Do You Have To Learn To Read Sheet Music To Learn To Play Campfire Songs On The Guitar

by Maurice Richard

All you want to do is play the guitar. You want to pick it up when you are at home, or at the cottage or at a party and be able to play a few campfire tunes and have fun.

You went online, you got some books or maybe you even found a teacher. But it's been many weeks now and you still can't play a thing.

When will you finally be able to play something? What's the use of continuing to learn when progress is this painfully slow for you?

Good question. It certainly should not be like this.

The Standard Way To Teach Most Music Is By Using Sheet Music

This is a common problem with beginning guitar players.

Most of the training materials you will find in books, DVDs and even online want to get you going with reading notation and sheet music right away.

This is typical for many instruments and works fine for other instruments like the piano for example. And while it may work and make sense on other instruments; it makes things a lot more complicated on the guitar.

When you started to learn to play the guitar you had to try and overcome many different problems right off the bat, most of them physical.

You have to get your left hand to do what it needs to do to play notes and/or chords. Your left hand never did this before so it is a challenge to do it properly.

Your right hand needs to be able to pick and/or strum the strings in order to make the sound happen. This is also usually a new technique that you need to learn from scratch.

Then consider that you have never held a guitar before so you are also trying to hold it properly and find a comfortable position where you can play it and see the fretboard all at the same time.

You then find out that what you try to play does not sound good. That's because you have no callouses on your fingertips, you have very little strength in your fingers yet and holding that pick properly, if you attempt it, is a pain.

And on top of all of that and at the same time, you then try to learn a brand new language called sheet music. This adds yet another layer of difficulty and forces you to focus your attention on learning this language instead of learning how to play.

No wonder it takes forever to actually play something, anything, and no wonder you feel so frustrated!!!!

Why Most Guitar Instruction Methods Teach Sheet Music

This method of learning is propagated by most teachers because this is how they learned how to do it themselves.

They went to University to learn music and this is how it is approached there. In that environment it makes total sense to learn to play the guitar that way because playing is not the main goal.

This is also propagated by most of the books or DVD's that you can purchase to learn to play the guitar. Even when you find resources online, most of them will be steeped in this direction.

The reason is that most of the people creating these materials also learned it that way. So they try to teach it to you the same way. But that approach does not work for everyday people like you.

You just want to play the instrument for yourself or friends. That's it.

Find The Right Guitar Teacher To Learn To Play The Guitar

So instead of trying to use conventional methods to try and learn to play campfire songs on the guitar, what you need to do is find a better way. But what other way is there?

Another way of learning to play the guitar is to do so based on your needs, on what you want to accomplish, based on the music you want to learn. You do not need to learn sheet music to play campfire songs.

How do you do that? It is certainly not with cookie-cutter solutions that come with books, DVDs or most online websites. You accomplish this by finding a teacher that avoids the conventional methods. They are rare but they are out there.

You need to look for the right teacher. This person will be trained specifically to teach the guitar and to get you specific results. The best ones will be dedicated to teaching only the guitar instead of being a jack-of-all-trades.

You also need to make sure that they have a lot of experience teaching people to learn how to actually play the guitar successfully. Who has a track record of success and who will teach you according to your specific needs.

But how does one find such a person?

How Do You Find The Right Guitar Teacher To Help You Learn

You will have to do some research to find the best guitar teacher.

Take your time and find as many teachers in your area as you can. Compile a list of everyone and keep notes on what they offer and do not offer and what teaching methods they follow (if they follow one!!).

Use the information I gave you above to look for the traits you want in this person. Eliminate all of the teachers who do not fit this and create your short list.

Once you have your list down to the ones you think can help you then you need to call or meet each of them and interview them.

Before you do this you absolutely need to write down several questions to ask each of them based on this article. You want to make sure the person you pick will be the best fit for you.

When you find the right teacher go for it. They may be more expensive but they are more than worth the investment.

You will now have the best chance at learning to play the guitar and more than likely make a lot more progress than you likely thought was possible!

You will be playing actual music in the first lesson or very soon after!

About The Author:

Maurice Richard is a professional guitar teacher that operates out of the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He has been a member of an elite guitar teaching mentorship program since 2007 and has taught many people how to learn to play the guitar. Find out why you do not need to learn sheet music to play the guitar by visiting his website today!