by John Durant

Created on: March 24, 2007   Last Updated: May 11, 2007

You're getting tired of the blisters on your fingers, and you're frustrated that you can't play your favorite song, no matter how much you practice. Before you throw your guitar in the fireplace, I'd like to give you some advice that may help salvage your dreams of becoming a legendary guitar god!

There are many garage rockers who just "play guitar"; they only learn very basic guitar skills, and force their audiences to suffer through their incompetence and musical apathy. The guitar can be a very versatile instrument when played correctly, and if you're ever going to break free of strumming three-chord songs, you have to put in the time to take your skills to the next level.

First of all, what about those painful blisters? The blisters will be replaced by relatively painless callouses if you continue to play on a daily basis. Here's the catch; they'll remain to be callouses if you don't skip too many days of practice.

Most beginning guitarists use too much down-pressure on the strings until they eventually learn to relax while fretting chords. In time, you will learn to apply only as much pressure as is needed to fret the chords without hearing string buzzes, which will greatly reduce your fingertip pain. Some styles, such as the blues, will probably always be painful if your doing it right!

I personally think that the acoustic guitar should be the first instrument for beginning guitarists. Starting with an electric guitar makes it too easy to get caught up in all of the cool FX processors and pedals instead of learning real skills. If you really want to know how good a guitar player is, turn off their distortion pedal; you'll immediately hear all of their squeaks, buzzes, missed frets and terrible technique.

Take the time to introduce yourself to basic music theory. This will make it much easier for you to learn your instrument, and it will help you to decipher the songs that you really want to learn. There are plenty of great books available for beginner guitar players that will teach you theory, chords, scales and guitar techniques.

If you want to have a better understanding of chords, I suggest that you find books that have both guitar tablature and photos so that you're using proper fingering techniques. There are also some great DVD's that can help you learn more specific skills.

You must learn scales! Learn major and minor scales first, then move on to the more complex scales, like harmonic minor, blues, or modal scales. Practice them daily; and when you've mastered one key, move on to the next until you've mastered scales all the way up the neck. Also learn scales using different positions on the fretboard. This will make things easier when you want to learn guitar solos.

Formal guitar lessons can be very helpful, but many skills can be mastered on your own. I'm a self-taught musician, but I also learned from as many professional guitar players as I possibly could. Check out my "About Me" page and use the links to my music websites if you want to hear some of my guitar work. (JohnDurantMusic.com)

The more time you put into improving your guitar skills, the better they'll be. There's no shortcuts to success if you want to be taken seriously as a guitar instrumentalist. Find a friend who shares your interest, and challenge each other to learn more skills and more songs. It's a fun way to learn, and a great way to make friends.

Don't just "play guitar"; take the time to really learn the instrument.

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