4 Tools To Teach Yourself Guitar
If you’re teaching yourself guitar, there’s a lot of tools that can help.
I’m a bit of a lazy guitarist, so of course I found tricks to make playing songs easier.
I’m not here to show off, I’m just here to make learning easier for you. Call it the lazy learners starter kit.
Now, if you want to be an absolute guitar legend, maybe go get a lesson. This one’s for the folks who want to learn a few songs to impress their friends and maybe score a date (playing guitar makes you instantly more attractive, just saying).
Save yourself the time and try these four tools that helped me teach myself guitar.
1 | Guitar Tuna
(a free app to help you tune your guitar)
Tuning your guitar is a must-have skill, but you don’t need to buy a tuner. Watch some videos to learn the best practices, then download Guitar Tuna and go for it.
I’ve used a few different types of store-bought tuners — even the fancy ones you clip on the head of the guitar. But I always ditch them and go back to Guitar Tuna. Call me lazy, I just know it works and it’s simple to use.
Plus since it’s on my phone, it goes everywhere with me. Next time you’re at a bonfire and someone hands you a guitar that sounds like a horror movie prop, no problem.
If you haven’t tuned a guitar before, it can be intimidating. You might break strings, it happens. Keep trying — I know I broke a few strings before I figured it out.
Bonus: Guitar Tuna has a lot of features that I don’t even use. Explore around. there’s bound to be something else in there that will help you learn to play guitar.
2 | Ultimate Guitar
(a free app to teach you any song you want to learn)
I’ve been using Ultimate Guitar to read music for ten years now. They know what’s up.
It’s super easy to use and you don’t need to learn how to actually read music (you know, sheet music with bars and squiggly things).
Just download the app (or use their website) and search any song that you want to learn. You’ll see a bunch of different versions of the song; look at the ones with the most stars first.
Once you’re in there, you’ll see the lyrics written out along with the chords. This means you can play through the whole song without having to memorize the lyrics or the chord structure.
The best part? Autoscroll.
Click that magic little button at the bottom of your screen so you can play the whole song without taking breaks to scroll down. Change the scrolling speed to get the right tempo.
If you’re looking at a song and you see a chord you don’t know, just click on the chord to see its chart. Simple.
Line your fingers up and practice that new chord until your mom shouts at you to go to bed (or your roommate, neighbour, landlord, whatever).
Don’t just settle for the first version of the song you click on, though. I always look around to find the easiest version (I never claimed to be a guitar prodigy, I just play because it’s fun as hell).
Bonus: Ultimate Guitar also has lots of fun features I don’t take advantage of.
Downside: Chords and tabs are submitted by other users so they’re not always perfect.
3 | Use A Capo
(a real-life tool that you put on your guitar to make some songs easier to play)
You can pronounce it “cay-po” or “cah-po,” it doesn’t matter. Apparently “cah-po” is the Italian way of saying it, whereas North Americans go for “cay-po.”
Either way, capos are super useful because they let you play songs using simpler chords that you already know, as opposed to playing an entire song in bar chords.
You should still learn bar chords, but playing a whole song like that hurts the hand more than it has to. Remember, we’re not striving for greatness here — we’re just trying to find songs that make us feel like rock stars.
I’ve also heard that capos are for people who can’t sing, which is great for us. Not only do they make playing chords easier, they’re also awesome because they let you change the key of a song to best suit your voice.
Go on, move your capo up and down the neck and try singing along to the same song from each fret. Whichever spot makes your voice sound best, giver’.
If you’re these playing songs with other people and guitars, this can be annoying for them unless they also have a capo (or unless they’re really good and took lessons). Whatever. This is your time to shine.
You can buy a capo at any music store (support local!).
4 | Watch YouTube Videos
(you know what it is)
Ah yes, the last tool is of course YouTube. You probably started here — why stop now?
Whenever you’re wondering, “How do I read tabs?” or “How do I play that intro?” or “Why do my strings sound muted?” just ask YouTube.
There’s lots of people on there that are way more knowledgeable than me, go ask them! I know I did.
The best part about these tools is that you don’t need WIFI or data to use them (except YouTube). Next time you’re out camping, give your guitar a quick tune, refresh your mind of the chords and lyrics, then watch your future lover’s eyes widen as they gain a new appreciation for you and your many talents.
Go get em’, stud.
