10 BIG reasons why you should learn guitar rather than any other instrument.
1. Learn guitar: It’s inexpensive
You could easily pick up a beaten up second-hand acoustic and learn guitar for less than £50, or even better, just borrow one from a friend to see if learning guitar is for you. If you want something decent that’s going to take you through the learning stages and beyond, you’re probably looking at around the £200 mark. Yamaha, with their FG Acoustic series, and Squier Stratocaster/Telecasters make excellent beginner’s guitars.
2. It’s easy to pick up…
Unlike the piano that uses both sides of the brain or having to learn the technique of wind instruments to blow your first note clean note, you can play your first chord on the guitar (the Em) by placing two fingers on the fretboard. Simple! The guitar is, to a large extent (but not exclusively), a one-handed instrument, with your strumming / picking hand not having to work anywhere near as hard as the fretting hand, again for the most part.
The guitar is much easier to learn than the piano and many other instruments.
There’s also a plethora of guitar instruction videos on YouTube to get you started. This guy is really good!
…but impossible to master
The guitar-learning journey never ends. Nobody will ever know all there is to learn on guitar, not in one lifetime. All we can do is walk our own path with the time we have, deciding how much of ourselves we’ll devote to it.
Some are happy with a handful of accompanying chords, whilst others have daily practice regimes building their muscle memory and co-ordination, music theory knowledge, and fretboard wizardly. Neither will truly master the guitar and both approaches are valid, it’s just different levels and applications.
A guitar is something you can hold and love and it’s never going to bug you. But here’s the secret about the guitar – it’s defiant. It will never let you conquer it. The more you get involved with it, the more you realize how little you know.
Les Paul
3. Learn guitar: For genre versatility
From the softest ballad to the most aggressive death metal and all points in-between, the guitar features prominently everywhere in the musical landscape, from George Benson to Metallica. Metal saxophone anyone? I don’t believe that’s a thing!
4. Learn guitar: For variety
Acoustic, electro-acoustic, electric, semi-acoustic, classical, national, arch-top, 12-string, 7-string, baritone, twin-neck. Choose your weapon wisely, as the guitar caters to all tastes, shapes and sizes.
Want to learn Classical guitar? Visit Classical Guitar Shed.
5. Career paths and goals
Become a singer-songwriter like Ed Sheeran, a session musician like Steve Lukather or Larry Carlton, a virtuoso solo artist like Eric Johnson, Steve Vai or Joe Satriani, or conquer the world just like Van Halen, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Dave Gilmour, Jimmy Page or Brian May to name but a few.
Or… just have a blast playing in a local blues band, a cool Jazz club, a rock tribute act. Become a guitar teacher, play in an orchestra, go out busking or play in your bedroom. With the guitar, you’re free to choose your own path.
6. Learn guitar: To express yourself
Firstly, like the piano, and unlike, say for example most wind, brass, and bowed instruments, the guitar is a polyphonic instrument, i.e. you can sound more than one note at the same time.
“The guitar is a miniature orchestra in itself.”
Ludwig van Beethoven
However, unlike the piano, where notes are sounded in a disconnected fashion by an internal hammer hitting a string; with the guitar, there’s direct contact between string and finger, making for a vastly more personal, organic, expressive experience.
A guitarist can also employ various embellishments to a note: with string bending and vibrato in particular imbuing your very own unique tone and feel. With guitar, its tactile, close and intimate, and really is all in the fingers.
A trumpet sounds pretty much like a trumpet, and that’s true of a lot instruments; pianos sound like pianos, but there’s something about the guitar – the range of possibilities is much broader.
The Edge – U2
In my songwriting, like many others, I’ve quite often turned to the guitar to express something the voice can’t, or just to communicate a sentiment using an alternative medium. Check out the solo passages from my song When You’re In Love.
7. Portability
Ever tried moving a piano? Or lugging a drum-kit up flights of stairs? A guitarist’s load-in is one trip from the car.
My favourite example of the guitar’s portability is a campfire scenario. What other instrument could gather round friends outside for singalong?
All in all, the Guitar is just about as user-friendly as it gets.
8. Simplicity/Reliability
There’s very little to go wrong on an electric guitar, with Stratocasters and Telecasters having the reputation of being indestructible. Acoustics are even simpler but need handling with a lot more care.
As a testament to their simplicity, many guitarists build their own from a kit, or even from scratch (Brian May’s Red Special). Fancy building a piano? Didn’t think so.
9. Maintenance
…. and as a result of the simplicity, guitars are both easy and cheap to maintain. A new set of strings will set you back £5 which’ll last you a few months (depending on use), but as long as you take care of your instrument with regular cleaning that’s all you’ll need to worry about.
10. Love
Well, it’s the ultimate phallic symbol isn’t it? There’s no such thing as trumpet hero, or even singing hero, only Guitar Hero. People actually name guitars. They keep them under their bed and in glass cases on the wall. They are some of the most beautiful and revered instruments ever made with 1958-1960 Gibson Les Pauls going for $250,000. Some guitars, for example Eric Clapton’s Blackie and Brian May’s Red Special are worth millions (see a list of the 10 most expensive guitars in history here).
I love guitars, all guitarists do. We even have a really nasty condition known as Guitar Acquisition Syndrome (GAS).
Conclusion
The guitar is easy to learn but impossible to master with perhaps the most wide-ranging versatility of any instrument. It will accompany you on whichever path you choose and allow you to express yourself in ways you never thought possible, always at your own pace. It’s cheap, both to buy and maintain, portable, simple and durable, but most of all, it’s an instrument you will easily fall in love with, just like millions of us already have.
Well, what are you waiting for?
