Learn to Play Guitar

Guitar Strings

Guitar Strings

I hope you took my earlier advice to learn to play guitar in order to improve your business skills. Perhaps you have not read my previous post on the subject. If that’s the case, go and have a quick read through it now before reading what I have to say next.

Does Playing Guitar Really Help Boost Performance at Work as Well as On Stage?

I realise that many of you will think that I am stretching the link between business know-how and playing guitar a little too much here, but I am a committed guitarist and have found that over the years it has brought enormous benefits to all aspects of my life (both professional and personal). Because of this, I think it would be remiss of me not to at least try to convince some of my loyal readers to take the plunge and learn to play themselves.

You may remember that I mentioned in the earlier post about the correlation between playing guitar and education, as well as business acumen. Well, as some of my dear readers pointed out, the link is not necessarily causal; correlation does not equal causation, as my physics teacher was always so keen to point out.

Well that may well be true, and I have to admit that I am biased in this debate. However, nothing beats the thrill of playing guitar in a band in front of a live audience as far as I am concerned. The rush of excitement is truly incredible; I can well understand all those celebrities who get hooked on the buzz of performing live.

Can You Learn to Play Guitar Quickly?
And it doesn’t necessarily have to take you years of practice to get to the stage where you can perform live on stage. All you really need is three chords and you can play quite a number of different songs. Check out the video from Andy here, who demonstrates that point very ably with a quick lesson on how to play “Blowing in the Wind” by Bob Dylan.

Have you got the hang of it yet? If not, don’t worry, these are very simple chords and you should be able to play them comfortably and consistently within a couple of weeks or so.

How Can I Learn How to Play the Guitar Most Easily?

This question was probably the most asked question in my postbag after I posted about guitar playing last time around. My answer to all those who asked was quite simple…

It ain’t easy my friends!

Now that’s not what you all wanted to hear, I know, but it’s the truth and I am not the kind of guy who sugar coats things at all. Learning the guitar takes determination and hard work. As they say, nothing in life worth having is easy. And so it is with the guitar.

My best advice would be to buy yourself a decent guitar from a decent online retailer (because this is where you tend to get the best deals) and then grab some training materials to get the basics down. This could be a good book, or an online guitar course. During this time, you need to practice regularly, which will get you into the habit of practising, familiarise you with your instrument and start to build up your finger strength.

Once you’ve been following a regular practice routine for a couple of months, I would advise you to go along to a guitar tutor to get some face to face tuition. You’ll make better progress and a goo tutor will point out any basic mistakes that you could be making with your technique. Then you’re off to the races!

My Recommendation
If you are now convinced that you really should learn the guitar, that’s great… go and get yourself enrolled with Jamorama, or a similar guitar course. I recommend Jamorama for beginner to intermediate players because it comes with loads of great learning materials that take you from the absolute beginner stage, and build lesson by lesson into some reasonably advanced techniques, which will have you playing along to your favourite songs in no time at all.

But don’t just take my word for it, go and check out the detailed review at http://jamoramaguitarreviews.org/ to see what you’ll get for your money (it’s really quite cheap by the way), and comes with a 60-day money back guarantee, so you have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.