7 things you should know before picking up a guitar
1. YOU’RE GOING TO BE BAD WHEN YOU START...
No one starts out a master at something and guitar is no different. Practice is what sets you apart. This is the single biggest thing that you can do to improve your guitar skills. Make sure to broaden your library to include songs from other genres and artists that you may not even recognize.
2. …BUT IT’S WORTH IT.
Guitar is amazing to have on a camping trip: sitting around the fire strumming songs while the sparks crackle but it has other benefits too. A dual study from the Mind-Body Wellness Center and Loma Linda University School of Medicine and Applied Biosystems discovered that stress can be reduced by playing an instrument. A separate study, conducted by Cambridge University found that musicians continue being creative even when they’re not playing their instruments. The performers visualized music in terms of its shape, and then processed that as a form of practice.
3. HAVE PLENTY OF PICKS.
A pick to a guitarist is like a spoon to a bowl of soup; you can drink the soup out of the bowl, but it’s going to be much easier to use a spoon. That’s why the first thing you may notice when you walk into a guitarist’s lair is their vast array of picks scattered about. Most guitar songs use them for strumming or solos with a few using fingerpicking.
4. YOUR FINGERS ARE GOING TO HURT.
When you first pick up a guitar your fingers are going to hurt, a lot. The pain will go and return over and over again in what will feel like never ending suffering. Eventually you'll build up callouses but those first few weeks are going to be painful.
5. EQUIPMENT? DON’T BOTHER.
DON’T focus on the equipment. There’s a Jeff Beck quote where he said, “The best guitarists can make anything sound good.” No matter if you get a $100 dollar guitar or a $1000 dollar guitar, it’s the player that decides how it sounds. There’s nothing wrong with spending some bucks on a sweet gig, however don’t get caught up on looks or sound.
6. WHO’S THE BEST?
Short answer, No one. Every guitarist is going to have a different taste in music and therefore all have favorites. Just as in soccer, there is no best player but a handful of top athletics that everyone likes. You'll have one guitarist love Jimi Hendrix and another swear by Eric Clapton. Both are great performers that just appeal to different audiences.
7. ONCE A GUITARIST, ALWAYS A GUITARIST.
Make sure you’ve set aside some time before you pick up your first guitar, because once you do, you won’t ever get it back. The guitar has memorized people for generations with the vastly different types of music it can play and you’ll be no different. The moment you learn your first chord, the moment you successfully learn to solo off of scales, and that point where you can finally learn your favorite song just by relying on hearing are some of the many great experiences I hope you’ll have with guitar.