Note: This is part 3 of a 3 part series. Here are links to Part 1 and Part 2.
This is the 3rd and final part of the Beginners Guitar Tutorial series. If you haven’t read part 1 and part 2, then get to reading them now!
Alright, after all that hassle in explaining the aspects of preparation, its time to get to the real essence of playing the guitar. This post will be the shortest but it is by far the most important, and will be responsible for bringing you past the newbie stage and helping you get results in 1 hour which others take 4 hours using conventional approaches.
These are my final 3 very important points I will make to bid you well on your journey.
Topics Covered
- Curved fingers and minimal force
- Play with a specific sensory organ
- Play the songs you like at every opportunity possible
Curved Fingers
The following pictures illustrate the difference between curved and flattened fingers while pressing the frets.
Flat fingers
3 advantages of curved fingers:
- they don’t get in the way of your other fingers
- they don’t touch the other strings (notice the right-most finger is touching the thickest string, if the string were played, it either would not sound or sound muffled or be buzzing
- You can use less force (think of a knife vs a bat, you want a knife to be able to ‘shred’ the guitar)
Feel/hear/see the sound
This is going to be extremely vague, but the essence is to play in the way that suits you best.
For rank beginners, there will unlikely be a best way. But ask any of your musically trained friends, and they will tell you that there is a certain connection between the musician and the music. That’s the reason why some people can simply close their eyes and continue to play with feeling, never missing the notes. When their in this state, they are certainly not thinking about the notes, they are not looking at their hands, but rather playing from some inner source of musical inspiration.
Of course, you don’t have this ability yet, and it will take quite a while to develop, but the principle notion is not to confuse yourself with multiple input streams.
This means that if you choose to use visual feedback to tell if you’re playing the notes right, stick with it. Don’t try to listen to the music to hear if it’s right. And certainly don’t try to feel the music. This is mainly to cement various techniques (like always checking to see that your fingers are curved) and keep a tab yourself from picking up bad habits.
For example, the most common habit is to press as hard as possible to sound a note, whereas using minimal force will not always be consistent. Hence the tendency to press really hard. The note may sound right to you, but it certainly doesn’t look/feel right.
Eventually, you will find out which method suits you best. Focus on using one form of sensory feedback. Then after some time, feel free to let go of this notion. Ultimately, music will emerge from your fingers just because you want it to.
Play the songs you like
Never ever feel that there is only one way to learn the guitar. Some people recommend starting out with specific songs, specific chord progressions, etc. While that is fine, it has a lot of in built inefficiencies.
The most horrendous one is the notion that you have to master a specific set of skills before progressing to another. Who says you must strum before you pluck? Or do chords before trying to play lead?
Truth is there will never be mastery in any aspect of guitar playing. I can do chord changes in half a second, but there’s still tons I can do to improve my chord playing in the other aspects like tone, consistency of volume, etc.
But above all else, if you’re playing songs which you enjoy, the progress is going to be faster, simply because you’re willing to put in more time and more focused effort. It won’t even feel like hard work at all. Then after 2 months, you’ve realised that you’ve made marked improvements compared to any ‘traditional’ approach.
So what are you waiting for! Go get some scores of your favourite tunes and starting playing! And do be sure to check back often for more tips on technique and learning.
Note: This is part 3 of a 3 part series. Here are links to Part 1 and Part 2
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