So, You Want to be a Guitar Player?

If you are a Guitar Hero game player, you might be ready to actually learn to play a real guitar? The guitar hero game is fun, but it doesn’t teach you to play the guitar. Maybe you want to play real guitar music and someday perform for others.

Learning to play an instrument takes work – you don’t really get to “play” at it until you learn the basics and practice. When you learn a song, it gets more and more fun - when you learn two songs, it's double the fun. I know because I learned to play the guitar when I was ten years old! When I learned a few basic chords, I was able to use them for lots of songs. Starting learning some of the basics and you'll feel more and more like you are accomplishing your goal. For example, if you learn these chords: C, G, and D. You'll find that those three chords will allow you to play many easy guitar songs.

You can watch videos on the internet to learn how to change guitar strings, how to turn a guitar, or even what each part of the guitar is called. There are beginner lessons on videos that can teach about guitar chords.

Will it hard to learn one easy guitar song?

When I learned to play guitar, I had a guitar teacher and used some guitar chord books. But that was before the Internet (I know - a long time ago) and today there are so many other options to find guitar lessons for beginners. I've seen some good online guitar lessons. But this has not changed: a quick way to learn is to learn one song. After that, learning the second and third song will be much easier!

What kind of guitar should you have?

Most often, beginning guitar lessons are taken with acoustic guitars or sometimes a classical guitar. Here is an article that shows the three main types of guitars. A difference between classical, acoustic and electric guitars is the kind of strings on them - electric and acoustic use steel strings while classical or folk guitars have nylon strings. A guitar with steel strings can be restrung with nylon strings at first - because the nylon strings don't hurt your fingers as much!

There are benefits to learning to play on either kind of guitar. Some people start with electric guitar, especially if their goal is to play electric guitar in a rock band. Acoustic guitars are great for most kinds of music, you'll need a classical guitar if you plan to play Spanish or Flamenco music, though.

So, go and buy yourself a guitar, just don't get one that is made of plastic or is really cheap. Make sure you hear the guitar played first. If you are looking at guitars in a store, get someone there to play the guitar for you. When you go to a guitar store, take a friend who plays guitar with you. So, start learning your first guitar song. You can go from a game player to a real guitar player - and a true guitar hero!