Playing Guitar

Playing the guitar is for today's musicians what playing the piano was for yesterdays: an indispensable skill for anyone who is serious about writing down songs and making a career out of music. Playing guitar isn't quite as versatile as the piano, of course, but it does have some advantages over the latter. First of all, it is easy to come up with an appealing strumming technique that will work for whatever song you play. For piano, careful arrangement is necessary, but for guitar strumming, often any technique will work.

A great thing about playing guitar is that it is pretty easy to start. Don't get me wrong the best guitar players worked tirelessly for decades to perfect their skills. Nonetheless, if all you want to do is accompany your singing, you can learn to play the guitar in just a few months. Take a few lessons and practice every day. If you are willing to practice consistently, you will get good very quickly. After that, the sky is the limit.

For me, playing guitar has never been a very serious pursuit. I only took a few lessons before I quit. I got the fundamentals that I needed, but I wasn't interested in progressing very far. I just wanted something to keep a little bit of rhythm while I sing songs, and the guitar does that. My main instrument is harmonica, and I really express myself with that as I play, using my guitar as backing.

Of course, if your main interest is playing with other with musicians, playing bass guitar might be the best approach for you. For every 25 or so guitar players, there is probably only one bass player. Anyone can learn to play the bass, but few people want to. There is less glory to it, and a lot of musicians really crave glory. Nonetheless, if you do not mind standing in the background and playing something simple, the bass guitar is probably the instrument for you.

A lot of people start playing guitar without really researching it. When I first started, I bought an acoustic guitar because I thought it was the thing to do. The fact that I needed an electric to play the rock songs I really liked didn't occur to me. It took several months before I realized I had the wrong tool for the music I wanted to play. By that point, I had wasted time. I would have learned to play guitar more quickly if I had bothered to research the style you want to study.