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?

The tutorial assumes you have at least a basic knowledge of programming concepts. If you know what a “variable” is, or what “loops” are, you should be good to go.

It teaches various stuff like the data strucutures present in Python, regular expressions, urllib (for HTTP stuff), file handling etc. I like the way they’ve given exercises. There are many tutorials online, and most of them don’t have an exercise kind of thing which will test what you’ve learned.

Now, those with some Python experience might be curious about the version. Google Class recommends Python 2.6.x, and also recommends avoiding 3.x for now. The reason might be partly due to the fact that many modules are yet to be supported in 3.x. A beginner would rather learn the version which gives him the maximum flexibility.

Go ahead, check out the tutorial.

Many think it’s all about being perfect. Believe me, if you aim for perfection, you will realistically never reach it.

We can’t pour in unlimited resource into something. We can’t spend all of our time on one specific thing. Look at Chess. You need a lot of time to think, but you still have a time limit.

Understand what the time limit of your task is. And put your full efforts and dedication to the task during this little “time limit,” and more if possible.

In short, do a task not because it has to be done, but because you want to do it.

In the end, if you’re satisfied with your efforts (not just the results), then you’re on the right track.

Whatever we have, we want to add one more bit of complexity to it.

John is a professional who often has to resize lots of images. Each time, he fires up Photoshop or GIMP (he likes open source), and does the resizing. The Paint that comes with his OS doesn’t allow the flexibility he demands.

Good.

What if there existed an application that did just one thing, resize images? What would John prefer? Firing up GIMP or Photoshop (and endlessly waiting for them to load), or use an application that understands John’s need, and does that one thing – image resizing – extremely well?

Of course, the second little application. Even though a lot of big applications support most of the features you’ll ever need, but sometimes, small focused applications do the job better.

People are creating such small apps all around the globe. They find that a few people in the forum want a certain piece of software that will do what they want. And they create small apps that does exactly that, nothing less, nothing more. Simple. Elegant.

Moreover, these guys are praised by everyone, since they provide such quick and easy-to-use solutions.

I touched this topic in my other post, Less is More.

So, how are you changing the world for the better?

Software with more features, more settings, more customizations and more of everything else you can ever imagine.

However, the latest trend is about less being more.

I don’t want a software wherein I have to customize tens of things before I get the output I want. I rather want a magic button which does everything that I want when I click it, nothing more, nothing less.

Software programmers think providing more options to the user makes their software flexible. True, but it comes at a cost – the cost of added complexity.

There can be infinite number of customizations that can be done to a process. A software programmer selects the few important one and shows it to the user. Still, these options are too much! You shouldn’t bombard your users with such endless “offers.”

Your software may not be great for everyone. However, it would work extremely well for the right group.

Think about it…

Anytime anyone thinks of creating a website, WordPress comes to mind.

However, WordPress is not everything. No, I’m not talking about using any other CMS instead of WordPress. The point is, why use a CMS when one is not required?

Take a personal site having a few static pages, or a personal site of a freelancer offering many services. The site’s pages don’t change much, and WordPress is a total overkill.

This is where standard HTML/CSS proves a better solution. It’s simple, it’s easy and it’s elegant. The way we used to build websites a decade ago is still the best way in many cases.

Now, many complain about having to modify all the pages manually when they make a global change to the site, like adding something to the navigation, footer or header. Now, you can easily combat this by splitting your HTML page into different parts (header, footer, navigation and the actual pages), and gluing them together using PHP.

This drastically reduces your overhead.

Remember, the K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid) principle applies to websites too. Why not take advantage of it?

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!

This site is called, well, Mystery Party Scripts. Apart from scripts, it has some good articles on hosting, visiting and actively participating in a mystery party.

Since most of you might want the list of scripts, here’s some quick links to them: Mystery Scripts for Kids, and Mystery Scripts for Adults.

Enjoy!

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.