Beginners Guitar Tip Number 1 - Don't simply play the guitar. Practice.

There is a great difference between playing the guitar and practicing the guitar. Typically when we play, many of us are simply entertaining ourselves and in order to do that, most of us like to play the things that we can perform moderately well.

Practicing guitar involves playing things that we cannot do and is typically quite demoralizing, which is why most novice guitar players don't like to practice. Nonetheless, it is only by practicing the things that we cannot do on guitar that we will improve.

Beginners Guitar Tip Number 2 - Pay Attention.

Playing guitar accurately calls for a great deal of attentiveness. After you have played for some time, it gets more natural but you will always find that when working on a new technique or complex passage that it will call for concentrated attention in order to master it. The more attention you focus on a problem the more rapidly you will solve it.

Beginners Guitar Tip Number 3 - Stay relaxed.

If you struggle while you work on your songs, then that tension will remain to haunt you far into the future. The muscles have a very good memory and they will remember all the tension that you developed while figuring out that new song. If you want to play guitar effortlessly, then you need to use less effort right from the beginning.

Beginners Guitar Tip Number 4 - Play slowly.

You need to work on your songs or pieces at a tempo where you can play them accurately and comfortably. Most of us practice far too quickly. This causes stress, which tenses our muscles. We then learn our new tune with that stress in our hands and fingers. It is much less difficult to learn a new song by starting off relaxed than it is to try and get rid of that rigidity later on.

Beginners Guitar Tip Number 5 - Chart your progress.

It is extremely encouraging if you can see that you have actually made progress in learning guitar. I highly recommend that you maintain a record of all the techniques that you are working on. On this checklist might be such things as, chord progressions and scales. You will then note on a daily basis metronome speeds, etc. At the end of the week, you can review your development.

Here is how you could possibly use this strategy. For example, if you are having difficulty moving quickly from a G7 chord to a D chord, the very first thing to do is set a metronome at the speed where you feel comfortable playing the chords. Then determine your objective. Every day make a note showing your metronome speed. You will then be able to examine your progress. It is very satisfying to observe your metronome speed gradually increasing.