Learning Guitar

[Ryan]

So I've been learning acoustic guitar for the past month. I go for a lesson from a friend once a week and practice at least 30 minutes per day. My calluses are forming, but not quite there yet.

Any advice from thosef that know how to play?

[rw]

I've been playing regularly for 16 years now and I'll tell you the best way to play guitar is simply to just play and enjoy it. I've always kind of had an anti-lessons outside of the basics kind of mentality since I'm self-taught (me & my faja were born with pitched ear) so I always really hated the by the book types that sit there and tell you how to play something. Playing music should be more about feeling than reading and replication.

All I can say is keep at it. I started playing on my Dad's old Rickenbacker which had a neck badly out of adjustment so it was hell pushing down anything south of the 10th fret. The upside of this was calluses were there within a couple days and I developed a hard grasp on the neck. The downside was it made chords a real hard thing to conquer and it HURT LIKE HELL to play haha.

But the key to starting off is getting your fingers to move where you need them to accurately and creating an automatic response to the sounds and the shaping. I'd just practice scales and simple songs like Jingle Bells until you get your fingers to move the way you want them to and then move onto chords.