Hey Friend,

When you’re starting anything new, you need to begin with a foundation. The first thing that needs to happen with most building projects is to dig a hole.

You’re building a skill set when it comes to guitar, so the first thing to do is dig out a hole and put your preconceived notions about guitar in it.

Most beginners think they’ll be ripping off riffs like Jimmy Page within a few weeks of picking up their guitar. An “ambitious” target like that should be the first thing that goes in your learning project hole.

Even experienced former players have a tendency to underestimate how long it will take to get their chops back.

Guitar is an incredible instrument and a lot more complex to learn than the pros make it look. There is a lot of physical dexterity and endurance that must be developed or relearned, and you just don’t get that overnight.

It doesn’t help to try and over-practice, either. That’s just a recipe for frustration and injury.

So let’s just scale back the aggressive goal setting to start, and take some smaller bites to get you to your goals. 

Where To Start

Regardless of whether you’re just a beginner or someone that “used to play” and are coming back to it, the first thing I like to do with a new student is to get them playing a simple song.

Beethoven’s “Ode To Joy” is perfect for this. Not only is it a simple melody that is immediately recognizable, but you can play it across only three strings.

But you may not be that into Beethoven. That’s cool… just pick another tune you really like and see if you can play out the melody on a couple strings. Try to keep it simple.

“Stairway To Heaven” (Led Zeppelin, as if I had to tell you) has a very simple melody, again played over three strings. 

If you’ve been playing consistently for a while and have your finger strength dialed in, pick a song you’ve never played before.

I could easily give you the tabs for these, but it’s better if you pick one of these and try to figure out the melody by listening to it and finding the notes on your guitar.

Once you’ve found the notes, play through the melody as best you can (you can play just a verse, it doesn’t have to be the entire song).

The purpose for this isn’t to see if you can memorize the phrase - it’s to help your fingers find notes on the fingerboard and translate the information to your ears. There's an invisible link between your head and hands, and the sooner you learn to recognize the connection, the faster you will play what you want.

If you’re a newb or rusty, you’ll notice that your fingers are going to need conditioning. The fingertips will get sore, and the muscles in your hand can cramp up.

You’re also going to find that it takes some strong pressure to make the notes sound good rather than muffled or buzzy. Again, conditioning, my friend.

If you’ve been playing for a while, there’s a good chance you’ve neglected your ear training, so this little exercise is going to be good for you as well. I’ve been playing for forty years and no one ever mentioned the importance of training my ears until I started learning from a professional guitarist.

Give the exercise a try. See how you do. We’ll talk again soon. Have a great Friday!

Peace~

Dave