What do skydiving, driving a Ferrari, or flying a plane for the first time have in common with learning the guitar? Well, just like skydiving, or driving a Ferrari, or flying a plane, playing a recognizable song or riff on the guitar for the first time is just the same in that you only truly know what it's like once you've done it. Before it happens to you, you can think you know what it's like, but you don't truly know.
And to all of you that are beginners and just starting out on the guitar, let me tell you from experience, this moment of playing something recognizable on the guitar for the first time is extremely exciting. It's exhilarating. It's a blast. It's fun as heck. It's everything you think it will be like, but more.
I call this your "AHA MOMENT" on the guitar. My "aha moment" on the guitar was playing "Something In The Way" by Nirvana, which I'll explain in a bit.
It is absolutely crucial that you experience your own "aha moment" very shortly after picking up the guitar. Here's why:
Most people that start learning the guitar ultimately quit. And a big reason for this is because they haven't learned how to play something recognizable soon after trying to learn it.
They never reach their "aha moment".
They assume the guitar is just too difficult for them to learn... or that they aren't “musically inclined” enough... or that the guitar is much too complicated of an instrument.
Then they give up the guitar altogether. They are frustrated and discouraged. The thing is, none of these assumptions are true.
It's actually not that difficult to reach your "aha moment". You just need to be taught the guitar the right way from the start.
When you reach your "aha moment", your mindset towards the guitar changes for the better.
Your “aha moment” is confirmation that you are capable of playing something on the guitar. This is confirmation that you are well on your way to figuring it out.
You are now over the hump and it's time to coast. Make sense? No more sweating your ass off trying to climb up a steep mountain.
So, for you to learn the guitar as quickly as possible, it is crucial that you get to the point of playing something recognizable as soon as possible and finding your “AHA MOMENT.” This is because, like I said above, you will become addicted to the guitar and want to keep learning more.
It will become fun for you. Why is having fun so important?
Because if you're not having any fun doing something, what's the motive to keep going? If you are not having fun, you are much more likely to give up.
I want you to now look at the picture below.
As you can see, the picture above is a cartoon of two men digging for diamonds. The guy on the top has just started digging, and has more of a positive outlook on what he's doing. He's motivated to find those diamonds.
The guy on the bottom, however, does not look so positive. He looks discouraged because he hasn't found any diamonds after digging for a long time. He looks despressed. And, not surprisingly, he ultimately gives up.
And, this is the story of far too many beginners on the guitar. They start learning the guitar with a positive outlook, but ultimately give up.
If this is you, you're not alone. I should know... I was one of you.
But, here's the good news: look at how close the bottom digger was too the diamonds!
If he had given just a couple more swings of his pick axe, he would have reached his goal of finding diamonds.
And to me, this is such a great analogy for aspiring guitarists, because most people that quit the guitar are that close to their "aha moment" on the guitar.
All you need is a guide to get you there. Someone to show you how to do a couple more swings of the pick axe.
I know this because I found my guide a few years after I quit guitar the first time. Little did I know I was that close to hitting diamonds the first time!
My “aha moment” on the guitar was when I learned how to play a song called “Something In The Way” by Nirvana, from their huge 1991 album called Nevermind.
I will tell you why and how I stumbled onto this song and my “aha moment” in a bit. But first, let me tell you how this almost never happened...
I shudder to think that my “aha moment” almost never came. All my joy of playing the guitar over the years, entertaining friends, impressing girls, jamming with buddies, writing songs and recording music... almost never happened.
I had almost given up the guitar altogether. Why?
Well, my attempt to learn the guitar just turned into frustration as I wasn't getting anywhere.
You see, like most people that want to learn the guitar, I went to a guitar teacher for lessons every week.
Because I had never played guitar before, I just assumed that going to a guitar instructor was my best option of learning the guitar as easily and quickly as possible.
It was a few years later when I actually realized this wasn't the case. After starting my lessons, I became discouraged and thought maybe the guitar would not be as great as I had envisioned.
My lessons were boring.
I wasn't learning the songs that I wanted to... and my instructor was trying to teach me complicated things that I really had no interest in learning.
I just wanted to play rock.
That's it.
That couldn't be that hard could it?
My lessons started to remind me of band practice in the 8th grade.
I thought the guitar was supposed to be cooler than this.
My crucial “aha moment”, which I found later on - which isn't that even hard to get to - never happened.
Needless to say, I did what many people that want to learn the guitar do – I quit my lessons and gave up on the guitar. There was no point in spending all that money only to become frustrated every time I picked up the guitar.
"The guitar was supposed to be fun," I thought to myself.
"All I'm doing is throwing money down the drain on these boring guitar lessons."
To top it all off, I have small hands, so I just assumed I wouldn't be able to play the guitar anyways. I remembered how my guitar teacher would talk about how Jimi Hendrix, one of the greatest guitarists that every lived, had huge hands which enabled him to play his amazing and unique style of guitar.
Fast forward three years later... I was in tenth grade and had moved to a new school in a new city. Because I'm not that outgoing, I had trouble making new friends and became mildly depressed.
All this meant was a lot of time spent alone at home after school.
Alone on weekends.
And then alone during the summer.
While this sucked at the time, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise because I had a bunch of time on my hands.
While I was browsing through my closet one day, I noticed my guitar (a Mexican made black Fender Stratocaster) sitting there, covered in dust.
Since I had all this free time, I thought to myself: “I'm going to pick it up and give it one more shot. If I still can't get it, well that's a sure sign from God that I truly suck and was not put on this earth to play the guitar.”
After all, I had never stopped loving the guitar as an instrument.
I just hated learning it up until this point, as anyone would that is trying to learn something new but not getting anywhere.
So, determined once and for all to learn the guitar, I picked up my slightly out of tune guitar.
As I sat at my computer, guitar on my lap, I started scouring the internet for another way to learn the guitar.
An easier way.
A faster way.
A way that is catered to an impatient person like me.
Surely I could find something.
If I was going to be home all the time, I might as well try to figure this damn thing out.
After a few minutes of browsing, I ended up stumbling onto a website that taught me these simple, little 2-string chords.
“2-string chords?” I thought to myself. “I didn't know these existed. If they're only 2 strings, how hard can they be to play?”
My old guitar teacher had only previously taught me guitar chords that used all six strings, and I found them very difficult to get the hang of.
Turns out, these 2-string chords, known as power chords, were much easier to play than anything I had played before. And to top it all off, I found out that these types of chords are used in literally thousands of rock songs. Songs by Nirvana, Green Day, Foo Fighters, The Beatles, Tom Petty, Dave Matthews, Metallica... the list goes on and on and on.
These were the very bands whose songs I wanted to play on the guitar, yet my teacher hadn't even introduced me to these 2-string chords yet.
If these 2-string chords are easy to learn and are used in thousands of rock songs, why was my guitar teacher teaching me more difficult chords first?
I didn't get it.
It made absolute no sense at all to me.
So, already amazed that you could make legitimate rock music on the guitar by only holding two strings, I attempted to play them in a song. After all, I soon found out that once you know just one of these power chords, you instantly know hundreds since they all hold the same finger shape... you just are moving your hands up and down the neck of the guitar (another massive benefit to learning power chords right away... and another thing my teacher had never shown me).
So, already amazed by the simplicity of these chords, I was even more amazed that some rock songs that use these easy chords, only contained two of them!
That's right.
Only two chords! A little simpler than Beethoven's 5th Symphony.
And that's when my “aha moment” on the guitar happened.
I was reading a lesson that taught me how to play these very 2-string chords in a song called “Something In The Way” by Nirvana. And, sure enough, this song only contained two chords.
The verses had just two of these 2-string chords.
The chorus had also had the same two chords.
The verse and chorus were identical!
After figuring out where to put my hands that the lesson showed me, I started playing it. And, to my amazement, what I was playing on the guitar was exactly how the song sounded on YouTube!
This moment was truly exhilarating for me. I got chills down the back of my neck.
This was my “aha moment.”
I had just played an actual song on the guitar, a song that was recorded by the infamous band Nirvana. A song that people paid to buy a recording of and go see in concert years ago.
And sure enough, after this moment, I became addicted to the guitar... after enjoying my victory (a small victory to some but a HUGE victory to me), my next thought was “I want to learn another song... and then another... and then another... and then another!”
After experiencing my “aha moment”, I could not put down the guitar. I pulled many all-nighters playing my new found passion. My parents even wondered what the heck I was doing down in the basement for all those hours.
It was then that I truly believed that playing the guitar was entirely possible. It was not just a complicated instrument for a few “musically inclined” individuals.
It was like a HUGE weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
What was once a love-hate relationship with my guitar turned into a passionate love affair.
I was now having fun playing the guitar, something I could not say before. After all, there's nothing worse in life than trying to learn something that you don't enjoy doing.