Lead Guitar Tips

Which guitar to buy.
An acoustic is best to start learning on because it will be easier in your fingers. Any cheap acoustic guitar is more or less okay to start on, but it would be best if you had an experienced guitar player with you who could play a few chords, especially barre chords and make sure the guitar doesn't have too much buzzing in the top notes, and that it's generally not too hard to play.

Never rush.
Never. Not ever. Not at any time.
Allow speed to build up as a byproduct of many hours of practice. There are exercises that are supposed to help build up speed, but thay too should be played slowly.

The value of constant practice.
Let's say you want to learn the Cmajor chord in the first position. You check where you're supposed to put your fingers, then yopu strum or pluck the chord to check that your holding the strings down correctly so the notes sound clearly. Then you do that a couple more times. Take your hand off the guitar and give it a shake, and try the chord again. Now learn the fingering for another chord or two, say Fmajor an G7, and without rushing, change chords once or twice. Be as slow and clumsy as you like. You're just beginning. After you have repeated all this a couple of times, go onto some other kind of practice, say pentatonic scale shapes. Once you've been through everything you want to practice, go ahve some coffee or something, and come back and do it all again a few times, always remembering not to give into the urge to go faster than your muscles allow.

Pick your plectrum.
Get a collection of picks and experiment with all shapes, sizes and thicknesses. Find out what suits you and the kind of playing you're doing.

Barre chords.
Learn a barre chord early in your guitar learning. Before you need them. Whenever you think of it try the barre chord a few times, up and down the neck.

Remember that guitar strings break.
If ever anything was subject to Murphy's Law it's guitar strings, and of course they break most often while they are being played. It's best to carry a spare new set at all times, even though some guitar players change their strings regularly and keep the old ones as spares.


Keep your guitar in tune.
The AP Guitar Tuner is a great tuner for beginner guitarists because it has a clear visual indicator so you don't need to rely on your ear to get the tuning right. The guitar tuner on the front page of Learn To Play A Guitar For Free, like many online tuners, gives you the notes only. It's best to give this tuner a try occasionally to train your ear so that you are not permanently relying on a visual tuner.