How long does it take to learn acoustic guitar?

When you set your mind to learn guitar, the first question that may arise in your mind is – how long does it take to learn acoustic guitar? Frankly speaking, based on some factors it can take a few months to a few years to learn the guitar. In today’s article, we will give you some insight including those factors, probable time & lots more. So, stay tuned …..

Three things that determine the time duration of learning an acoustic guitar 

Your goal, the quality & quantity of time you will give for guitar practicing are mainly the contributing factors to determine how fast you will achieve your target. In the next, I will outline these facts in brief.

1)Know your goal 

The meaning of being able to play the guitar – is different for different individuals.

• For example, one may become happy by strumming on some chords along with singing. In such a case, it takes a few months to be able to do so.

• On the contrary, some may want to learn solos & difficult rhythms. So, they will not consider it as an achievement just being able to strum the chords. And it is needless to say that you have to invest a good amount of time in learning difficult techniques and skills compared to learning the chords.

• So, it will be wise to set a particular goal & work accordingly. Hence, you will not lose your motivation in a midway.

2)   Practice Quantity  

One of the biggest factors that influence – how much time it will take to learn the guitar greatly depends on this. So, you should make a strong practicing schedule. Otherwise,

• If you skip practicing in-between lessons, then you may end up learning nothing at all.

• Let me make it more clear. A student who practices 20 minutes a day will progress faster than a student who does not set aside time for practice.

• A lot of people may mistake reading the second point. Like they might think of now spending hours to get the result at a faster rate.

• But, that’s being told, practicing one time per day is far better than practicing the entire day. Because your memory line will start to wane from the moment you leave the guitar. No matter how brilliant you are, it happens with everyone.

• However, things turn out the opposite when you choose to practice every day.

• So, if you make a routine that includes time for a warm-up session, reading music theory, learning chords, song rehearsal, you will get a faster result for sure.

3) Practice Quality

Imagine while practicing you may be thinking about something else, or play a movie so that you don’t get bored. This way you may have continued to practice for 2 hours.

After this session, you may be feeling good finding that you’ve spent a huge time. Please pause for a while! Is this what you called a quality practice?  Well, that is not the case. Then, you may be searching for exactly what quality practice means? Alright then,  find out next.

• First off, quality practice refers to practice with attention.

• According to research, staying focused on whatever you are learning whether it is new songs, notes, or just finger placements, plays a vital role to develop muscle-memory.

• If you attend guitar classes, then you may notice that the young children in your class take much time to learn a new thing. That’s because they hardly can hold up the attention. That’s being told, their attention span remains for 10 sec, after that, they get distracted.

• On the flip side, you will find the other guys ( older children, teenagers, adults) can pick up things faster. In short,  it’s all about staying focused.

What can you do to increase your focus?  

The summation of the above discussion is – you should stay focused no matter what. But, in this modern era of technology, it is not that easy. However, you can follow our given tips to increase your attention duration.

• Instead of a longer practicing schedule, you can chunk the session.

• Instead of practicing a day long in a week, you should keep some time aside for guitar practice.

• You should select a suitable noise-free corner to practice. While practicing, you should leave your phone in another room, or activate the flight mode on your phone.

• You need a big reason to practice. It can be either to get a good impression in your friend circle, or it may be that you want to make this your profession.

How long does it take to learn acoustic guitar?

So far, you may get precise knowledge about everything that will determine the time you need to learn guitar. In this section, you will get a rough timeline.

• The time required for learning chords

It can differ from person to person. But, if you can stick to guitar for 30 minutes daily no matter what, you will be able to achieve the following goal for sure.

• Week 1: Learn the procedure of placing fingers & start with the basics.

• Week 2: Now you need to learn four basic open chords. Try to memorize each one.

• Week 3: Practice what you’ve learned in the previous two weeks. For this, you need to strum once a day.

• Week 4: It’s time to learn the next four chords & practice them following the previous way.

• Week 5: You can learn some strumming process to use them in playing basic two chords progression.

• Week 6: Learn the chord changes & then practice the four-chord progressions.

• Week 7: Use the metronome to strum chord progression.

• Week 8: Try to sing on the chords you have learned.

• The time needed for learning fingerstyle 

If you want to play fingerstyle instead of chords, then this timeline is for you. If you are a too-busy person, and able to manage three times to practice in a week, then this time duration also goes for you.

• Weeks 1-4: You can learn some finger exercises along with memorizing the open chords.

• Weeks 5-7:In this period, you need to learn the use of the right hand for fingerpicking exercises.

• Weeks 8-10: You should combine different fingerpicking patterns with some basic chord progressions.

• Weeks 11-14:You can try some basic songs using different fingerstyle.

Conclusion

This is all about our today’s article on – how long does it take to learn acoustic guitar?. Hopefully, you will be able to assume how much time you have to give for learning the guitar. But, this is not the entire scenario. Additionally, you have to focus on learning music theory, vocal melodies & so on.