Play guitar without reading music.

I remember when I got my first guitar, I was 14 years old and my music teacher gave me a guitar that had been stored away in a science lab at an old school.

We had a fantastic bunch of teachers at school who recognised that playing music was a great outlet for teens. The school encouraged the students to play music by allowing the use of 12 classical/nylon strung guitars to be signed out at lunch times where students could sit together and “jam” or help each other to learn new songs or techniques.

I was fortunate enough to have a friend who was very patient. she learnt how to play guitar at church and taught me three chords to get me started. It is amazing how many songs you can play with just three chords and there are plenty of books available with just such songs in them.

It took me about a week playing everyday for about an hour each day to learn 3 chords. I don’t know if the time it took was long or short, however, I don’t think it matters how long it takes to learn the guitar if it is something you really want to do.

If you have decided to learn the guitar there are a few questions you might be faced with before you decide to go and buy your first guitar.

What style of music do you want to play? How much do you want to spend getting started? What type of guitar should you buy to learn with? These questions and more will be answered in the blogs and pages on this website.

Firstly can I say, I didn’t know what style of music I wanted to play, I only know that I saw friends having fun playing music and thought self,………….. I would like to play guitar with friends so I can share in the fun. I didn’t know how to read music off a stave, and had no classical training or background. There is no need to know how to read music to be able to play the guitar unless you would like to learn classical guitar then it is definitely necessary. There are 2 major ways to learn how to play guitar by following patterns that are different to reading notes from the stave.

Chord shapes are used by lots of books to show you where to put your fingers on the strings in what frets to make a chord.

They look like this-

There are also tabs which are the six lines of the guitar strings or (four for bass) and a number on the string to represent the fret you should place your finger on, this shows how to make the chord. My explanation may sound difficult but here is a picture as an example-

This tab picture also includes the chord written at the top of the diagram, this is very common.

I hope I have given you some useful information about how easy it is to learn the guitar. If you are someone who is very dedicated to a goal that you set for your self, then learning the guitar is going to be a breeze for you as there is a wealth of knowledge on just such a task and you are certainly in the right spot to start learning today!

I hope you find some useful information on this site to get you started and have a life that is long and happy making music, weather it is with friends or just you! Wishing you all the best on your musical journey from a happy guitarist.

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