There was a singer, and three guitarists (lead, bass, rythm) in each “band” or “team.” While everyone was marvelling at the superb music, I was observing the guitarists’ hands, and trying to figure out exactly what they were playing.

“That seems easy”, I said to my friend. “Nah, it looks tough”, he replied. Apparently, the guitarists were mostly playing only one chord/rythm quite repeatedly. And I assured my friend that he could play the guitar too.

Of course, he started talking about the dexterity one needs to have. According to him, even eternity is too little a time to learn guitar. Damn.

And you must be thinking what this has to do with your question of just how long it takes to learn guitar

Initially, guitar seems to be intimidating. You can’t form a single chord. Your hand hurts, and you have lost all the enthusiasm of learning.

This happens with most of the beginners. Remember, your hands are not yet used to the “stretching” guitar playing needs. You’re also not used to applying force with your fingertips. Your fingers don’t obey you, and just go to random places. They just don’t help you form the chord you want!

Well, that’s how everything begins. Believe me, it took me one week to play my first chord properly. By properly, I mean I was able to form the chord instantly and play it without accidently muting strings. When starting, you’d take a couple of seconds to get your finger position right, and hopefully play the chord right.

However, after you’ve done some stretchy chord right (like D or G), then the rest would be quite easy. You can just look at the chord diagram of a new chord, form the chord, and strum! You’ve played the chord!

Now comes the part of changing between chords. It could take upto a month (and more) to gain a good knack for chord changes. Initially, while changing chords, your hands would be in a lot of tension. But slowly, you’re fingers become calm, and you can easily switch between chords.

Within a few months, you should be able to play a lot of chords and switch between them. At the same time, you would have learned several strumming techniques and patterns. Also, you would have learned picking individual notes (although stuff like alternate picking still take a lot of practice).

Within around 2 to 3 months, you should be able to play some songs. And you’ve learned guitar at this point. What comes next is “mastery.” Even the most seasoned guitarists learn and practice new stuff. And that’s true with any profession.

What all this means is, you’d be able to play decent guitar within about 3 months of dedicated learning. However, your learning process never halts. You just keep on getting better and better. The problem with many amateur guitarists is that they give up too soon.

Start today, and you’ll be a good play within a couple of months from now. What are you waiting for?

If you try playing the guitar alone, it may seem dull. Now, let’s boost up your enthusiasm and level of fun.

While playing any song, there is one little important thing that makes the song lively… beats.

Jamming along with a drummer is not just more fun, but will eventually make you a better guitar player. You can either be a beginner or pro guitar player, or a bass player.

Now, you don’t need to bring home a drummer to jam along with you. In this world of computers and software, everything is virtually at your fingertips.

QuickBeat is one such application. It’s a software that works on both PC and Mac, and turns your computer into a drummer.

It has support for various styles like Rock, Blues, Country, Folk etc.

You might even have a favorite solo you might want to ultimately play. However, this path has a lot of roadblocks. That’s why many people starting out with guitar give up easily. It’s because they realize they can never play like their favorite stars, or so do they think.

When you learn a new chord, or anything else for that matter, you want to immediately put it to use. You don’t want to dwell into infinite theory. You want to know right now the things that will help you play your favorite song.

What many newcomers do is, learn a few basic stuff (like basic theory and a few chords), and off they go to download their favorite song’s TAB. They even watch plenty of YouTube videos explaining how to play a song. The resources are good, but you’re not ready for it, quite yet.

These songs often require things you haven’t learned yet. What happens is you learn what you don’t know half-heartedly, trying desperately to play that favorite song of yours, and then get stuck in the middle of nowhere. You might not know what scales are, and you might still be insisting on playing a song that requires its knowledge.

What to do?

First of all, jamming is a must! It helps you put your skills to use, and motivates you. If you learn just the D and A chord, you’d definitely want to play something melodious that uses only those two chords.

And that is what you should do. Find something that requires only the knowledge you have, and practice it.

The problem is, you might have a tough time finding a resource that will tell you what you should play based on your current knowledge.

If you learned a few chords, your best bet might be to master chord progressions. They sound great, and are the foundations of rythm guitar.

You may also ask others in guitar forums on what you should be playing. Personalized advice is the key to quick learning.

For example, in a downloadable course called Jamorama, you are given various Jam Tracks. Once you learn something, you try it out with your “virtual band.”

First, you’ll play the Jam Track with the guitar part present. So, you’ll know how you should play your part. You’ll of course, have the TAB of what you’re supposed to play with you.

Then, you play the Jam Track with guitar part muted. And you play that part. This is such a cool experience! You’ll have plenty of tracks to jam along with, trying out your new skills.

The problem is, Jamorama isn’t free. However, it doesn’t cost much (since it is downloadable.) I’m finding this thing quite useful. You might want to check out if it’s right for you.

Have a happy time jamming!

Now, learning guitar takes time and effort. However, if you learn to enjoy the learning process, you’d make good progress. There are times when you’d learn something fast, or sometimes, you’d get stuck on something for a long time. Never give up! That’s why you should NEVER compare your progress with someone else’s.

All right, let’s begin. Below is the Table of Contents for this article. You can jump to a section of your choice or read this post from top to bottom (recommended).

Table of Contents

1. Buying a Guitar (If you don’t have one yet)
2. Cultivating The Right Mindset For Learning Guitar
3. Choosing a Guitar Learning Resource
4. Practice Time Table
5. Conclusion

Buying a Guitar (If you don’t have one yet)

I’ve included this for people who don’t have a guitar yet. Even though it might seem as if buying guitar is as easy as walking into a shop and ordering one, it is not.

Many beginners opt for cheap guitar, since they aren’t sure if they’ll stick with playing guitar. There are many problems with these guitars. First is the high action (distance between the strings and the fretboard.) Action should be optimum (neither very high nor very low). High action means it’d take a lot of effort to finger a string, and it’d hurt your hands a lot. At the end of the day, you’ll just throw the guitar away and give up your dream of learning guitar.

Secondly, a cheap guitar may not sound good. When you hear someone else (both offline and online) playing guitar, you might think why your guitar doesn’t sound like his/her. This is more than enough to demotivate someone new. Remember, certain guitars are expensive for a reason.

So, go with a decent guitar. Now, should you get an Acoustic or an Electric guitar? That depends.

Acoustic guitars are larger in size due to the sound hole. Electric guitars are smaller, and are usually easy to fret (finger different chords) for beginners.

It primarily comes to your taste. If you like rock and roll, you can go with an Electric guitar. However, it can cost a lot more than an Acoustic, since you also need essential accessories with it.

I’d suggest going with a decent Acoustic guitar. Practice with it for a good few months. Then, you can choose your future course of action, depending on your progress and dedication.

Now, for details on what guitar to get once you’re in a music store, I’d recommend reading the site below:

How to Buy a Guitar

Remember: Steer clear of cheap guitars.

Cultivating The Right Mindset For Learning Guitar

Instead of jumping right into the resources which will help you with your guitar playing journey immediately, I want to talk about the right mindset you should be in. Few other sites do this, and it is necessary for you to know this.

First of all, guitar playing takes months of good practice. You never “reach,” you always keep on “travelling.” What this means is that you should aim at improving everyday. Even the best guitar players do. There is no destination.

There can be times when you’d learn something really hard. You’d think to yourself, “Now that I’ve mastered something this hard, I can carry on with the easy journey that lies ahead.” However, you stumble onto a bigger block this time.

This demotivates mostly everyone. There is another factor responsible for demotivating beginners, but I talk about it in the next section, since it has nothing to do with your mindset.

You learn chords. Then, you realize that chord changes are even tougher. Then, you realize that you need to learn a lot more to play your favorite song. This cycle continues.

However, realize that even the simplest thing you learn has applications. You just need to practice the right application for the thing you’ve learned, rather than trying to force on something else. There is a guitar resource that helps you do this, which I talk about in the next section.

Choosing a Guitar Learning Resource

What many people do after learning guitar is randomly visiting websites on the internet and learning random things about guitar. Due to this, they neither make systematic progress nor can they measure their progress. Their whole learning process becomes a mess. It’s not their fault, but the fault of many other sites which are not complete resources.

This also demotivates people. It’s not because of their inability, but rather the inability of their resources that is causing the problem.

The primary idea is to pick on resource, and stick with it. If you choose to learn with a guitar teacher, do what he tells you to. Don’t keep on switching between resources. That’s bad because you’d be only going round and round.

I’m assuming you want to learn guitar on your own and don’t have access to a teacher. I’ve listed two good resources below. There are more, but why unnecessarily overwhelm you with infinite choices?

1. FREE: Justin Guitar

   This is THE wonderful free resource for guitar learning. It’s basically tons of great videos by a guy named Justin, who’d take you from a beginner to a great guitar player. No wonder he has a lot of fans.

2. PAID: Jamorama

   This is a paid product. I own this thing and it is very good. It’s basically a book (actually, a bunch of books) supported by videos. It also includes a lot of additional resources (like tuning software, tuning guide, learning guide and some other tools.) The great thing about it is that you can learn two chords (and changing between them) and start jamming with the various jam tracks that comes with it.

I use both of the above resources. Jamorama gives me a complete view of everything I need to learn in guitar. Also, it helps me keep my motivation high by providing excellent jam tracks and exercises.

On the other hand, Justin Guitar provides some cool techniques of his own. I’d recommend paying special attention to his “1 Minute Chord Changing” exercises. For me, these two things complement each other in a great way.

There are other good resources like JamPlay etc, but you need only these two (or even any one of them) to become a good player. Don’t keep on snatching resource after resource hoping that you’ll find the secret of “easy learning” in them, you won’t.

Practice Time Table

Once you start learning, you need to give guitar some serious practice. For everything new you learn, you need to give it a good practice in order to master it.

Most of us have more free time during the weekends. However, I practice for at least 10 minutes during the weekdays (or even more if I get time.) Sometime, I miss on the weekday schedule.

During the weekends, I practice for more time (obviously) and it is the time when I learn new things. In short, I learn something new during the weekends and practice it, and use the weekday schedule to master what I’ve learned.

It is recommended that you write down your progress in a dairy or something. This way, you can measure the progress you’re making with time.

Conclusion

Finally, join a guitar forum, or watch other newcomers playing guitar in sites like YouTube. This way, you would know about the common problems newcomers are facing, and their solutions. You can also ask about the problems you’re facing in the forums and get replies from experienced people.

Anyway, good luck with your guitar journey.

I bought Jamorama quite a while back (the old version.) That time, Jamorama Maestro was used to surf through the Jamorama course, which enabled easy playing of supplementary videos. However, in the new version, Maestro seems to be obsolete.

One day, I went to the Jamorama website to find a completely new design. That’s when I realised they’ve made Jamorama even better.

Now, onto the review…

Jamorama is mainly a text-based course, with supplementary videos for every new thing you learn. For example, in the first chapter, after learning some basic stuff about guitar and tabs, you learn the A and D chord. For both, you can also see the vidoes of the chords being played. You can then also see them being strummed in a specific pattern, which you actually have to practice after learning the chords.

This way, you put your skills to immediate use. But the best part is yet to come. For example, after learning the A and D chord and switching between them, you actually play along a Jam Track, putting your freshly acquired skill to the test.

The Jam Track comes in two versions, one with guitar, and another with guitar muted. This way, you can see how your part should be played, and then you can jam along with the guitar muted version.

This keeps your motivation high. This is the fundamental method which Jamorama uses (I guess that’s why they called it Jamorama.)

Even though many parts of Jamorama does use guitar tabs to represent notes (like the Jam Tracks), but the new chords you learn are shown on an actual guitar’s fretboard for your easier understanding. Also show is a picture with the chord being held by someone, so that you can know how to hold the chord.

You get two books, the Beginners book and the Advanced book. The Beginners book helps you start from the very start and acquire some decent skills by playing various different chords and strumming patterns. By the time you complete the beginners course, you’d be already jamming thanks to Jamorama’s methods.

The Advanced book includes advanced concepts and puts more emphasis on barre chords. And, you have even tougher and more entertaining jamming tracks.

The main thing to keep in mind here is the method Jamorama uses, rather than it’s content. The content is pretty much complete and includes practically everything a guitar player should know. The method of teaching is what makes it different.

You also have a special book on tuning your guitar, as well as the Advanced Learning Techniques book, which tells you just how you should go about learning guitar (or any skill for that matter.)

The bonus software also helps keep the motivation high, and they’re good training devices. It’s like going to the “guitar gym.”

I guess the Deluxe version also includes the Lead guitar stuff. The lead lessons are also great, and are organized the same way as the previous two books.

The jam tracks are great. Actually, I like hearing those jam tracks more than other music I’ve bought. I’m just hoping to get good enough so that I can play those lead guitar stuff flawlessly. However, I shouldn’t jump there until I master everything in the Standard books.

Apparently, it seems that you also get a chord book. I’ve got to tell you that this is very valuable. Having all chords in one book surely saves time while you search for different chords, or different ways of playing the same chord.

There are many more things about it that I find cool, but I can’t possibly mention all of them here.

To those who’re still thinking, I’d suggest giving Jamorama a try. It has a money-back guarantee.

The only suggestion I’d give is once you buy Jamorama, don’t start peeking into other “cool courses” you’d want to have. Jamorama is all you need to get the wheels rolling. Their method is also great to keep your motivation high. The rest is upto you.

Another thing, the links I’ve used to link to Jamorama are affiliate links. It means that I get paid some compensation if you buy through my link (even though you’re not charged anything extra.) If you liked this review and think I deserve a few bucks, just click through my link and go on with your order. It’s just that I’m tired of incomplete reviews online about Jamorama and their sole intention of getting you to buy through them.

Here’s the link again if you missed it: Jamorama

Good luck with your guitar carrier!

Learning guitar takes time. It is simple to learn, but it isn’t easy. There is a difference between something being simple to understand and easy to do.

There is no real “fastest” method of learning guitar. However, many people spend their entire lifetime searching for this magical pill, and in the end, they learn nothing. I’ll show you a systematic method to learn guitar so that you don’t hit roadblocks that may slow you down.

Here are the steps:

1. Get hold of a guitar learning resource, and stick with it. I personally like and use Jamorama, or you could choose any other resource from my other post, Best Guitar Learning Resources For Beginners, or any other guitar resource I didn’t mention.

   The point is to choose a resource that is fairly complete, and not keep switching resources. Many people keep on jumping on what they think is a greener garden and never learn anything. So, just take one resource and master it to the very end.

   The reason I like Jamorama is because it introduces jamming sessions early on. If you learn even two chords, you can play along a jam track using that skill alone. This keeps your motivation high, and improves your musical creativity.

2. Practice your skills everyday, and go in a systematic order. Don’t jump between lessons in the guitar resource you’ve chosen. Go to the next lesson only when you’ve mastered the current one. Believe me, how much ever time it takes, it is really worth it. Or else, you’ll keep jumping between lessons and will only play mediocre guitar in the end.

3. Assign each skill a lot of time. Say to yourself, “I’ll master the D and A chord, and the switching between them in two week’s time.” I know what you’re thinking, two weeks? Believe me, it is necessary to go slow. This way, you don’t come under pressure. You don’t hurry yourself to master things at once. And you’ll be immensely satisfied when you finish mastering your skills before that two weeks time you set.

4. Experiment with stuff. Don’t play just the chords what you’ve learnt. Try something on your own. You’ll discover a lot of things this way. Try replicating music you hear. Ear training is extremely important.

5. And finally, just keep on doing the above steps. Don’t try chalking out a “detailed plan”, or you’ll be planning forever. Just go and do it. It might take a good few months before you get some fluency, but it’s well worth it.

The reason I said you’d be disappointed in the beginning is because there is no magical pill for learning guitar fast. Maybe you were expecting one when you got here. If so, then I’m sorry. The reason I busted this myth is so that you can stop searching and start learning. Your time is extremely valuable, use it wisely for learning.

Many people who start learning guitar with great enthusiasm give up within a few months. Why? They can’t play like their favourite rock star. The primary problem is expecting extraordinary results without putting any effort.

Anyways, there are a few things in the beginning of guitar learning that takes a bit of patience.

Most of the people start by learning chords. The basic chords like D, C, G, E etc. They do find difficulty in making the chords sound right, each time, everytime. Sometimes a string gets accidently muted, or another string rings.

However, the primary goal is to properly form the chord with your fingers fast. This takes a little effort, but an average beginner still proceeds.

Now comes the dreaded part. Chord switching. Initially, the fingers are so out of sync that trying to change chords “fast” might make your head spin. The key is to practice the movement slowly. “But, who will waste one week practicing a simple chord change, that won’t allow me to play my favourite song right away?”, a novice thinks.

This is where practically a lot of people give up. “It’s taking a lot of time”, “I can’t do it”, they proclaim. But those who carry on forward are the ones who become good guitar players.

If you’re stuck, and think you won’t make progress, don’t give up! Just continue. It might even take you a week to get a single chord right. But that’s just the start. Once you catch on momentum, everything will flow. Success comes to those who don’t give up!

First of all, learning guitar does take time. It also takes quite a bit of effort. However, I’ve listed some resources here so that none of your efforts go wasted due to unsystematic learning.

• Justin Guitar (COMPLETELY FREE VIDEOS!): Without doubt, Justin Guitar is the single best free video resource for guitar learning. You can start as a beginner and be on your way to being a good player using these videos alone. If you don’t prefer to watch them online, you can buy DVDs of high quality version of these videos. Many Justin Guitar users also prefer JamPlay (mentioned below).
• Jamorama (BEST VALUE): Jamorama is one of the leading guitar courses online. It is available in both formats, digital (great price) and physical. Though mainly text, it contains videos corresponding to the new things you learn. It also contains jam tracks, so that you can start jamming along when you learn a chord or two. Another great thing about it is that, it is quite complete. Don’t be surprised if it takes you at least a year to master what’s inside the course. If you don’t mind paying a few dollars, and want the best value, this might be the course for you.
• JamPlay (PAID): JamPlay is a great paid resource. If you can afford it, then this should be a great starting point. For $19.95 monthly, you get unlimited access to around 366 hours of lessons by 34 teachers, and 198 song lessons. These numbers are as of today, as mentioned on the JamPlay website. They may increase with time, because new lessons are added every single day! Last but not the least, instructors are available for over 12 hours live on webcam, to answer all your questions!
• Guitar Tricks (PAID, CAN DOWNLOAD VIDEOS): This is another subscription based website like JamPlay, but allows downloading of videos. It costs $14.95 per month, and is also a great site. They’ve got a bunch of free videos you can see, so that you get a feel for what you can expect. They have fundamental lessons (that all guitarists should know), and lessons on specific styles (Blues, Rock, Country, Funk, Jazz, Metal…).
• Learn and Master Guitar (20 DVDs + 5 Jam Along CDs): If you’re not an online kind of guy, and are overwhelmed by lots of videos, then this one is for you. It’s a DVD set, a course to be precise. It helps you start your journey as a beginner and become a better guitar player. Not just DVDs, you also get printed materials. Jam Along CDs helps you practice what you’ve learned in “real world scenarios.” You can also find the Blues Guitar course on their site.

That’s just a small list. There might be more, but I didn’t want to overwhelm you. One final word, learning guitar does take time, but the end result is pretty rewarding. Try making the whole learning process fun.

For those who’re already impressed by it and want to buy it, here are some Black Friday Discounts.

There seems to be some problem with the URLs below from L&M’s side. If you get a 404 Not Found Error, remove the extra space from the end of that URL in your browser’s address bar and try again.

Used Learn & Master Guitar At Just $89: You get a previously used package of L&M guitar at just $89. Click here for the discount page. Incidentally, you’ll also find the discount for the Piano course on the same page.

$100 off + 15% off: As the name suggests, click here to get $100 off the guitar course, as well as a %15 discount on top of it.

Enjoy with your favorite Learn and Master courses!

This post contains affiliate links