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Learning the Guitar is Simple

The Guitar is a really interesting instrument to learn. In my opinion it is one of the only instruments that you can learn – to the point of being able to strum a simple tune – within a couple of weeks or less. This makes the guitar so appealing to people. They pick up the guitar, get shown a few chords and straightaway music can be heard. With most other instruments this is not the case and takes months of work before you can start to hear music.

Learning the guitar is also different to most other instruments in the fact that you do not need to learn how to read music. Written music notation is like another language and it takes time to learn. With most other instruments you learn to read music notation at the same time as you learn your chosen instrument. This means you have two things to concentrate on meaning the time taken to get anywhere is doubled at the very least.

The way you can learn the guitar without the need for music notation is thanks to the nice layout of the strings and frets. This is easily transposed onto paper in the form of boxes. The box is split vertically by 6 lines representing the 6 strings. Horizontal lines represent the frets and dots on these boxes represent where to put your fingers. These are called chord charts or chord boxes and you need no knowledge of the guitar at all to play these. Of course, your fingers will, at first, be reluctant to move exactly where you tell them, but given a bit of practice your fingers will start to remember these chords shapes very quickly.

The second method is guitar tab, which is represented by 6 horizontal lines. It looks a little like standard music notation but rather than notes, numbers appear on any of the 6 strings. The 6 lines represent the 6 strings and the numbers represent which fret to put your finger on. Once again, you need no knowledge of the guitar to understand this and subsequently anyone can pick it up immediately.

Guitar tab is everywhere. Being it is so simple and basic there are thousands of resources on the internet that tabs can be viewed online – of course, there is no guarantees they are correct and often are littered with mistakes from the people writing them out. Having said that, it can be a really good guide of how to play a song – with no knowledge of the guitar.

Guitar tab books are readily available and it is easy to increase your knowledge of the guitar with guitar theory books, your favourite band’s album songbook and much more.

The interesting thing is that I believe the guitar then becomes one of the most complicated instruments to master. On most instruments you can play a single note in one place only. On the guitar you can play a single note in several places. This can add confusion. This also applies to chords as well – a single chord can be voiced in many ways and in many different locations on the guitar.

Either way, the guitar is a great hobby, and its simplicity in learning your favourite songs to sing along provides hours of entertainment and enjoyment.

About the Author

Olly is the founder of Olly’s Guitar World – Supplier of Music Books and cheap guitars

I own a songbook for “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin autographed by all 4 members. How much is it worth?

The songbook was printed in 1972, and all 4 autographs are authentic. However, it was not signed all at one time. Robert Plant and Jimmy Page did not sign the book in 1972, but signed it after.

A lot of money, or just priceless. You could probably auction it off since millions of people around the world will want that songbook. However, the price may not be as high if you say Plant and Page signed it somewhat later.