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Learning to play a guitar is not always easy to most people, and many have problems that they have to work on to overcome. Over time, many of these problems appear to be common to a number of different people; and a list of them, and how to overcome them, could be useful in helping you to learn quicker by having the answers that others had to work out for themselves.

Not all problems are easy to overcome, but here is a short list of those that many beginners come up against and what they have done to overcome them. That is not to guarantee that these solutions will work for you, but there is no real reason why they should not.

1. Hand pain. Playing a guitar involves using your hand and forearm muscles in ways they have not been used before. Your fingers are operated mainly by muscles in your forearms. When you begin to learn guitar you will find that you probably lack the flexibility that you need to quickly change from one chord or note to another. You will eventually develop this as your hand and wrist muscles get stronger and more flexible, but you can accelerate the process by carrying out hand and wrist flexibility exercises and muscle strengthening exercises. This can be done by means of a grip strengthener or simply squeezing a tennis ball. Do this for three or four minutes several times a day and you will soon find that the pain disappears and you have more control over your hands and fingers.

2. Sore fingertips. Guitar strings, especially steel strings, cut into your fingers. When you first start playing you will experience pain in your fingertips because of this - don't worry, it happens to all guitar players. It will eventually go as you develop calluses, but you can help to accelerate this by rubbing alcohol into them or some salt solution.

3. Finger lockup. Your finger can lock up if you have too much tension in your arm. This is generally because it is elevated too much, and the answer is to get your arm and fingers into the right position. Forcing yourself to play on is not the answer since the problem lies in your bad arm position.

4. Getting in a rut. This happens to most guitarists after a while. You seem to be playing all the same old stuff over and over again and don't seem to be able to progress. Sometimes this starts as a desire for perfection and then you find that you can't seem to move on. This can be a difficult problem to overcome but you have to make an effort to move on to something else. You might find this easier if you promise yourself that you will come back to what you were on later in the practice session.

5. Getting bored with practice. This is associated with 4, above. You can get bored with the same old practice day in day out to the extent that you start missing practice sessions. This is the slippery slope to disaster and you must never begin missing sessions. You can overcome this by mixing up the type of practice you carry out during your sessions. Try 15 minutes on chords, ten on scales, then perhaps 20 minutes writing a new tune for yourself. Then try fifteen minutes learning a new tune or riff before finishing off with a bit more chord and scale practice. That will break it up, and you will begin to look forward to the different elements of your session.

6. Playing too fast. This is another very common problem. The trouble here is that if you are trying to play faster than you are capable of, then you could eventually lose interest because you are failing to achieve a good standard no matter how hard you try. Try to slow down your play, but if you find it impossible, learn a bit about tempo and get yourself a metronome. Set the metronome to the correct tempo for the piece and play to that. It might even help by setting the metronome slightly slower than it should be. Failing that, you need help from a professional instructor.

7. Lack of relaxation. Many beginners get tensed up when they play, partially due to inexperience and partially due to nervousness. It is important that you try to relax when playing or you will lack the fluency needed to play guitar. Deliberately try to relax your body before starting playing; and if you find that difficult, try some elementary yoga classes to help you to relax. It is very important to be able to relax properly if you are to become a top class player.

These are seven of the major problems that guitar players face, especially when they are beginners. Another could be too much time spent practicing and not enough having fun, so make sure that you set some time aside each day just to enjoy jamming or playing music as opposed to formal practice.

Playing guitar should be fun; and if you work on these common problems when learning to play a guitar, you should have lots of fun and maintain your interest in the instrument until you are an expert player.

Keywords: learn guitar, guitar learning course

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Andre Sanchez,