Songwriter Advisor Blog

Playing acoustic guitar is said to be fairly easy to learn but hard to master.  I agree, it’s pretty easy to find a decent chord chart whether on the web or in a book, and start strumming chords up and down.   But it takes a good amount of practice to coordinate fingering chords and strumming or picking together so that the music coming out of the soundhole makes some kind of sense.

Here’s a quick method to learn acoustic guitar that can have you playing and singing at your next get-together in no time.

• Buy a decent acoustic guitar that stays in tune.  There are a handful of new or used acoustic guitars in the $200-300 range that can do the trick here.  (Washburn guitars offer the highest quality, awesomely priced, best values in this range in my opinion)  
• Pick out a song you dream about playing on acoustic guitar.  Try to choose one with only 5-7 simple chords throughout the song.  E.g., don’t pick out a song like “Hotel California” for your first song (you’ll be able to play a song like this a couple of months down the road).  A song like “Best of My Love” by the Eagles would be a better choice.
• Buy or find the sheet music or chords used in the song you want to learn (make sure it’s in the key of C, D, E, F, G, or A – no flat keys – they are easier to learn and play on guitar) and begin learning how to finger the chords on your guitar one at a time.  Invest in a “capo” so you can transpose your song into a higher key if you need t.
• Try coordinating your fingering and strumming from only one chord to another.  Once you learn the first two chords, learn two more at a time until you’ve learned all the chords in the song.  It should take you anywhere between 4-8 hours of practice over 2-3 days to learn these and get comfortable.
• Try playing the chord structure of the song in bits and pieces from beginning to end to learn the entire chord structure of the song.  Practice this until, while hearing the melody sung in your head, your fingers are hitting the right chords consistently.
• Try singing and playing one note at a time until you can play and sing one measure at a time.  Now try to piece the song together in chunks from beginning to end.  For example, play the intro.  Then play the first two lines of the first verse, etc.
• Once you learn the first song pretty well, go on to another song and try to pick a song in a different key, say key of “G.”  With every song, try your best to pick out a song in a different key like the ones mentioned above.
• Repeat the same method with the new song and every song after that.

Before you know it, you’ll be playing songs in 5-6 different keys and your chord knowledge will already be fairly expanded!

Time to get to work!