The 13 Worst Beginner Guitar Mistakes All My Students Made. You Probably Make These Too....

It was a year and a half before I found out I was playing the guitar wrong in lots of ways.

There I was thinking I was a hot shot for learning jimmy page solos in 6 months and ripping a minor pentatonic scale in similar ways to SRV and Clapton.

But I was making a stupid obvious mistake that another experienced player I’d met immediately saw.

Short story: I was not using the right picking techniques and I had to spend several months relearning nearly all of the riffs and solos I had learned in that time.

Don’t be like me! Read the rest of this article to see how I solved that problem for good, as well as 3 others…….

After You Read This Article You Should......

1. You Aren’t Using The Right Picking Techniques!

Downpicking, strumming, alternate picking, economy picking, hybrid picking, and travis picking are just a few of the techniques you’ll learn as you progress.

The big problem though is that each one has it’s best uses for different genres, and different riffs.

Plus, you may not have the ear yet to choose which one to use.

To make it even more confusing, you’ll have to to use different combinations of right hand techniques for lots of riffs!

2. You’re Learning Some Really Tough Material

Jimi Hendrix was one of the many people that inspired me to play the guitar.

But sadly, I didn’t know enough about the chords he was using to properly learn the riffs.

Even purple haze was challenging because the way he played barre chords was not familiar to me.

This happened when I went to SRV, Metallica, and even AC/DC riffs.

There’s a reason lots of people learn riffs like “Smoke On The Water.”

It helps you learn the basics, and acquaints you with lots of the fundamental guitar techniques.

Keep reading, and I’ll tell you how to get a list of songs that will help you get started with that!

3. You’re Fingering Chords The Wrong Way

Playing chords at first is really tough because you’re trying to do so many things at the same time.

You gotta hold the pick just right. You must contort your hands in weird ways. You’re forgetting where to put each finger.

And to keep in time you must restart this whole process each time you change positions on the fretboard (depending on the riff/song).

There are all sorts of shortcuts to learn with changing chords and remembering them all, but it’s really tough to do this by yourself……

4. You’re Practicing The Wrong Way

Lots of guitar books, videos, and lessons give really unhelpful advice…..

One of them is the dreaded and overused expression to “practice!”

Practice what exactly?

Purple Haze requires a completely different set of techniques to learn than Smoke On The Water.

Metallica riffs are completely different from Led Zeppelin Riffs.

Country songs are not played anything like a punk rock song is.

And when you get to lead guitar, man there is all sorts of different things you need to start practicing…..

That’s why I hate it when they just give you a lick!

You need to structure your practice routines, and keep building upon the things you learn…….

5. Not Learning The Basic Songs First

I know it’s a lot of fun to think of how you may be playing like Eddie Van Halen or shredding “Through The Fire & The Flames” very soon.

However there’s a big reason everyone goes through the basic riffs first.

They teach you how to move between the basic chords, use the basic finger movements across strings, and use the core pick hand techniques to sound them out. It’s wild for anyone to think you’ll get all of this on the first day or the first week, but many people think they will be talented enough somehow to skip it.

6. Bad Fingerings For Barre Chords & Open Chords

When trying to rush to that Dragonforce song, many beginners fail to remember where their fingerings should be when playing the basic chords.

This is something there’s just absolutely no way around. You can learn how to play these chords on a few strings, but you will need these fingerings to play the songs up to speed.

Many many people figured out how long before you considered playing the guitar……what the best fingerings would be to allow the smoothest transitions between various shapes.

7. Not Holding A Pick Correctly

Even the most advanced guitarists get this wrong.

The way you hold a pick and hold it between your thumb and index finger can do so much to restrict your movement, or it can help you play it efficiently and effortlessly.

Connected to your pick is also your wrist and forearm. Then there’s where to rest both of those parts of your arm.

It can be a lot to think about, but for now just make sure that you’re holding a pick between your thumb and first finger, the pointy end is pointed towards the guitar body, and that you’re choking the pick up until the about a few millimeters of length to pick with.

8. Bad Thumb Placement In The Fret Hand

The best place to put your fret hand thumb is right in the center of the neck behind the fretboard.

However, this can move naturally as you play certain strings or use certain chords or certain playing techniques.

It’s just a general rule of thumb so that your hand can lay flat PERPENDICULAR to the fretboard, and not at a diagonal angle.

This will help immensely with barre chords and scale runs as you progress.

9. Mismatching Tabs To The Actual Song Parts

Most every beginner is not going to be able to match what they’re hearing in the song to what they see on the tab.

It takes time to get acquainted with chords, the various strings, and the sounds of the many guitar techniques. Like the other stuff, there’s just no way around it.

The reason why is that you’ve never interpreted music in the way you’re learning now. It’s astounding how many beginner methods ignore this!

The easiest way to start doing this is to watch tab videos on YouTube. There’s so many videos of so many songs from so many artists. PIck a few and start watching them to see how they work to make the sound of the music you’re learning.

10. Skipping Exercises & Not Learning Basic Finger Movements

Those 1-2-3-4 exercises and pentatonic scales have a very important purpose, which is to train both hands to play the thousands of riffs that use the movements in them.

I actually have a free PDF you can grab of the 5 most absolute beginner guitar exercises which you can find here at this link.

I made this because many of you will hear about the Steve Vai or John Petrucci workouts, and find it way too overwhelming at your level. There’s nothing stopping you from learning them, but if you can’t play a G chord yet, then it’s not going to be much help right now.

11. Not Choosing Correct Pick Hand Techniques

This is a personal one for me as I made this mistake for a long time.

There’s several ways to play a string with your picking hand: downward only picking, up-down alternate picking, economy picking where you carry upstrokes or downstrokes across strings, fingerpicking, and then hybrid picking where you use your pick and your fingers.

You will need to use all of these at some point if you plan to become an accomplished player.

Stairway to heaven uses fingerpicking, Eric Johnson uses hybrid picking, and it’s hard to play many fast runs without alternate picking or economy picking.

12. Having No Idea What You Like To Play

This may be the most important one because so many of my past students have had vague goals and that made them unmotivated.

My goals were simple. I wanted to play as many Metallica and Megadeth riffs as possible, and I wanted to solo like Slash, Marty Friedman, and Eddie Van Halen.

You’ve got to do the same. It only has to be a handful of songs, or one artist’s catalog.

If you let an instructor or a book dictate everything you should play and learn, then you’re not going to get much joy out of the instrument.

13. Being Afraid Of Making Mistakes

Friends and family, and the online mob, have been brutal to me at times when I’ve shared my playing.

There are unreasonable expectations to play perfectly, record at a pro studio level, and not step outside of the accepted guitar repertoire. All while doing this with effortless grace and often little reward beyond some social media likes.

I say all of this because you should not have expectations at the beginning of doing more than just playing the song correctly. It’s ok to not play it right with incorrect fingerings too.

My talk earlier about thumb placement, various picking methods, and etcetera were all to help you make playing the instrument harder.

In many ways the guitar was harder than it had to be, and I write these articles in the hopes that some of you can avoid my mistakes, and help me continue to enjoy teaching the guitar.

I hope you’ll click some of the links below to learn more. Play It Loud.

Here’s The Solution To Avoid These Mistakes.....

There’s several techniques you need to learn, and you got to learn songs that’ll help you stay motivated. Plus, you need a good practice routine that’ll help you retain all the new chords and scales you’ll be learning……

I understand how intimidating this can be. That’s why I created a course that helps you learn all of this in just 1 hour.

I’ll tell you how to start practicing.

I’ll tell you how to remember lots of chords and scales easily.

And I’ll tell you exactly what to start playing, as well as what to expect after you’re no longer a beginner.

Plus, if you want to learn music theory or lead guitar, I’ll tell you about other resources you can start learning from too.

Sound good? Great! Click the button/image below to learn more about the course……

It costs as much as a single cheap guitar lesson too, and it’ll easily be worth the price of 6 months of lessons!