5 Things Beginner Guitarists Must Know
When teaching students, there were five things I wanted to make sure every student could do. Sometimes I would be teaching a student from scratch and we would go through these, and sometimes students would start who had been playing for years and knew some of these things and not others, so we would go over their weak spots before moving onto more advanced material.
So without further ado…
1) A Few Riffs
99% of guitarists will start with this, but I’ll mention it for completeness. Find some of your favourite bands and find a riff or two that sounds approachable and give it a go.
If you’re not sure about which riff to choose, you could post on reddit or ask some guitar playing friends and they’ll be able to point you in the right direction.
Like I said, I suspect that this is what most people do when they pick up the guitar for the first time… so let’s move on…
2) The Notes on the Neck
Every guitar player should be able to name every note on the neck - without counting up from the open string.
The number one reason guitar players struggle with music theory, isn’t because music theory is difficult, but because their brain is bust trying to remember the notes on the neck so it doesn’t have the space to think about the theory problem at hand.
You should be able to point at any note on the neck and know what it is, and vice-versa, if someone gives you a note you should be able to find every occurence, almost instantly.
You should know the flats and the sharps - for some reason guitarists tend to only learn the sharps and not the flats.
3) Open Chords and Barre Chords
You should know all the open chords you can get your hands on, and also a variety of barre chords.
At a minimum, you should know the major and minor barre chords from the sixth and fifth strings, but learning the:
- Major 7th
- Minor 7th
- Dominant 7th
- Half Diminished
shapes would also be highly beneficial. You can learn the shapes while playing songs, and if you want to put the 7th chords to work, you can have fun learning a few easy jazz standards.
4) Reading, Counting and Playing Rhythm to a Metronome
I wouldn’t insist that every student can sight-read (although I would encourage it), but I would make the study of notated rhythm a core and ongoing part of lessons.
Learning rhythm is absolutely vital.
It allows the student to:
- Take a challenging piece of music, slow it down and learn it accurately.
- Incrementally and measurably improve their technique.
- Think about improvising in a more creative way.
If you can’t take a notated rhythm, write out it’s count and clap it to a metronome, then learning this skill is going to improve your musicallity and ability 100x over.
5) Five Songs From Start to Finish
Once a student has a handfull of basics under their belt, the first major milestone in their development is playing a song from start to finish - afterall, that’s sort of the point in learning guitar!
I’d always advice to start with an easier song, and create that first ‘win’ as easily as possible.
Whatever genre of music you’re interested in (unless it’s technical death metal), there’s going to be some easy songs in there.
If you’re preferred genre really has no easy songs, then find some light rock songs you can learn.
Songs are usually “presented” as tabs, and I would find it easier to go through the tab listening to the song and writing out the sections, and then looking at the parts in each section. That way you are thinking about repeating two or three different parts of music a few times, rather than learning a three to four minute piece of music, which conceptually, are two very different tasks.
Do You Have a Weak Point?
If you’re a beginner guitarist and you one of these weaknesses applies to you, then consider working through the Rock Guitar Mastery program.
You’ll learn the notes on the neck, the open chords, some barre chords, some basics of rhythm and your first songs from start to finish.
The songs were written especially for beginners and come with video backing tracks of a full band playing, so you can not only learn the above skills, but also play the music with the band - very cool!
By the end of the program you’ll be a competent intermediate level guitarist, capable of tackling new songs by yourself and ready for the next step of your guitar journey.
A Note For The Guitar Teachers…
If you teach guitar, then consider if the above skills are covered in your beginner syllabus.
If you don’t have a syllabus for beginners, then consider creating one - standardising your programs will help you teach much more effectively. This doesn’t mean that you take a cookie-cutter approach to lessons, it’s just facing the fact that a lot of guitarists need to learn a lot of the same things. If you standardise your programs, then you can focus on teaching those lessons in the most effective way possible, helping your students learn faster and have more fun.
If you want to learn more about teaching guitar, then check out my 455 page book on how guitarists can apply their skills to being great guitar teachers.