Thread: Time taken to learn to play the guitar?

Well hi guys, i noticed that alot of people here know how to play the guitar and well it interests me. Therefore i am planning to learn to play the guitar some time next year, so i want to know how long it took people here to learn to play it.

Therefore only if you play the guitar or have someone that knows how to, please let me know how long it took you or them to learn to play it, and whether it is really hard.

Anyone just posting i don't play the guitar will be groaned by me as i don't want this to be a spam thread.

I want to know whether it is a lost cause or whether i should actually do it.

Completely dependant on your learning speed. Might take days/weeks/months/years. Just try and see how it feels.

It took half a year for me to manage play anything bit harder (Like metallica) correctly.

Its about hours, not days.
if u will learn hard and will learn intensive on the guitar u can learn it about couple of hours.
there is book that will learn u all.. tabs and note .. its easy

It depends on what you think and opinion how to play a guitar. You can get up and running playing easy songs in about a week or less. Its not to hard to remember the chords, and strummin paterns! In my opinion, their are two types of guitarists. You have the book smart paper guitarists, and the hearing, or by ear guitarists.. Book smarts would be able to read notes on a sheet and play them. I suck at this, I honestly cant read it fast enough to play accordingly, and then you have the by ear guitarists. This is more creative in their activity and be able to comprehend music. I can play this way. Listen to some music, and I can grab the chords and beat.

So to get started, I would get a book of Chords, get you the major, minor and minor7 chords. These are the most used. Popular songs that you hear grab the notes, and work on your strumming pattern. After you get strumming, then you can work on picking. Which is another step. You can also get these and they will give you the notes to ever fret and pick. This is what makes guitarists stand out. Their creative fingering and picking makes an guitarists stand out, and make you tell if their good. Hey I have 2 video's I want to show you on progression. I think he is one of the best guitarists in the world and he is quite young. He can do the strumming, base line, and picking all so fluently. Sometimes you need 3 guitarits to do that but he can. Read more about him.

This is 2 Years ago! Sungha Jun!
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMnv_-flLJ0&feature=fvst]YouTube - While my guitar gently weeps - Sungha Jung[/ame]

This is 2 months ago! Sungha Jun!
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcTm5W1eoJM]YouTube - (Beatles) While My Guitar Gently Weeps - Sungha Jung[/ame]

Look at the difference, and he was still good 2 years ago!

Do you need a little bit of a grasp on music to be able to learn or not. As i completely know nothing about music, i can't read the notes, can't pick up beats, etc. Therefore i think it is extremely hard.

Here lies the beauty of a fretted instrument:

You dont need to read notes or know anything about music theoretically to play guitar. Of course as you go along on your journey you will slowly learn more, but do not let this be a stumbling block for you.

Tablature is a great way to learn songs, and I guarantee many of your favourite guitarists arent sight-readers, and just learn by ear, trial and error, or copying videos.

In this age of internet and tabs and downloading, it is so easy to find good lessons and information (also a lot of bad lessons and misinformation) that you can really go as in depth as you want, or a light as you want in terms or your focus.

As for how long it takes to learn to play the guitar, its such an open question and really comes down to what you feel is playing the guitar.

So first up, what songs do you want to play?
Do you want to play electric guitar, steel-string acoustic, or classical (nylon string) ?


I have played guitar for almost 20 years now and have taught some absolute beginners in my time and really it all comes down to how much you are prepared to put into it.
Myself and Im sure many others will be quite happy to answer any questions, and generally guitarists are not elitist and treat beginners with utmost respect. Its great to see someone learning and trying hard to make progress, it even teaches us a thing or two as well.

Well its not something that i want to do right now or immediately, i am currently busy with school but im thinking about learning to play the guitar sometime next year.

It just seems like a fantastic instrument to me and we i listen to good guitar related songs its gets me all emotional and stuff, and it shows how much passion this instrument can arise in someone.

A few of my friends and people i have come across can play it and its just nice to hear them play it and therefore i thought hey i don't have like a real hobby that im focused on so do something valuable with my time and learn how to play the guitar. I'm focused on studying this year thats why i plan to start next year. Though i wanted to know how hard it is to start and whether it is worthy it and whether i would be able to do it with minimal music knowledge and the answer that i have gained is yes, which is excellent for me to hear.

People who play the guitar are mostly humble, nice and easy to talk to people. They all appear like good people to me (except the hardcore rock or metal guitarists) and also adds to my interest of wanting to learn how to play the instrument.

As for what i plan to learn is just to basically be able to play some good beats and easy not too complex songs and no i can't give examples as i'm not really the music person (Hehe i know its weird that im interested in playing a musical instrument without much knowledge of music altogether).

As for my question to make it more narrow, how long did it take you to be able to play your first full song, regardless of what it was.

Originally Posted by Majid

As for my question to make it more narrow, how long did it take you to be able to play your first full song, regardless of what it was.

I took lessons, and was playing my first song in the first 30 minutes. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star haha.

After a couple of weeks I could play along with real songs like from Barenaked Ladies and Led Zeppelin. The trick is to practice EVERY DAY. If you skip out on it, it will only mess you up, as long as you do at least 30 minutes a day you can make progress. (Even when it seems like you wont).

You can find free online lessons on how to read music notes, they're really simple. Alternatively you can just use tabs which are even easier. But you'll want to be able to know how to read the actual music.

How long did it take me to learn my first song?

Well, I cant remember too much about individual songs, but I was already playing the piano at the time and playing trumpet as well, so I had a good understanding of how to read notes, but whats more important when it comes to guitar tabs is how to read the rhythmic notation, so I kinda had a bit of a head start.

I think within one year of starting I was in the school band, and we had our own class band where we played a couple of songs for the school :

Guns 'n Roses : Dont Cry
Metallica: Nothing Else Matters

I think maybe Nothing Else Matters was one of the first songs I started to learn, as well as Eric Claptons unplugged versions of Layla and Tears in Heaven.

I would say from memory that within 6 months I had a pretty good handle on these songs, first learning the main rhythmic parts then learning the solos. But thats to a performance level (well high school performance ;) ) , and it was a lot of fun.

However there are many great songs that revolve around mainly chords and strumming patterns that can be learnt very quickly, and once you have toughened up your fingers and can hold chords down for long enough without hurting I think within 1 month you could be playing along to real music.

Oh I probably should mention for the first 5 or so years or my playing guitar I was practicing about 2 hours a day, it was so much fun. (plus I was in a very small town with not many girls!)