I feel somewhat obligated to put together this Guitar 101 sort of thing since the internet is now such a saturated place.
My initial exposure was so much through YouTube back in the days when it was just good stuff only; you could very well look at the views and know if the video was going to be worth your time.
I came across so much good music and amazing guitar lessons, all because I guess the timing was all good for me, and now that there's like this whole infestation—and that's not an overstatement at all, fueled further by the urge to create more and more—you could see how that's going to spiral down into a weird situation.
Regardless of what the future of the internet or YouTube is, this particular conversation is for guitar enthusiast, starting from stage zero, when maybe you don't even have a guitar.
There's something you could do to self-assess; the idea is really simple: just ask yourself, How much music do you consume?
Well, generally, the answer to that is,"yes, I do listen to music" . But,
How many songs are you listening to that your ears were not used to earlier, and now you're kind of able to discover, absorb, and digest them?
If you're listening to good music, you'll have stuff to try out on guitar. Conversely, if you do not, well, then, I mean, really, what are you going to play on the guitar? English or math?
This is just such a basic idea, but for some reason, it just doesn't come to us all instinctively. You want to be a guitarist, but you're rather asking to be a musician first. What are the values of being a musician?
Music paralysis is a very real thing, which means as we grow up or even if, let's say, someone's kind of young and doesn't have enough exposure going on around them, very, very soon, we are going to be limited in our taste, and we really won't be accepting new flavors.
And that's not going to promote your guitar progress at all. So, step zero, go about listening to music, trying out new things. Probably Spotify playlists might be a great idea.
Most of my musician friends and most of my students as well kind of use Spotify, and the algorithm as of now, at least, does work out well and does recommend good stuff from time to time. So, that is the way to go.
Now, the best part.
Stage one, to look up and get the guitar, Well, I can understand the excitement.
You may be tempted to look into a lot of details like what kind of wood, sound, etc. But honestly, your ears are not going to be able to judge anything regarding sound. All you can judge at this stage, stage one, is the color and the fit of the guitar. That's it.
There's nothing else you could judge about this whole getting a guitar thing apart from two factors: color and fit.
Probably the third factor is going to be the budget. And when it comes to budget, I'm going to be a little bit location-specific. I'm going to talk about India, and well, usually, the Yamaha F280 and Yamaha F310 are guitar models that are widely used by beginners and are kind of reliable.
I think Yamaha has another one in the same segment, but yeah, that's again, roughly, what you can go with. So, we do not have to be brand-specific, although Yamaha has been there for a while. If we're talking about exact numbers and exact prices, I suppose anything above 5k is going to be fine.
Why?
There can be exceptions, but a lot of times, the make is compromised, which could make it difficult for anyone to get started. It could be unnecessarily extra strain on the fingers, but again, probably that's not a bad thing.
Maybe that's going to make your fingers stronger. So, I do not know which guitar exactly is going to work for you, but when I'm asked about it, I kind of suggest something above 5k.
To summarize it all, there are three factors you're going to look into while getting a guitar: the budget, the size, and lastly, the color.
But yeah, if you want to get that pink guitar, go for it. Go for that pink guitar and get that pink guitar only. You have to feel good about it.
Let's say you got it.
What stage were we on? I guess stage two.
Yeah, the day is bright , you're sitting on the couch, gazing at your beautiful guitar. It is looking back at you. There's just a moment between you guys and just glaring at it now, and the guitar is like, you know, asking to be played, and you finally pick it up.
And you play the hell out of"Happy Birthday" on one string.
Which again wouldn't be such a bad thing. You should absolutely try and play "Happy Birthday" on any one string, any one string sound, any one string music, tune, melody—that's the way to go.
When you've got your instrument initially, that's really what I would like you to experience—to make it sing in the simplest way. And what is the simplest way? You try something on one string. There's something that precedes playing guitar.
And that's going to be tuning.
So, once you've got the guitar, you'll basically have to do some settings through the knobs on the head of the guitar. With six knobs, you have to turn them so that the tension on the strings is accurate and so that it sounds good.
If you do not tune and you play right, it's still not going to sound good. So, tuning is essential. It's non-negotiable.
So, how do you tune your guitar? It's super simple. You could really use a tuner, or you could use an app. There are plenty of apps out there, and you could easily YouTube this or Google this, and you're going to find out how to really just tune your guitar.
I'm not going to get into that right now. From there, really just playing that first couple of tunes is what I would recommend, and that's like your initial kind of fling with the guitar.
That's where you're really experiencing and connecting to it for the first time. So, there's nothing wrong with you just playing, let's say, just the signature part of a couple of songs on one string. You gotta be listening to yourself, like, let's not move on from that tune till the time you're making it sound like the real thing.
Judge yourself like you would judge some other musicians if you were in a concert, and the way you would be kind of bitching about how this guy was sounding so bad. Now you gotta be, you gotta be that same audience to yourself, and you gotta hold yourself to those same standards.
The only rule in music is that if it sounds good, it is correct. You could also record yourself and just play a couple of tunes on one string. Live your life; yeah, just perform, go out there, and sell tickets. Okay, maybe no one will buy tickets for your one string tunes.
Stage three, time to get involved with the guitar properly.
Supposedly, a few days have passed and not weeks and months. Guitar is still probably, let's say, sitting out there in the living room and not deep in the closet, assumingly the guitar is kind of having this healthy life, and you are, from time to time, like, able to just spend time with the strings. This is where you're kind of ready for more commitment, and really, the musicianship evolves when you're involved.
Guitar is like that needy friend who likes to play well to do better to sound good; you just need to spend more time with it. There's no other way around it. Whether you want to look at it as a workout or as a gym, it's exactly the same thing actually, and there's no substitute for regularity.
There's the weird thing about guitar: either you're always making progress or you're going to step back, because that's how it goes about in any muscle memory-related activity. There's no middle ground. The guitar is basically a lifestyle thing. Once you've got the gist of it, you're ready to "learn properly".
You'll have two ways to go about it: one by doing it on your own, and another by learning it with someone's help.
Regardless of what you choose, your self-practice is going to be a big thing because when it comes to music, when it comes to guitar, there's something about solitude, there's something about patience, something about sitting down with the instrument and digging, that's irreplaceable.
All the great musicians, look into their history, so many times they're self-taught. You should definitely not shy away from that, that's absolutely possible.
There are constraints, as I described at the top, how the resources are now cluttered and people are making, let's say, videos just so that their channel can be alive, so yeah, all those constraints are real.
There are a couple of guidelines you could go by if you're going to be using YouTube to learn guitar on your own. The top recommendation is going to be to stick with a particular source, which might be a channel, an instructor, or a playlist, because two distinct people could be right in their own ways, but their advice could really clash if it's taken simultaneously.
For example, early on in this conversation, I suggested you could really start with one-string melodies or tunes, whereas some other instructors may come in with a different angle and may suggest that you kind of do exercises first and then try something out.
You see, what's the difference? I'm trying to retain the interest of the student and trying to elevate that, whereas the other person is upfront, bringing in and highlighting the discipline required to play an instrument, and just not negotiating on that part. You see both arguments are kind of equally heavy, and you see what's going on there.
Try and stick with one particular source, follow the advice, the whole D-tour that they're going to offer, and that's largely going to be helpful.
You will have to kind of have that sixth sense of navigating the internet. This has nothing to do with guitar, but you'll need to be good at navigating the internet and know what to trust, so this is more of you as an internet user.
Hopefully, from the initial advice, you'll be listening to music, That's going to be 50 percent of the deal. Rest 50 percent is going to be about guitar and playing and practicing it.
I guess that's all I can kind of recommend when it comes to learning on your own, because you still need to have that spine to find your way. That's the biggest thing about learning yourself; you have to know how to find the next thing.
So now we are moving on to the learning with someone part.
Well, full disclosure here: I'm an instructor myself, and I think I've seen a couple of things that I can put out there that could be useful.
I get this very common query from people calling me: does it make sense to kind of even opt for online guitar classes?
My answer is, well, the ideal situation would be someone living nearby and you could just go to their place and learn one-on-one. They are providing you with individualized care for 20 minutes, let's say, twice a week.
This kind of an arrangement is likely to produce results, it's likely to be beneficial, but the scenario really usually doesn't exist for most of the people.
Factor in traffic, weather and other such issues. Also, for a lot of people, guitar is not the primary thing. Will you be able to be consistent aftert work or school or college?
Guitar lessons one-on-one are more interesting, uh, at least for me as an instructor and, well, also, to be honest, for my students, because my student base is mostly people looking for some serious progress, people looking to kind of push the boundaries a little bit, and this is where a little bit more introspection, uh, could be useful.
For some people, guitar is more of a social activity where they want to go out and probably meet other music enthusiasts and try things out together, and that's perfectly all right, and that's superbly good; nothing wrong with that, but in that scenario, obviously you got to go out and do, uh, group classes in person.
The group classes, obviously is based on the average of the group. Usually, if you're looking to go about pushing boundaries, I don't know if that approach is going to work out the best, that's what I have observed with group classes.
I personally never enjoyed group classes because I'm also active as a musician, and they just felt really slow to me, whereas with my students, I have this opportunity that if they haven't practiced, I can just, uh, push the session, and I'm just going to ask them to practice it, and only then does the session go ahead.
With those kinds of privileges, I've been able to kind of be in touch with my art and also provide value to my students, which feels like a very win-win situation.
So even if there are no instructors around who are following this particular pattern, you should probably ask for this win-win kind of situation where you guys are doing sessions one-on-one. Maybe the timing isn't superbly one hour or even 45 minutes; it could be even less, but you want that personal attention and you want to try your best to practice.
Say Bye!
Anubhav Kulshreshtha
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