Playing The Guitar For A Lifetime
Picking up and playing the guitar for a lifetime is usually a dream of more people of any age than most would care to admit. It’s a fact that just about every teenager (boys, though, for the most part) has had an occasional daydream of superstardom gained by playing in the greatest rock band around. And even though most never graduate past the garage, practicing until the fingers bleed sometimes becomes the norm.
One of the first things to realize when it comes to playing any guitar is that a cheap instrument soon leads to frustration and abandonment of the effort it requires to learn to play a guitar. For this reason, never, ever go for a cheap guitar. Consider a brand name, like an Epiphone electric guitar when starting to pick up the instrument. It’s not the most expensive guitar, but it’s really good quality.
In fact, quality is the single most important aspect of any musical instrument, and especially a guitar. Trying to play music on a cheap guitar with a bad neck, for example, leads you nowhere. Learning on a good instrument, though, will make you much better with the proper amount of practice. Bad guitars can turn any practice session into something resembling torture for the fingers, as a matter of fact.
All of the above also applies to southpaws who look at traditional right-handed guitars and immediately give up on playing. Nowadays, though, just about every quality guitar manufacturer makes electric guitars and a quality left handed acoustic electric guitar or two for those who come to the game like Jimi Hendrix did. He’s probably the most famous southpaw player in rock history.
Also, guitar playing might be a little painful at first until calluses develop on the fingertips of the left or right hand (depending on whether a person is a right-hander or left-hander). It’s important that one gradually build up the muscles in the hand that will rest on the neck and the frets of the guitar as well as developing those calluses.
If done correctly, one will soon be able to pick up something like an Ibanez acoustic electric guitar (they make a number of fine models, it must be said) and become the next great rock and roller or electric folk rock guitar player on the scene. All it takes is some effort and a willingness to ’suffer’ for one’s craft.
Playing the guitar for a lifetime is made a lot easier when one has a good guitar of nice quality and love of music. Also, one is going to need to be willing to practice and keep on practicing until one gets good enough to play smartly and with style and verve, kind of like how Jimi Hendrix used to do it when he turned rock guitar playing upside down, literally.
Tags: Guitar, playing the guitar
