The first essential requisite to taking a beginner guitar lesson is to possess your own guitar. How many guitarists do you think started learning the instrument by borrowing others' guitars? None, practically! The logic to this is simple - practice is an important part of the learning process, and having your own guitar makes practice an easy task. You do not necessarily have to buy yourself an expensive instrument; you can even buy a second hand one and graduate to a better guitar once you are familiar with how to play it.
Introduction to Beginner Guitar Lessons
To learn the guitar, you must have a guitar first. The best thing to do is buy one. You need to buy a guitar because learning guitar requires constant practice. You can buy either a second hand guitar or a brand new one, depending on whichever you think will suit you best.
Owning a guitar is actually the first step to taking beginner guitar lessons. Beginner lessons are guitar classes taught to newcomers so they are familiar with the basics of the guitar and how to play it. You can learn the guitar from a teacher or online, at websites offering guitar tutorials.
The first thing you learn is not how to play the instrument, but what the different parts of the guitar are. All websites providing beginner guitar lessons start their teachings from this point. This makes sense because it is not a good idea to learn a musical instrument without first knowing its various parts. Along with knowing each part of the guitar, you also have to learn the functions of each individual part.
Beginner Guitar Lessons - The Primary Steps
After teaching you the different parts of the guitar and their functions, the next thing beginner guitar lessons teach you are the names of the different strings on the guitar. Did you know that all guitars do not necessarily have the standard six strings? There are guitars that have twelve strings too!
After learning about the strings, the next step is to learn the different ways you can play the guitar. How many postures can you think of, in which to play the guitar? While you can be imaginative and think up numerous postures, the basic postures are standing up, and sitting down!
Learning about the postures also teaches you the different grips you can use to hold the guitar while playing. Once you are through with these basics, the next thing that you learn in beginner guitar lessons is actually how to use the guitar. This includes how to form the different chords, how to hit the strings such that you get the proper sound, etc.
Beginner Guitar Lessons - The Importance of Guitar Theory
There is one school of thought that emphasizes the need to know guitar theory while taking beginner guitar lessons. The logic for this is simple: once you know the basic theory, it becomes easier to learn the chords. However, this is not a mandatory practice; in fact, many online guitar tutorials do away with the need for knowledge of guitar theory as a prerequisite for learning the chords and other complex things about the guitar.
Basically, the need for guitar theory knowledge depends primarily on your level of interest in the instrument. If you are planning to take up playing the guitar full-time, it makes sense to know the theoretical aspects as well. However, if you are taking it up as just something you want to learn so you can play some of your favorite numbers, then it makes sense to just go ahead with the online tutorials alone and learn the different chords.
With this background, you are now ready to take your first steps towards taking up beginner guitar lessons.
