How to start learning guitar as an adult: first chords and a practice routine

TUREFF• •0

Adults learn guitar all the time, and you have advantages over a child: you know what music you love, you can follow a plan, and you can practise deliberately. The hard part is the first couple of months, when your fingers hurt and nothing sounds like music yet. Here is how to get through it.

Acoustic or electric?

Acoustic guitars need nothing else to play, and are great for strumming and singing. The strings are usually heavier, so they are harder on your fingertips at first.
Electric guitars have lighter strings and thinner necks, which makes chords easier to press. You need an amplifier or headphone amp.

Choose the one that plays the music you want to play. Motivation matters more than which is easier. Whatever you buy, ask the shop to check the action (the height of the strings above the neck). A poorly set-up guitar makes everything harder and is a common reason beginners give up.

Tuning every time you play

Standard tuning, from the thickest string to the thinnest, is E A D G B E. Use a clip-on tuner or a tuning app, and tune at the start of every session. Practising on an out-of-tune guitar trains your ear wrongly and makes even correct chords sound bad.

Your first chords

Start with open chords, which use some unfretted strings:

E minor and A minor: both use just two or three fingers and sound good straight away.
D, G and C: the core of thousands of songs.
E and A major.

Tips for clean chords:

Press just behind the metal fret, not on top of it or in the middle of the space.
Use your fingertips and arch your fingers so they do not mute neighbouring strings.
Play each string of the chord one at a time to find out which one is buzzing.

Changing chords

Getting chords to ring is one skill; switching between them is another. Practise pairs, such as G to C or E minor to D, for one minute at a time and count how many clean changes you manage. Look for "anchor" fingers that stay on the same string between chords. Speed comes from repetition, not effort.

Strumming

Hold the pick loosely between thumb and the side of your index finger.
Strum from the wrist, not the whole arm.
Keep your hand moving down and up constantly in time, and simply miss the strings on beats you do not play. This keeps your rhythm steady.
A common first pattern is down, down-up, up-down-up. Practise it on muted strings first.
Use a metronome at a slow tempo.

Sore fingertips

Fingertip pain is normal for the first few weeks until calluses form. Short, frequent sessions are better than one long one. Stop if you feel sharp pain, or pain in your wrist or hand rather than your fingertips, and check your posture and thumb position.

A practice routine

Twenty minutes a day beats two hours on Sunday. A simple session:

Two minutes: tune up.
Five minutes: chord changes for the pair you find hardest.
Five minutes: strumming with a metronome.
Eight minutes: play a song, slowly, all the way through.

Keep the guitar on a stand where you can see it, not in its case. You will pick it up far more often.

Learning songs

Choose easy songs with three or four chords that you actually like. Slow them down with a practice app or video player, and play along with the recording as early as you can, even if you only manage one strum per bar. Learning songs keeps you motivated in a way exercises alone never will.

When to get lessons

Online courses and videos can take you a long way. A teacher, even for a handful of lessons, is worth it if you are stuck on a plateau, have pain when playing, or want feedback on technique before bad habits set in. Many people combine a few lessons with self-study. What was the first song you learned, or what are you stuck on? Ask your questions or share your progress in the comments.