Learn How to Play an Acoustic Guitar

The guitar holds some kind of a mystique for music lovers worldwide. The guitar comes in two main types, the acoustic guitar and the electric guitar. There isn't much difference between the two, except that each of these guitars is used for playing totally different genres of music. While the electric is more popular among the proponents of rock and metal genres, acoustic guitar is popular among all of us!

The Internet teaches you many things today, and so it can teach you the guitar as well. There are sites that teach you the basics, and once you're done with those, there are others which teach you songs. There are software that can make learning very easy, and if all this isn't enough, you can log on to popular video websites like YouTube, where you will find a teacher for almost any song in the world!

Covering the Basics

The first, most important step is to find the music style that you like, whether it is jazz, country music, folk, blues, or even plain old classical music. Learning anything right from the basics can be slightly boring for us grown-ups, who've learned to be result-oriented. So pick a music style of your choice. Now let's say you've grown up listening to a Bob Dylan, or The Eagles, you're going to be pretty tempted to take up country style music. Now that you know, you've cleared the first hurdle.

The way I was taught (which, by the way, I found very enjoyable) was that my teacher let me pick a song to my liking and taught me the guitar basics that revolved around that song. This made it more fun, because, frankly, learning the basics is quite boring. While you're learning the basic chords and scales, you can't help but think to yourself, "All right, then, let's do Hotel California already!". It can be even more frustrating to learn tough songs that you don't even like. So that's the way my teacher went initially. He said, "Pick a song, and we'll find the basics that go with it." So if I were dying to take up Hotel California, he'd teach me the bare minimum musical structure around it, and much to my delight, get on with the song! That's also how online guitar lessons work. They teach you only the basics pertaining to the song that you have selected and then teach you the song. Once you've learned how to play it, try playing it along with the actual song, to perfectly fix your timing with the rest of the band.

But mind you. You cannot and should not ignore the basics. While the above method will do well to develop your interest, learning the basics will teach you about the music.

So, What are the Basics to Learn Acoustic Guitar?

The basics are split up in two parts, chords and scales. While chords play a combination of musical notes in one sweeping hand-motion (known as strumming), scales are an extended version of these notes played one at a time, and on different places on the guitar. Their respective utilities are also different, with chords being used for sing-along parts, and scales being used for guitar solos. Scales are also a very good hand warm-up exercise and, over time, make your hand motion look smooth and less labored. It is important that you play the scales in an one-up-one-down pattern and watch yourself while going to the next string. This will help you create flexibility and strength in the fingers of your left hand, also known as your fretboard-hand.

The fretboard-hand is used for holding the notes and you use the other free hand to play them. The other hand can be used in two ways, namely, strumming and finger-picking. Strumming means moving the plectrum (that small triangular plastic thing) over the strings in one single motion, or in a beat pattern that the song demands. Finger-picking is a slightly difficult technique where you use your fingers to play a different combination of strings each time. To give you popular examples, Tambourine Man by Bob Dylan is a strummed song, while Country Roads by John Denver is the best example of finger-picking.

Guitar playing is a wonderful experience. Whether alone or in a crowd, you're gonna love playing it. Once you learn to play acoustic guitar, you will feel like taking the guitar everywhere you go. Just be sure of one thing. Practice.