Learning Guitar as an Adult: Tips and Tricks for Success

At one time or another, almost everyone has found themselves caught in the moment of listening to a great song and overcome by the urge to rip into an air guitar solo. And while mostly everyone can play air guitar, learning to play a real acoustic or electric guitar is something that takes practice and dedication. If you want to learn to play guitar, you might not know where to start.

What is the best way to learn guitar? Can I learn guitar at home or do I need an instructor? Should I learn to play chords or scales first? Your mind may be brimming with questions and it can feel intimidating. You might also wonder if you’ll be good at guitar. In some instances, new players don’t always give themselves enough time to learn the basics and unfairly put a lot of pressure on themselves to “get good” right out of the gate. Relax! Learning to play guitar should be a fun experience that’s more about the journey than the destination. Even the best guitar players find new ways to express themselves and experiment with new techniques. As a beginner, one of the best ways to learn guitar is to start slowly and learn the style you love to play. Even new musicians can learn to play easy songs on guitar, helping you put any new skills or chords that you learn into practice. This can help keep you motivated.

This article provides tips and information to help you build a successful practice and learn to play guitar as an adult.

Setting the Stage for Success

Anything worth doing is worth doing well -- and often, that means it takes time, patience, and practice in order to hone a particular skill. Learning to play guitar is no different. While you may wonder what is the easiest way to learn guitar, the truth is, there are no shortcuts or substitutions for developing a regular practice schedule.

One of the first steps on your path to playing guitar is to set up an environment that makes you want to practice. If you’re learning guitar at home, setting up a comfortable practice space is key to wanting to sit down and play more often. Here are a few things to keep in mind when setting up your practice space:

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Keep your guitar prominently displayed. You know the saying: “out of sight, out of mind.” Keeping your guitar in plain sight is a visual cue to prompt you to play more often.
Maintain an optimal temperature. Playing in a well-ventilated room that is at a comfortable temperature can go a long way toward creating a comfortable environment to practice guitar. You might not be as inclined to sit down for a practice session if the room feels like a hot box or if you’re too cold. Additionally, maintaining a comfortable, consistent temperature in your practice room can also help keep your guitar in tune as temperature fluctuations can impact its performance.
The right lighting. Choose a room with either plenty of natural light or be sure that your room is well-lit. Being able to see your fretboard clearly is essential for beginners learning the correct positioning to play a note.
A comfortable chair or practice stool. The right place to sit while practicing is important, too! Be sure you have a chair or stool that encourages good posture. A chair without arms is ideal since they can sometimes get in the way of your own arms when strumming or navigating the fretboard.
Privacy and/or quiet. If possible, set up a space where you won’t be interrupted during a practice session. Using accessories such as headphones while playing can also insure that you’re not a disruption to others (such as neighbors or roommates), too.
Inspirational decor. Making your learning environment comfortable and inviting. Whether you choose to decorate it with colorful plants or paintings, or posters of some of your favorite artists, creating the right atmosphere can go a long way toward prompting you to practice regularly.

The Right Tools for the Job

Whether you’re learning to play an acoustic or electric guitar, or decide that you want to learn how to play bass, finding the right instrument is essential. Shopping for your first guitar is an exciting experience for new players. And while you might be tempted to pick a guitar based on looks, it’s important to weigh a number of factors when choosing the right guitar for you.

First and foremost, find a guitar you actually want to learn how to play. In some cases, you may be interested in playing an acoustic guitar, or if you’re more interested in playing difficult riffs, you may want to learn chords with an electric guitar. It’s important to find a guitar that will be easy for you to utilize and stay well in tune with. It may not be cheap to invest in one, but it will be worth it so that you can have your own instrument to learn off of that you will become well-adjusted to.

As an aside, once you purchase a guitar, a second investment that you can make is to buy a guitar tuner. This can help you to be sure while practicing and before your lessons that your guitar is in tune and ready to play.

Building a Solid Foundation

The first steps are always the most difficult. But you have to learn to crawl before you can walk -- building up strength and confidence before you can get going. Whether you’re learning to play guitar at home and using a curriculum, or if you decide to take weekly guitar lessons with a teacher in-person, learning the basics and practicing them can help you work your way up to more advanced techniques.

It may not be as exciting as playing your first solo or strumming the chords to your favorite song, but little things like learning the names of your strings and the different parts of your guitar can help you build greater familiarity with your instrument. Here are just a few guitar basics and why you should learn them:

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How to Set Up a Guitar - Keeping your guitar in good working condition is essential to better playing and developing your ear. Learn how to use a guitar tuner and be sure your strings are properly tuned. Learn how to replace a string in case one breaks during a practice session. Understand the different parts of your instrument and how those little things impact the sound of your guitar.
How to Remember Guitar String Order and Names - Learning the names of strings and the order in which they appear on your guitar can help you to identify tones and notes, as well as transfer that knowledge to more advanced practices, such as reading tablature. Get tips and tricks for remembering guitar string order and their names.
How to Hold A Guitar Pick - Holding a pick correctly can help you to create a much more pleasing sound. Understanding more about the different sounds achieved with picks of varying thickness (or thinness) can also help you to hear how the right pick can impact the tone of your guitar.
How to Play Notes On Your Guitar - One of the earliest things you’ll learn as a beginner guitarist is learning where to place your fingers on the fretboard to be sure that note clearly rings out. Hearing notes clearly is key to identifying notes and learning how to play guitar.
How to Strum like a Pro - Little things like keeping your wrist loose while strumming can not only help you to achieve a more fluid style of playing, but it can also help to decrease pain or tightness after a practice session. Get more tips for strumming like a pro!
Guitar Chords 101 - Learning to play guitar chords are one of the fundamental building blocks of a guitar education. Even if you’re not able to play a guitar solo (yet!), beginner guitarists can easily learn a few simple chords and strum along to their favorite songs as a rhythm player.

The Adult Learner's Advantage

Most people believe when they reach adulthood it can be too difficult to take on learning a new instrument, and that you should start those types of music lessons as a child. But the truth is, you are never too old to teach yourself a new skill, and the guitar is no exception. In fact, the guitar is one of the best beginner instruments to start with at any age - the only exception to this possibly being the piano as a first choice. Learning the guitar as an adult can even have some advantages, as adults are more disciplined and have more of a willingness to learn and apply their education.

Adults will seldom make as many mistakes in a typical workday as they make in one music lesson, and adults really don’t like to feel like they are failing. We can blame our performing professional colleagues for this! The classical guitar fights back much harder than most orchestral instruments-with two hands to make one note, with polyphony, with the problem of not even knowing which finger frets the bottom note of a chord until everything is decoded, with the need to position eight fingers to an accuracy of a few millimeters, the chance of making a mistake is high.

Unlike children, adults will have strong preferences on the music that they like, and although it’s the duty of a teacher to help them explore new genres, their favorite styles can be a potent way to unlock the barriers to progress.

The Importance of Consistent Practice

One of the most important things beginner guitar players should know is that they should be patient with themselves. Even the best guitarists don’t become great overnight. It’s important to devote time each week -- even if it’s a few minutes every day -- to sit down and practice chords, scales, and techniques involved with playing guitar. Developing good habits is harder than breaking bad ones.

It can’t be said enough how important regular practice is to improving as a guitarist. Here are a few tips to help you make the most out of your practice sessions:

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Carve out regular time to practice. Setting aside as little as 15 minutes to practice each day can help you to steadily increase your proficiency as a guitarist. Bite-sized video lessons are an ideal way to help structure your practice sessions, guiding you along a specific path and building upon learned skills.
Warm up first. Warming up your fingers and practicing a few scales or finger exercises can help you prepare for a practice session. It can also help you be sure your guitar is in tune.
Record yourself. Sometimes, it can be difficult to hear yourself getting better without having a starting point to compare yourself to. When learning to play guitar, it’s best not to measure your progress against anyone but yourself. Every player learns at a different pace. However, if you record your practice sessions, you can compare your progress from one month ago to where you are now and notice a marked improvement. Recording your practice sessions and reviewing them -- like an instant replay in a sporting event -- can help you not only see what you might be doing wrong, but also hear what you are doing right.
Try new things. Don’t just stick to playing the same scales or chords over and over again. Branch out with learning new scales or try different variations of a chord and see which ones feel or sound best to you. Then, try applying these newfound skills by practicing new songs. Before you know it, you’ll be adding more songs and skills to your own repertoire.
Try playing with others or with a metronome. While you might not feel confident enough (just yet) to play with other musicians, practicing with a metronome or to backing tracks can help you get more comfortable with playing along with a band. There is a practice mode that allows you to hone your skills by playing with a metronome and staying on-beat, or with backing tracks to simulate jamming with others.

Realistic Expectations and Patience

One of the hardest hurdles for adult beginners is to be patient with yourself. You will be developing new muscles, learning new skills, and working to find extra practice time to help move along in your guitar playing. It takes time to adjust to the learning process. It is important to exercise patience and try to be understanding that to become a good guitarist, it will likely take many years of learning techniques, trying chords, and enrolling in lessons.

Practice makes perfect… But patience is the key to it all. Every player will have good days or not-so-good days. When you first pick up the guitar, there’s a good chance that you will hit a few sour notes or those chords might not ring out as clearly as you’d like. That’s okay! Rome and Jimi Hendrix weren’t built in a day! Even professional musicians have performances where they didn’t feel they did their best. When you’re first learning to play guitar, don’t let your frustrations overshadow your progress. Take each mistake in stride. Learn from them and keep practicing. Above all, be patient with yourself. When you hear yourself getting better -- Fewer missed notes! Easier transitions between chords! Building up speed and accuracy with your fretting hand! -- you’ll be glad you were kind to yourself and kept going.

The Social Side of Music

Adults are (largely) sociable beings who like company, and guitar can seem like an insular hobby. Except that guitar ensembles are a great way to enjoy mutual encouragement, a big sound, lots of laughter, and a chance to realize that ultimately, playing guitar is about what you hear, not about what you read and do.

If you are a classical guitarist, look for a community guitar ensemble in your area. My hometown has an ensemble (the VCU Community Guitar Ensemble) of around thirty adult classical guitarists that rehearse and perform concerts together in the spring, summer, and winter holidays. Many beginning adult guitarists join the ensemble with minimal sight-reading and rhythmic skills, and improve immensely after just a couple seasons. They also have a lot of fun, sound great, and are some of the warmest, friendliest people I have ever met. If you are learning flamenco guitar and are lucky enough to have flamenco dance in your area, try accompanying some classes. If you are a folk or fingerstyle guitarist, find other instrumentalists and start playing together. Playing with other instruments helps your rhythm, musicality, and communication. Above all, playing in a group is really, really fun. Finding a fun social outlet for your musical passions is the surest guarantee that you continue playing, learning, and enjoying music all your life.

The Journey, Not the Destination

Guitar isn’t a race to a destination, it’s a journey, and the scenery is all along the journey, not just at the destination! A good teacher will be able to change the lesson on-the-fly to take account of a student’s achievement, and the student/teacher relationship is always a rich and varied one when teaching adults.

Learning to play notes, scales and chords are certainly fundamentals of your musical education. But the best way to learn guitar is to put those techniques into practice while learning a new song. Strumming a chord progression or practicing a hammer-on pull-off can feel much more real when you’re playing it in one of your favorite songs. This makes the experience much more fun instead of practicing the same things over and over without context. Not sure where to get started or what songs are suitable for beginners to learn? Check out some of Fender’s picks for 40 of the easiest songs to learn on guitar. There are tons of songs to choose from and one of them is bound to be a song that can challenge you and inspire you to keep going.

Overcoming Challenges

Learning the guitar as an adult can be a challenge. The good news is, you’re not alone. It’s true that many young people start learning music at an early age, which means they have a headstart over their older counterparts. However, there are still plenty of adults who pick up the instrument later on in life and become successful musicians with it. So if you’re thinking about learning guitar as an adult-don’t give up!

Pay attention to your attitude and mental chatter, what you're telling yourself. If you keep thinking "Maybe I'm too old for this and I don't know if I can learn guitar", then you're right. But if you tell yourself "I can do this!", then you're right. It's easy to get discouraged and feel inadequate, especially if you're comparing yourself to younger players. But here's the deal: you have to let it go. Let yourself be a beginner. Check your pride at the door. It's hard to be an adult and feel like a beginner in anything. I totally get it. But you have to get past that. It'll feel awkward and even a little silly at times but it's all part of learning to play guitar. You need to stay positive and celebrate what you're learning. Playing guitar is supposed to be fun after all.

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