As a new guitar player, you are probably brimming with excitement as you start your beginner guitar lessons. Newbies are often very enthusiastic and very much excited to learn new things, and this is their great advantage because this makes them very easy to teach. This excitement can help fuel motivation in a new student, and often, this drives the person to strive and keep learning despite the challenges.

The basic points

Beginner guitar lessons will teach you the fundamentals you will need in order to play the guitar well. Some things you may find boring or unnecessary, such as proper posture while playing, the proper way to hold your guitar, correct hand and finger positioning, and finger exercises. Don’t underestimate the importance of these seemingly small and irrelevant points. A lot of guitarists overlook these things, and these result in very sloppy playing habits that are hard to undo.

It is better to learn right at the onset the proper way of doing things instead of working to undo them later on. Having the discipline to observe proper posture, correct hand and finger positionings, and regularly exercise your hands and figures (this may seem unimportant to you, but trust us, it helps a lot in improving your fingers’ dexterity and ability to move fast and accurately over the guitar fingerboard!) will help you a lot later on, especially when you move on to the more challenging stuff. If you have the discipline to carry out the little things, then you will have no problems tackling the more challenging points as you progress.

Motivation

In your beginner guitar lessons, there will come a time when you will encounter lessons that are challenging. As mentioned earlier, many guitarists start out with plenty of enthusiasm and energy, but eventually may lose the drive if things don’t turn out quite the way they expect. Some lessons may be challenging, and these lessons may tempt you to just throw in the towel especially if you are having a hard time mastering them. This is where motivation will be very important.

When you find yourself getting discouraged like this, you have to remember why you took up guitar in the first place. You wanted to learn how to play, and learning something new is never easy nor will it always be smooth sailing. Keep reminding yourself that in order for you to be better, you have to get past the challenges that are in your way.

Discipline

We already talked about discipline in terms of doing even the small things properly. In your beginner guitar lessons, discipline is probably what will give you the most progress. Simply put, discipline means to keep your sights on the goal, no matter what happens, and do the necessary things you have to do in order to reach that goal.

Since your goal is to be able to play the guitar well, part of the discipline is to study, review, and practice regularly. Your lessons should not be limited to the time you spend with your teacher, mentor or tutor, or the time that you spend reading the books or guides, and watching instructional videos. You have to be diligent when it comes to practice. Discipline means setting aside time each and every day with your guitar to practice what you have been learning so far, even if you don’t feel like it. This is really the only way for you to improve and get better.

Set your goals

What is it that you wish to focus on in your beginner guitar lessons? Of course, everyone’s ultimate goal is to become good at playing the guitar. But that is such a big, sweeping goal, and you may get lost along the way because there are a thousand ways to reach that goal you have. What you can do is break down this goal into smaller, “bite-sized” pieces. What are the things you have to do and learn in order to get better? Come up with a list. For example, you list down the following: learn chords; chord changes and progressions; scales; play simple songs. These items on your list can be your goals within the bigger goal because all of these are stepping stones to helping you become a better guitarist.

So for example, in your beginner guitar lessons for this month, you can focus on learning chords. Set the goal that in a month’s time, you have to learn and master at least the basic open chords. Once you have done so, move on to another goal and work to complete it. Goal setting will certainly help you put things in perspective.

These are just a few reminders to keep in mind as you set out to learn the guitar. We certainly hope that you have fun along the way!