As with most musical instruments, learning how to play the guitar is challenging and rewarding. You’ll make mistakes as a beginner. However, you should turn this into something positive while learning guitar chords quickly.
Beginners must recognize mistakes and learn from experience. Before you place your fingers on the string and start playing your guitar, take note of the following errors and learn from them.
1. Improper Holding of the Guitar
Although it’s obvious that you need to hold your guitar the right way, this is still the most common mistake made by beginners. As you learn guitar chords, you must be holding your instrument properly to be able to play them with ease on the fretboard.
Here’s a standard way to hold a guitar (for right-handed):
● Sit down and position your knees at a right angle
● Put the guitar’s waist on top of your right thigh
● Allow your forearm to move freely by resting your upper right arm on top of the guitar
Don’t Tilt the Guitar
If you’re still on the way to learn guitar chords, it’s okay to tilt your guitar so you can look at it. However, don’t make it a habit because tilting makes it prone for your guitar to slide around. Maintain the correct playing position to prevent your guitar from slipping or sliding.
2. Not Tuning or Warming up Before Playing the Guitar
Make sure to tune your instrument before you play guitar. Being out-of-tune as you learn guitar chords can cause you to learn the wrong sounds. This can then lead to self-doubt and disappointment as you lament over why you don’t sound as good as other guitarists.
Playing guitar chords is a physical and mental activity, and like any exhausting exercise, you can perform better with a proper warm-up. Allocate at least 5-10 minutes playing through some basic guitar chords or scales before your actual practice.
3. Inconsistent Practice
Practicing guitar chords is crucial for any aspiring guitarist. As you learn guitar chords, setting a practice schedule helps you form good habits, which develops your muscle memory and skill. Make it an aim to practice guitar chords daily for at least 15 minutes.
Challenge yourself enough during practice to don’t get caught up playing a piece of music repeatedly. Playing a song that you’ve already mastered won’t help you get better. It’s okay to practice a song repeatedly, but make sure to incorporate a new song once in a while to develop your skills.
Same as how practicing something easy can limit your growth, practicing somethings that’s too difficult will only frustrate you. This can prevent you from making progress, so aim for a piece that’s within your range.
4. Not Studying Music Theory
Although it isn’t a requirement to learn about guitar theory, you can benefit if you study a bit about it as a musician. Studying music theory gives you the ability to understand the dynamics of music, guitar chords, and gives you the language to communicate with other musicians.
Knowing the basics is part of guitar lessons. By knowing music theory, you enjoy greater creative freedom.
5. Pressing the Chords Too Hard
As you learn your first guitar chord, you’ll tend to clamp the strings too hard on the fretboard. This is because you’re trying to avoid fret buzz, which isn’t actually the cause. The absence of callouses and inexact placement of fingers on pressure points make it difficult to deliver the right sounds.
As your chord changes, don’t use more strength to prevent the buzz. Doing so only leads to hand strain, out-of-tune chords, and stretched strings because of too much pressure.
6. Avoiding Barre Chords
Playing barre chords involves using one finger to press all the strings down at once on a single fret. This movement of chords requires a strong hand good skill to accomplish. Most aspiring guitarists avoid playing barre chords because it’s quite difficult and intimidating.
The best way to master barre chords is through practice. But don’t rush it. Master the basic open chords and play chord progressions smoothly before you embark on your barre chord journey.
7. Poor Equipment
Not all are willing to spend their entire life savings on a guitar. However, that doesn’t mean you should settle for something cheap with low quality for your instrument. When you buy your first guitar, ask a guitar expert for advice to help you out or accompany you during purchase.
Once in the store, try playing every guitar you’re considering to buy. To save, you can also buy online but make sure that the vendor is legit.
8. Strumming Too Hard
Just because it’s your first time and it feels nice doesn’t mean you have to strum with all your strength. This only produces a harsh sound and lessens the lifespan of your strings.
Don’t strum so hard when you practice. You’ll only end up hurting your fingers and produce an “off” sound.
Just Roll With It!
It takes time and practice to master playing the guitar. You’ll go through many errors and setbacks, which can make you feel that you’re not making progress. But you know what? Just roll with it.
Mistakes can help you learn from experience. What’s important is that you let yourself make these mistakes then move forward. The 8 errors mentioned above are only meant to guide you to the right path and don’t mean you should avoid making errors entirely.
Set realistic goals and enjoy your journey with all ups and downs.