Learn

Practice.

What to do with the time. A plan beats enthusiasm, because enthusiasm is not there on day nine.

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The first month

Twenty minutes a day, six days a week. One rest day is part of the plan, not a failure of it.

• 015 min — Open chords — Em, Am, C, G, D, A, E. One chord at a time. Stop when the notes ring clean
• 025 min — Changes — move between two chords cleanly. Count the changes in a minute and beat the number next week
• 035 min — Strumming — downstrokes on the beat, then add upstrums off the beat
• 045 min — One song — badly. Nothing motivates like playing an actual song badly

Months two and three

Add the F barre and start moving barred shapes up the neck — one shape gives you twelve keys. Introduce a metronome at a speed you can play perfectly, then raise it by two beats per minute and no more. If you cannot play it clean at the slower speed, the faster speed is not practice, it is rehearsal of an error.

The first year

• 01Learn the notes on the low E and A strings — it tells you where the barre goes without counting
• 02One scale, one position — the minor pentatonic, learned in one place and used everywhere
• 03Play with someone — the fastest improvement available to you at any stage
• 04Get the instrument set up — if the action is high you are practising against the guitar, not with it

Record yourself monthly

You will not hear your own improvement week to week. A phone recording from a month ago will make it obvious. This is the cheapest motivation there is, and the only honest measure.

Technique · Chords · Just starting out