and used a phrasebook to learn how to say a few things on the plane? Maybe you learn how to ask for a coffee, and it works – until someone says something you don't understand and you're stuck.
That’s phrasebook guitar. You might copy a few guitar tutorials and learn how to play a song, but you haven't developed any real understanding. You'll find you are only able to play in specific contexts, and when the situation changes, you get lost.
Learning this way feels good in the moment because it gives you quick results. You'll watch the video, follow the steps, and suddenly you can play the song! But it can also give a false sense of progress. You've learned the song by following a specific set of instructions rather than understanding how the music behind the song actually works. It's like memorizing a phrase in a foreign language without knowing what each word means. If someone changes the sentence slightly, you're lost.
It's phrasebook guitar.
Real progress is slower. It takes time to understand the why behind what you’re doing. Why do these chords sound good together? Why does this strumming pattern feel right? When you develop that deeper understanding, you’ll no longer find yourself stuck in one musical situation. You'll be able to learn songs more quickly, write your own tunes, and generally have more fun playing the guitar.
…Or a museum guitarist
A museum guitarist is someone who practices their scales, chords, and exercises in isolation. They can demonstrate a perfect C major scale or a beautifully executed barre chord but they never learn how to apply them in a musical situation. When it comes time to play with others, write a song, or jam along with a backing track, they freeze.
Their scales and techniques may as well be exhibits in a museum—admired but never used.
Learning the guitar isn't just about developing technical proficiency or learning as many scales and chords as possible.
You started learning the guitar to make music!
Practicing scales and exercises is important, but your practice should always serve a musical purpose.
If you learn a scale, figure out how it relates to a chord progression. If you’re practicing a strumming pattern, try using it in different songs. Always try and understand how the skills you're learning apply in real musical situations.
Understand the learning curve
Learning guitar isn’t a straight line from beginner to expert. Many people expect to see rapid progress early on and get discouraged when things feel slow. The truth is, the beginning often feels like a slog – every chord is new, your fingers hurt, and nothing sounds right. But that slow phase is where the foundation is built.
The learning curve for guitar starts slow and then gradually accelerates. Early on, everything is unfamiliar. You're building muscle memory, developing coordination, and training your ears. But over time, things start to click.
Skills stack on top of each other and you start to notice real momentum.
For example, learning your first few chords – say A, E, and D – is tough. Each shape is brand new. But then you learn A minor, E minor, D minor, and suddenly things feel easier. You're not starting from scratch anymore. You realise you're just tweaking shapes you already know, making small adjustments instead of having to learn entirely new ones. That’s the compounding effect that happens when you take the time to build a solid foundation.
Quality practice is better than quantity practice
When you're starting out learning the guitar, it's easy to think more practice equals better results. But practice isn't about logging hours; it's about how focused and intentional you are during that time. Five minutes of highly engaged practice can be more valuable than thirty minutes of distracted noodling.
We hit diminishing returns fast, especially when tackling new concepts. Your brain and fingers get tired. You lose focus. And instead of reinforcing good habits, you start practicing mistakes. That’s why short, focused sessions are often better. You finish feeling positive, energized, and ready to pick up the guitar again tomorrow.
Start small. Even five minutes a day makes a difference if you’re consistent. As you build stamina and your practice becomes more structured, you can add time. But never underestimate the power of short, high-quality sessions. It’s a better path to long-term progress.
Mental bandwidth
Mental bandwidth is the amount attention you have to focus on anything at any one point in time. Learning something new takes up a lot of mental bandwidth. That’s why combining two new things – like chord changes and strumming – can feel overwhelming. Each demands your full attention, and you only have so much to give.
If your strumming falls apart when you change chords, or your chords sound bad when you focus on rhythm, it’s not because you're doing something wrong. It’s because you've exceeded your mental bandwidth and your brain gets overloaded. Practice each part separately, then slowly work on bringing them together.
As you get better, you'll find each thing takes up less mental bandwidth. Eventually, you’ll be able to strum and change chords while singing, tapping your foot, and thinking about dinner. But at the beginning, be kind to yourself. Don’t expect to do everything at once. Focus on practicing slowly to build your capacity over time.
Have a clear goal for each aspect of your practice
One of the biggest mistakes beginners make is trying to work on too many things at once. They sit down with their guitar and jump from chords to scales to strumming to songs. The result? Not much sticks.
Instead, define a clear goal for each part of your practice. For example, when you're working on chord clarity, don’t worry about rhythm. Focus entirely on finger placement, pressure, and sound. When you work on strumming, let go of perfection in the chords and focus on consistent rhythm.
Isolating your goals allows you make faster progress. You’re giving your brain one job at a time, which is far less of a burden on your mental bandwidth.
Whether you want to strum along to your favorite songs, jam with friends, or create your own music, this course will help you build a solid foundation that fosters growth and creativity in any direction you choose.
The three types of understanding
You have three types of understanding that are involved when you are learning music: intellectual, physical, and aural.
Intellectual understanding
Intellectual understanding is knowing what you’re doing and why—This isn't limited to understanding music theory, but also understanding why your body moves a certain way and why things sound the way they do.
Physical understanding
Physical understanding is your muscle memory—your body’s ability to execute a movement without thinking about it.
Aural understanding
Aural understanding is your ability to recognize different sounds—is the pitch higher or lower? Is the rhythm slower or faster?
Often, your intellectual understanding will outpace your physical understanding. You might know you need to strum four times in a bar, but your hand won’t cooperate. Or, you might understand how to move your fingers during a chord change but find your fingers don’t cooperate. That gap can feel frustrating.
The key is to keep practicing in a way that brings the three types of understanding together. Play slowly, listen closely, and allow your body to catch up to your brain. With time, everything starts to sync up.
Ultimately, being fluent on the instrument is what happens when you’ve properly integrated your three types of understanding.
Overcome the fear of sounding bad
Everyone sounds bad in the beginning. Everyone. That includes your favorite players. The difference is they kept going.
One of the best ways to overcome the fear of sounding bad is to get used to recording yourself. You’ll probably sound 20% worse on camera than you do in private. That’s normal. But over time, the pressure fades, and you become more comfortable playing in front of others.
Also, save your recordings! You don’t need to watch them right away, but one day you’ll look back and be amazed at how far you’ve come. It’s a great motivator. It will teach you that mistakes are part of the process.
Mistakes are opportunities
Mistakes are frustrating, but they’re also feedback. They tell you exactly what part of your playing needs attention. That’s powerful.
When you make a mistake, don’t freak out. Instead, make a note of what happened. Was it a sloppy chord change? A missed beat? An out-of-place finger? Now you have a specific thing to work on. That mistake just became your to-do list.
It's also important to practice recovering from mistakes. That’s a skill in itself. Great players still make mistakes—they just recover so smoothly you don’t notice. The more you practice recovering, the less you freeze up when something goes wrong.
Follow a structure
There’s no one-size-fits-all path to learning guitar, but structure is still essential. Without it, progress becomes random. You might loop back over the same lessons, get stuck in a rut, or waste time on things that don’t align with your goals.
A good structure shows you where to start, where you’re heading, and how to get there. It can be flexible—customised as your interests and schedule change over time. But, it should always be intentional.
Consistency builds momentum
Consistency is everything when learning guitar. You don’t need to practice every day, but avoid long breaks. Try not to take more than two days off in a row, and aim to practice at least four times a week. This helps build momentum. Momentum builds confidence, and confidence will cause you to enjoy playing the guitar more and more over time.
