INTRODUCTION
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Are you that steemian who has absolutely no idea about playing guitar or a beginner finding it difficult to figure out how to get on as a guitarist, well, like I said in my #Introduceyouself post, I am going to equip you with solid foundation which will make growing in your guitar career very easy.
I always say this and you just have to believe it that knowing how to play a guitar is very easy, once you are exposed to the right materials, start rehearsing properly and working hard to achieve success, you will be surprised how smooth and easy it will be. However, no matter how easy any task could be, consistency, patience and hard work are important to put into consideration, although if you are just starting out, it may be a little bit overwhelming, well, just relax it is a matter of time, just follow the guides in my posts and in no time you are playing excellently.
Who is a great guitarist?
A guitarist is considered to be great and amazing if he is simply able to play to songs and interact musically with other musicians when he/she picks up the guitar.
Yeah!! Lets get on with what we want to discuss in this post titled Essentials of being a great guitarist. The list of important things you must keep in mind on your way to becoming a guitarist are unending but I will just treat about five of them.
This is my first electric jazz guitar
Your priority is owning a guitar!
At this point you tend to wonder, what do I mean by your priority is owning a guitar? I don’t even have it in mind for now. Oh yes!! You don’t have it in mind, consequently you won’t need to have becoming an ordinary guitarist not to talk of great one in mind too. If you really want to play all those “strings on the wood” as my friend would say before he became a guitarist, you just have no better option than to own one. You don’t have to bother about been able to afford it, all you have to do is SAVE UP!!.
Let me share with you how I got my first acoustic guitar but just before that, permit me to digress a bit on how to even know which guitar you are saving for, I will definitely post something comprehensive enough on choosing a guitar. You can choose from the varieties of guitar available in the market, but I will advice you as a beginner to start with an acoustic guitar and this is because it can be heard without the use of amplifier unlike the electric guitars and as a beginner you want to be able to rehearse anytime anywhere, although not a crime if you can save up for an electric guitar, but considering so many advantages an acoustic guitar has over the electric guitar in terms of rehearsals I strongly recommend an acoustic guitar.
Now back to the experience I am sharing, my mom gives me allowance every month, because I am really eager to start playing, I used a whole month allowance to purchase my first acoustic guitar!!! And I had to endure hunger through that month, lol, you might be passing comments like “were you crazy then” well let me correct you, that is not being crazy its called PASSION. For the fact that I started my guitar career while I was in the university, to afford a guitar in a short period of time without trying to save up for long I just had to opt for that. Smiles!! Do not start thinking you have to go through what I went through to own a guitar, you can just save up but the bottom line is get your guitar and you are few steps away from being a guitarist.
Be Patient And Set Goals
Patience is not as easy as it is pronounced, in fact anxiety is always easier. As I write this post I just begin to picture myself when I was a beginner, it wasn’t a palatable story really all because I did not have this opportunity you are having now to have read piece like this. Let me share another experience concerning this, after I got my guitar in my first year, I tried playing it in the first few weeks but it looks so impossible as it sounded horrible , I was so pissed and almost regretted wasting my money to get it, so I neglected it. It was until second semester of my second year I determined that no matter what, I must play this instrument called guitar. I worked by that, got frustrated many times when I tried a new chord and its just buzzing instead of ringing and so many other events like that, but gradually I improved and started playing in my fellowship and I grew per day, my rehearsals became easier and less frustrating.
If you were following me you will discover that, all the events I narrated took place over years. What am saying in essence is that, it is a gradual and relatively slow process to start playing guitar. Although after that, it becomes easier, but before then you must have a strong determination, be over patient and set goals, remember "Rome was not built in a day."
Tell yourself you are going to become a guitarist no matter what it takes, this will help you in times you feel like backing out and keep you going.
Focus on your learning process don’t be time obsessed
I have seen so many beginners that always wants to jump start things they learn, be it scales, chords, modes etc. Well, it is very normal, you feel like the very day you get your guitar is when you have to start playing like a pro. Meanwhile, it doesn’t work like that, for instance when you are taught a scale, you don’t just start forming licks straight away from the scale but focus on having it at your finger tips.
Although, it is a gradual process it may take weeks, even months , it is never going to happen like magic. Being time obsessed means you want fast results, you want to learn and reproduce almost immediately, well if you are just starting out you will never make a great guitarist that way.
The bottom line is that you don’t need to focus on the time it takes to master anything you choose to rehearse on your guitar as this will definitely distract you from getting on and you will make little or no progress at all.
Therefore, for effective rehearsals to take place you have to be dedicated to convincingly getting what you are practicing at any point in time and when you do, you will be amazed how productive it turned out.
Don’t be overwhelmed
Being overwhelmed is one of the barriers to becoming a great guitarist. This days there are loads of materials scattered everywhere on the internet, you see a lot of eBooks, tabs, guitar websites, YouTube videos etc. When you see all this materials you feel like I have to learn this, I have to learn that and at the end of the day become seriously frustrated and discouraged.
Just take things slow. The solution to avoid this kind of frustration and confusion is to choose a path at a time and focus on materials related to the chosen path alone. The best solution is for you to consistently follow a guitarist that has the experience to guide you. This helps to rapidly improve your guitar skills as it will be factual and directly point you to things you need. This will help to neglect the irrelevant stuffs and prevent exposure to incomprehensible information.
Be self dependent
Finally, this is very important to be a successful guitarist. For instance, when I started, I have a brother very vast and a very great guitarist, he taught me so many basics. All he does is to show me and after that I will sit down and practice what he just taught me, but I never restricted myself as I rehearse, since what he gave me is the foundation to all those complex stuffs, I do discover new things. I won’t now say he did not show me therefore I can not do anything else even though I understood very well how I arrived at it. So, what I do is take note of what I discovered then show it to him, most times he corrects me and show me the right way to do what I discovered and at times I will be correct, he was always encouraged to teach me, even now he is always happy to share ideas with me and I also, we keep growing better per time.
Therefore, to become a great guitarist you have to put your mind and expand your scope based on the basic foundation you were taught. First, you learn and ensure you really get that skill you are learning afterwards you experiment and explore your new skill.
I am open to questions and feedbacks, feel free to contribute!
Thank you.