Sometimes it’s easy to feel sad about learning the guitar. Especially when everyone around you doesn’t believe in you.
I’ve had many of my family members say, oh we don’t have the music gene in our family. Well you’ve inherited short fingers. Oh what about your career? When are you going to find time to practise? You’ve never stuck to anything in your life. Oh you gave up the guitar when you were a teenager, what’s going to be different now?
I thought all of those things until I found a guitar school that believed in me. At Guitar Tuition East London, they actually did want me to get better at playing the guitar. It was so inspirational seeing them help all the other students to achieve what they want.
Recently I even attended their charity concert and it was so great seeing all the other students there performing:
Most often what I see is that children may think of themselves as musicians they just think they’re going through a process of learning. And learning this way often does not drive creativity and music repetition and copycat learning. I’m coming out of it the other side of your child would’ve paid affected 3 to 5 pieces a year of music and feel like that’s all that they’ve accomplished.
I philosophy and I prefer in learning the guitar or any other music Instrument. Is one that motivates your child to put in lots of effort, Try new things, become creative, boost confidence, and feel like a musician.
What’s the magic equation?
For children to feel creative with their instrument, it’s important that they are allowed to explore the instrument. Instead of giving them pieces to copy and perfect. Need to have the power to be more in control of what they learn, to be grateful for what they learn, and be able to experiment with it.
Music is also a language so allowing them to be able to play with other children, maybe even experiment to announcements, so they can understand how music works. It’s very important for a child.
How can you help them get ready?
Keep your child curious, hope them to want to try new things. And then compare them to other children, and you criticise them. To be supportive parent is full of pitfalls. Only or trying to best we can. Nothing times we think its best for them, Can actually be detrimental to them in the long run.
For example not criticising your child. Often parents think they providing constructive criticism. But if you don’t play in instrument yourself, the child can often question your judgement. What they look up on the T should be the one up revised guidance. It’s better to pricing for the effort that they are putting in Ross and criticising there output. And do observational Praising Do you help your child gain more confidence.
If the place where your child has lessons has other extracurricular activities such as workshops find opportunities performance opportunities et cetera hope you’re trying to get involved in as many of these things as possible.
Keep your child company, learning a new instrument can be a scary thing for some children and especially trying to practice on there in a home. The children do not have to self control and self discipline faculty developed yet, so you keeping them company while they practice it’s very important for a child to develop the Sun Association and also to gain your approval to help them get going.
Learning a musical instrument is an endeavour that last many years. There is a big commitment for parents to send their kids to music lessons. I hear so many parents to say my child has been asking me for lessons for three weeks and I finally gave in!
This is because parents know how many things that children sign up for and then give up very shortly because of the change of heart. So how can you make sure that your child is prepared and you can support them in the right ways so that they can enjoyed learning guitar in the long term.
Set up the right expectations
Children want to enjoy doing what they do and a lot of parents have different expectations to the child and to the guitar teacher.
It’s important for you to have the right expectation of what to expect when your child is learning a musical instrument. Especially if you don’t play one yourself. And also for your child to have for expectations.
We hear a lot of parents have never played an instrument before having a lot of opinion of what they think their child should be doing when they’re learning to play the guitar.
Different Schools, different philosophies
When actually different guitar schools have different philosophies and how best to help your child learn to play a musical instrument. So I’ll just share some of us.
Some schools are very orientated towards your child completing grades. This is very common. This is how a lot of students have learnt for the past 50 years and is great I’ve been invented, often parents like it because it’s a mark of how well their child is progressing. And you can compare yourself to other people’s children.
Often teachers to teach with this philosophy have a very classic approach to their teaching as well. 15 minutes of scales 15 minutes of one piece 15 minutes of another piece during the lesson. Modest does work as in learning mechanism for children. Children find it rather tedious and not very fun.
Which approach is going to right for you and your child?
Help them get the right support network around them.
A lot of parents have their kids learn guitar, at school, they get these 15 minute lessons once a week, and then the parents wonder why their child lose interest or don’t progress at all. After a few initial months. Having the right support network, including the right guitar teacher understands how to help your child to progress.
Have them learn different musical instruments
Exposure to other children learning guitar or other instruments that they can play with an opportunity to do different things like play in a band or play in front of others, and do performances are vital for a child to get more interested and more motivated and excited about playing the guitar I help them get even more exposure to music.
How to inspire your child
Inspiration is something that all adults talk about when they talk about the hobby that they might want to do. Now you can give your child the opportunity, because they don’t know how to give it to themselves for example you can take them to concerts on music that you’re into there and to show them new types of music.
Find them people that they can relate to. for example, if you have a child is. If you have a daughter. They might be interested in seeing female guitarist play. If you have a child who is ginger, maybe he really relates to children. Whatever it is, try to find little interests and relatability, an artist that they might want to see, and get exposure to that helps inspire them to learn to play the guitar in the long term.
Getting them to right instrument
Get them the right instrument to learn on, parents will just get their child a cheap guitar. Send them to lessons, and expect their child to do the rest. Really. Children need a lot of support from their parents so cheap things of that includes the right environment. Besides you helping them and motivating them to practice. Maybe you’re sitting down with them every session. It would be great if you can do that. Just to be there for moral support. Another part of it is helping them by giving them the right environment that could be the right chair or music stand. Having a stand for the guitar to sit on.
Helping them to stay focus
Make sure they’re comfortable with no distractions, so that they can learn the guitar, more efficiently. And they can really concentrate on a guitar play, rather than get distracted by it. tips help you to help your child learn to play the guitar. If you’re paying for lessons. It’s not an easy endeavour. And it’s a big commitment, say that your child’s going to be in essence for the next 10 years. Do you want them to get the most out of it, don’t want them to last six months and give up. You want to set a good example. So help them by doing these few things. So that your child will enjoy playing the guitar more in the future.
Now it’s worth finding out how we can fix your aches and pains too.
3.) Other lifestyle elements
Are there is other things in your life that’s contribution to your aches and pains. Sometimes it might not be the guitar playing it could be something else and it’s aggravated by your guitar playing. This is very common nowadays because a lot of people work in the office hunched over a laptop. And that’s a very similar posture they then adapt with that guitar playing which increases the amount of aches and pains that they are already suffering with. It causes your chest muscles at the front of your body to tighten and your muscles behind your shoulder blades extend which is very difficult to fix.
With the right exercises on with the right guidance is possible to fix it but it might mean you have to make some changes to other parts of your lifestyle too.
It could be start working for my desk it could be that do you need to do more running and more weight training. Or it could be taking up yoga there are lots of things that might be able to help you with these aches and pains.
4.) How to fix it
This is a bit more of a complicated question. It really depends on what’s causing your aches and pains, when you are suffering from it, how long you’ve been suffering with it for, and How severe these issues are. There are many times when it can be a medical problem and you need to go see a physio to help you overcome these challenges.
You might be surprised to hear that many guitar teachers actually don’t know how to fix these type of issues. It might be because that they’ve never suffered from them themselves or maybe they’ve got these specific problems that they’ve suffered from. And so therefore can help you.
But most aren’t sure what to do. A lot of these aches and pains stem from tension in your body and you might not be out able to identify that tension for you it’s something that you have to discover yourself. This is an area that we’ve got a lot of expertise and we even have personal trainers and physio that can help you get rid of you.
If you’re interested to know more then please contact us, and we can help you with the next steps. …
It’s pretty common for guitarists to suffer from aches and pains, starting in the beginning or whether they are experienced or advance guitar players.
Here are a few ideas on how you can overcome it and start to enjoy your guitar playing again. Rather than dreading your next practice session.
1.) Identify the pain
That’s my sound like a silly point but it’s important to know where it hurts on your body when you’re playing the guitar is it your shoulder is at your neck sometimes you think you’re eating in one place but actually the problem stems from somewhere else for example sometimes our wrist hurts but Ashley is coming up from our back affecting our shoulders and it’s causing a risk to her because it’s a different position. So that’s why it’s important to identify where it hurts but where the source of pain could be coming from.
Work out where you’ve got tension when you’re playing, I could be in your shoulders which is very common with people slightly raised her shoulders up when they play the guitar. I could be your back a lot of people hunched over when they play the guitar as well what over arched her neck. Especially when you’re looking down at the fretboard. This is very common with begin a guitarist as they arch they’re back over to look at the Fretboard as they can’t see where they should be placing their fingers. And this causes a lot of back and neck ache.
2.) When does it happen
Besides finding out where it hurts it’s important that we know when does it happen is it when you’re practising guitar is it when you doing scales is it when you doing at particular song when you’ve got extra tension because you feel pressure. Is it when you are playing when you’re standing is it when you’re sitting is it when you’re on a particular chair. Sometimes bad chair that doesn’t help your posture can be the cause of backache.
It could also be what you’re playing on the guitar. So very commonly we see people suffering from shoulder ache when they play barcodes. And that’s because of the amount of attention that they put on the rest when they play it rather than building strength in the correct way.
Go onto Part 2 of this article to find out how you get fix your aches and pain to enjoy your guitar playing again. …
It’s very common for anyone learning the guitar to get stuck. You could have just started a week ago or ten years ago… it can still get frustrating at times.
There are a few ways we can really get motivated about the guitar again at any stage of your guitar playing. So let’s have a look at them!
1.) Listen to musicians and guitarist who inspire you
Try to listen as much as you can to artists who inspire you. They might be artists that motivated you to learn the guitar in the first place, or they could be new artists that interest you too. I’ve found that Apple Music really “understands” me now. And I just tell Siri to play me music and it plays me new music that I haven’t heard before but enjoy. And I’m sure the equivalent exists on Spotify.
You could ask your guitar teacher for new artists to listen to as well.
If you are a little more experienced, you could improvise along to those tracks. Do it casually, listen, work out the key, and play a few notes along. Or try to figure out the chords. Have fun with it! And don’t take it too seriously.
Find other people to play with
Having other people to play music with can motivate and reinvigorate your interest in music and guitar. They might give you new ideas including on to do on the guitar. New things to try and practise on the guitar. New scales, new chords, new riffs etc. New songs, new genres etc. So many inspirations come from playing with others.
And the most important thing is that it’s fun! It might seem daunting in the beginning, especially if you are at the beginning and not sure how to play with others. But it’s something that only will be easier if you try it.
And the most important thing is that it’s fun! It might seem daunting in the beginning, especially if you are at the beginning and not sure how to play with others. But it’s something that only will be easier if you try it.
Even if you are experienced, you can feel more relaxed and be able to experiment and try new things around other people who are less experienced. And feel less pressure. Or you could help them out and they can help you to feel good about your playing too.
Find a guitar teacher
Having a guitar teacher can help you find holes in your guitar playing. This can be a motivating thing! If you are more intermediate. So many people get stuck around barre chords, something that a guitar teacher should be able to solve easily. And they give up straight away when they get to that stage. So finding a guitar teacher would mean you can have a hobby for life, than something you did for a few months and stopped forever.
I hope these few tips help you get pass whatever you are stuck with! There are so many more ways to get motivated about guitar playing. Follow this blog to check out more tips coming out soon that will help you with your guitar playing. …
If you’re learning guitar, guitar chords are the first thing you study. This is because it’s the basis of every piece of music. Every song you hear, no matter the genre, has some rhythmic pattern that you can follow. And that makes chords the basic part of learning guitar.
When you begin learning, you’ll find so many chords. However, as a beginner, you need to learn the most basic chords. Get to understand the chords that are played in many songs.
The chords are divided into two broad categories. There are major and minor chords. Most songs have a combination of major and minor songs. You need to learn both as a beginner.
This article shares the major chords you need to learn as you begin training your guitar.
C Major
This is the first chord that most people begin with. It’s one of the easiest chords to hold and play. Note C is the root note for this chord. To play C major chord, hold string B on the first fret, D on the second fret, and A on the third fret. This gives you a combination of C notes with makes the C-Chord.
G Major
This is the second easiest chord to play. The goal is to hold a combination of G notes. To achieve this, hold the low E string (first from the top) on the third fret, then A on the second fret, and high E (first from the bottom) on the third fret.
This will give you the G major chord.
D Major
The same concept applies when playing D major chord. Note D is the root note. And to play the chord, you hold the high E on the second fret, B on the third fret, and G on the second fret. This gives you a combination of D notes that
F Major
F major is another common chord that you shouldn’t miss to know. To play F major chord, hold B on the second Fret, G on the second fret, and D on the third fret. This gives a combination of F notes. It’s by far the easiest chord to hold and play.
A Major
Here is another simple chord to master how it looks. Everything is on the same fret. The only challenge is properly holding the three strings on the same fret and without messing with the other strings. To play A major chord, hold the string BGD on the second fret.
E Major
Lastly, E major chord is another commonly used Chord. It uses the same pattern F major chord uses but on different strings. To play E major chord, hold string G on the first fret, D on the second fret, and A on the second fret. This gives you a combination of E notes.
Parting shot
Once you learn how to play all these major chords, then it will be easy for you to play any song. This is because these are the most common chords in almost all songs.
