Acoustic Guitar Lessons - Common Mistakes

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There are many misconceptions regarding acoustic guitar lessons. I'm talking about both the free ones and the pricey ones. The one thing all guitar lessons have in common is the student. If you're reading this article you probably decided to teach yourself guitar, or at least considering it. I can go on and on about whether you should teach yourself guitar or get a professional tutor.

Moreover, I can say a lot about how to find the best course or tutor (see this link for a discussion on the subject). But what I'm going to do in this article is talk about the common mistakes guitar students have to pay their attention to when taking acoustic guitar lessons.

The first issue and a very important one is your physical state.

Surprising, no? What most students don't know is that their posture throughout their practice can (and lots of times will) cause damage to your spine, neck, shoulders or arms. A good tutor should give you advice regarding how to sit correctly and how to maintain a healthy posture throughout their practice, but it's up to the student to listen, and guess what: they usually don't

Sure, it will take some months of practicing before that damage is noticeable but you really don't want to get to that point. If you're teaching yourself guitar, be sure to take note of these important issue.

Second common mistake is playing too fast. Students always want to get to the point when they can consider themselves guitar players. But playing a certain song faster than you can, won't get you there.

You should always consider every aspect of your playing and strive to be able to focus on all those things while you play.

You need to get to a point where you can play one song perfectly, from beginning to end, at a very slow tempo, then you can begin increasing the tempo gradually. This way is easier to learn by far. But aside of being easier, this way is also much more fulfilling; you won't have the feeling of failure every time you fail to play a song at a fast tempo. Instead, you will feel good every time you play a song from beginning to end no matter what the tempo is.

The third mistake is not practicing every day. A lot of students think they can practice two/three hours a week and only at the weekend. This will get you nowhere fast...

You have to play every day, don't be lenient!

Playing every day, even if it's just for a half an hour, is definitely better than playing 3 hours one day and not touching the guitar for another week. You need to become perfectly familiar with the instrument and if you don't practice every day, you lose a lot of time just by repeating what you practiced last time.

To sum up:

If you have a tutor, listen to him! He knows your style and probably knows what's best for you more than anyone,

But take it from me, even don't have a tutor or an acoustic guitar lessons software: if you want to get the best out of your acoustic guitar lessons, avoid making these 3 mistakes.

Rock on!

Jeff