Learning to play the guitar is a lifelong journey. Professional guitar players constantly have to learn and relearn the guitar. For beginners, learning guitar can be as difficult mentally as it is physically.
One of the best parts of learning to play guitar is actualizing your success and seeing how hard work pays off. Unfortunately, many guitar players struggle with slow progress. Whether you’re taking online acoustic guitar lessons or you study with a private teacher, managing expectations is key.
In this quick tip from Acoustic Life’s Tony Polecastro, we will discuss how to manage expectations as you learn to play guitar. Many guitar classes online or guitar lessons for free won’t talk about the proper mindset of a learning musician.
If you are looking for comprehensive and guided online guitar lessons, check out Tony’s Acoustic Challenge. It’s one of the best ways to learn guitar online. If you are ready to start your acoustic journey, request an invite to Tony’s Acoustic Challenge today!
Learn to Play Guitar with the Right Mindset
There are essentially three different mindsets to have when learning to play the guitar: learning, practicing, and rehearsing. Each one of these mindsets creates different expectations when playing the guitar.
Recognizing which stage you are in while approaching a new concept or guitar lesson online will help alleviate any frustration and help you get better at guitar faster.
Learning is the first step to approaching a new exercise, song, concept, or lesson. Learning is all about understanding something and getting a feel for what is going on. Your progress may be slow, but that’s okay because you’ve never done it before. Learning is very hard work; however, it is very fruitful.
When you progress beyond learning, you are now practicing. When you sit down to practice something, you are putting what you just learned through its paces. Practice builds muscle memory. Instead of thinking about what comes next, your body already knows how to transition from one chord to the next or switch the strumming pattern.
After practicing something, it is time to rehearse it. The goal in practicing was to be able to play it smoothly at a moderate tempo. In rehearsing, you are honing in on the musicality of the piece. Try to experiment with dynamics and tempos. In addition, rehearsing should be treated as if you are playing in front of an audience. If you mess up, don’t stop playing. Instead, see if you can recover from the mistake and keep playing the piece.
How Intentions and Expectations Help in Learning Guitar
If you understand the difference between learning, practicing, and rehearsing, you can dominate learning the guitar. By coming into a practice session with the right mindset and the right intention, you can adjust your expectations.
For example, if your intention is to finish a beginning guitar lesson, you can adjust your expectations to understand you may need to go through the lesson multiple times. Alternatively, if you have been practicing a song for a while, it might be time to rehearse it, knowing that a mistake may happen but not stopping
Online Guitar Lessons Like No Other
If you are looking for one of the best ways to learn to play guitar, you NEED to check out Tony’s Acoustic Challenge. With an emphasis on acoustic guitar fundamentals, Tony’s Acoustic Challenge will give you the tools you need to learn to play guitar.
Whether you have been playing the guitar for years or you are just learning to play guitar, Tony’s Acoustic Challenge will give you guided and cohesive online guitar lessons that go beyond tabs and basic chords — but don’t worry, we cover those things, too! We also have a robust, active community of acoustic guitar players numbering in the thousands!
If you’re ready to live your best acoustic life, request an invite today. If you liked this lesson and are looking for more, be sure to check out our free guitar lessons for beginners.
So, I have a guitar here. Now what? I have no knowledge of playing but want to learn to play in a simple fashion to maybe accompany folk tunes like, for instance “Blowin’ in the Wind”, etc. Do you have suggestions for an unlearned person such as myself? I am of the Baby Boomer gen.
You are in the right place…I just joined last month….and have almost NO TIME to visit with all the available material…on the road a lot…Tony’s setup is insanely good…no matter what level…I have been playing off and on since I was 15…I will be 50 this year…and know my way around a guitar quite well….that being said…no one ever knows everything…which is actually kind of a liberating thought…Tony’s site is also social…as in you can meet and play along with lots of folks who seem very non – judgemental…and Becca…? you haven’t lived until your playing along with someone else…lead lines…improv…or straight up rhythm…Acoustic Life is amazing. Go get em’!
I am 67 with very little guitar experience. Have taken lessons before but never seemed to get the hang of it. Now just retired, I am committed to learning to play! I joined Tony’s TAC program and love it. You go at your own pace and it is all laid out for you. He is very motivating, explains things thoroughly, you
can ask questions and he makes it fun. This is the program to get started on. It’s been the best thing for me!
I am 67 and have very little guitar experience. I’ve had lessons before but never got the hang of it. Now that I’m recently retired, I am committed to learning to play! Tony’s TAC program has been the best thing for me. There’s no pressure, you go at your own pace and can ask questions as you go. He explains things thoroughly and gives demonstrations for you and is very motivating with words of encouragement. It’s a really great program.
oops thought it didn’t submit. Sorry for the double 🙂
Very helpful gives the guitar player Direction and purpose and brings what he wants to do and accomplish into focus and allows him to look back and evaluate thanks Tony
Hea Tony, its always good to listen to your insperational and uplifting talks. But i am already enrolled in T.A.C.[2 MONTHS NOW] and my playing has grown. Thanks for your knowledge & support . [GO VASIE & LIGHTNING]
A lightbulb moment for sure! I pick up my guitar everyday, but only occasionally to learn something (except the daily TAC lessons, I do those everyday) but I mean a song, something I can put all those lessons to use in. I hadn’t considered having a specific intention in mind, and 9 times out of 10, I just end up noodling around and I admit, this is usually pretty unfulfilling. I am going to give this a try, I really need to learn some new songs specifically. Duh!!… thanks Tony!
Absolutely!! When I retired 3 years ago, I was a good hobby guitarist, but kept it to myself. I wanted to be recognized, at least locally, not for fame or fortune, but for the satisfaction and self-esteem. I’ve been working at it daily for that time, including a year with TAC, but couldn’t show anyone. Then Tony mentioned the difference between learning, practicing, and rehearsing a few weeks ago. , I was inspired to narrow down on 2-3 songs at a time, and consciously advance them through Tony’s 3 stages. A month ago I knew dozens of songs well enough to enjoy playing them, but none polished enough to perform publicly or post online. Now I’ve got a prioritized list of several dozen of songs, one performance-ready and played through only occasionally to keep sharp, two in rehearsal played every day with focus on remaining rough spots, four more in practice where I have a specific list of what needs to be perfected, , and I’m learning a half-dozen more, ready to advance to practice mode when one of the practice pieces advances to rehearsal. It’s just a mind-set, but it has made all the difference to me. With every note I play, I know why I’m playing it and what I have to do to get that piece to the next stage. It’s exciting to get the pay-off for decades of casual “noodling around”. Thanks, Tony!! 🙂
Tony sir… the scratches on your beautiful Martin guitar. [forward of the plastic scratch guard] are [in a word] ugly. And as always thank you for your knowledge.
I am where I need to learn. I have a bunch of songs and I know several chords, but there always pops up a chord I don’t know. What is best way to learn new chords and how to play them? Strumming is another thing I want to learn.
Thank you~~~~I’ve been trying to learn too many pieces at one time! Papers of tabs all over the place, coffee spills on most of them. Try learning classical guitar with no formal music education other than tab and a good ear. I can’t read that other s..t, it looks like upside down lollipops. Tab, timing, my ear, and your permission to snub academia allows the sin of improvising, which in turn, creates musicians. Your simplification of theory is going to help a great deal. Love to Tony and Noah….from Sher in San Diego.