How Long Does It Take To Get Good At Guitar? The Long Version!

The million dollar question that every beginner starts asking as soon as he puts his hands on his first guitar. Before I go into details, let me give you the short answer: “You'll never stop learning!”.

Satisfied? Thought so. Do not get me wrong on this one, I am not trying to discourage you, on the contrary, learning guitar is one of the most beautiful things that will happen to you in your entire life. No matter how much time you spend on learning, you will never get to the point where you will say to yourself: “I am done, I know it all!”

There is always something new for you to learn, a new type of guitar, a new genre, a new song, a new style… you name it. I know that it sounds cliche but I will not go wrong when I say that the sky is the only limit. If you want to narrow it down and be more specific the right quesion should be:

When Will I Get Good At Guitar?

And if you still I am a cool guy, wait until I answer this one: “It depends.” Seriously? You will have to excuse me for giving you another indefinitive answer. Getting good at something, especially a music instrument, be it a banjo, a piano, drums, or anything else that comes in your mind, takes three very important things. I call them “The Learning Pillars”.

Passion

Withouth passion you will not get very far. Passion drives your will to learn and determines how bad you want to be successful at what you are doing. This is especially important when we talk about learning the guitar and this is why I rate it as the most important factor. Passion is what drives beginners to reach the “Eddie Van Halen” level. Passion is what makes you wake up at 2 am and start practicing, which leads us to the second pillar.

Practice

Yea, no surprise here. Without practice you will net get very far. It takes discipline and it takes time. No matter how much you love your instrument, no matter how much you know about it and how much you read about it, if you are not practicing your chances of getting good are slim to none. Learning the guitar means learning so much things at the same time, it will be like learning how to ride a bicycle. At first you will struggle with all the new coordinated finger movements but with practice your hands and your muscles will start “memorizing” everything that you go through and everything that you do. How do you get to that stage? Practice… regularly.

Discipline

I will not lie to you. No matter how enthusiastic you are feeling right now, at times you will feel like throwing your great beginner instrument through the window. There is an old saying that progress comes in bursts. Even if you feel like you’ve hit a point where you just can’t move on, do not give up, and do not stop. I promise you, one day you will wake up get your guitar and you will feel it, that awesome feeling “I just got a better guitar player”. Yes it happens overnight, but it takes discipline and determination.

Few instruments that will help you enjoy learning guitar quickly:

1. Epiphone EJ 200
2. Cordoba C5
3. Martin LXM
4. Fender American Special Telecaster
5. Schecter Omen 6