How much time will it take me to learn to play the electric guitar?

Question

I'm 25, with about 30min per day that I can use for guitar lessons. How much time would you say it will take me to learn, and to play a full song smooth and good?

Answer 1

You don't say how much prior musical experience you have had.  Is your ear good enough, say, for you to sing a simple song in proper rhythm and well in tune?  Or are you Mr. Tin Ear?

IF you have average or better musical abilities, you ought to be able to play through a very simple song (say, one with 3 fairly ordinary chords, like Louis Louie or one of Neil Young's old ballads in a matter of maybe 3 months.

Getting to be a virtuoso on the instrument, however, is going to take at least four years--and that's only if you practice several hours daily.

Now, thirty a day is fine to start and you will develop some facility.  Best plan would be to put the guitar where you can pick it up and play it many times a day.  Limit each 'practice' to no more than 10 minutes, and if you can only do 30 seconds of strumming one chord, it's helpful.  Many short sessions will speed up your initial development, and you'll have less risk of developing blisters or tendinitis or other stress injuries.  Each week, stretch out the time of one or two sessions by a few minutes until you can do your full session comfortably.  That's the right way to build stamina.

I hope you have found a professional teacher who can correct all your errors immediately.  If you don't get those errors fixed now (and you WILL make some, and beginners usually aren't able to self-correct) then long-term you'll slow yourself down and maybe incur repetitive motion injuries--you don't want carpal tunnel from plucking wrong, trust me.

Answer 2

Depends on your level of talent and natural ability.

30 minutes a day for practice is good, but to make maximum use of your time you should be taking lessons with a private teacher once a week.

Also it depends on what song you want to play -- some songs are pretty easy and some are much harder.  And will you be happy just strumming the chords or do you want to play the guitar solo as well?

And of course, learning to play ONE song all the way through, although that's a good start, doesn't constitute being able to "play the guitar".  If you want to be able to call yourself a guitarist you need to learn a full vocabulary of chords and scales, and be able to learn most songs you want to play either from sheet music or by ear and be able to change chords smoothly and keep a steady beat.  If you can pick out melodies and solos, that's even better.  

Learning to play ONE fairly simple song will probably take you a couple of months.  Learning to be able to play any song you want will most likely take years.

Answer 3

If you're going to teach yourself and with only 30 minutes to devote to guitar a day, it's going to take you much longer to learn a song than it would if you took lessons from a good teacher. 30 minutes is good for a beginner since you'll be developing calluses and your fingers cause you to stop since they start to hurt, but you should really play through the pain if you can. But with both mthods, you will learn the basics and that takes time.

The above answers talk about musical experience, and you don't need any to take up an instrument-especially if you don't want to play for the long term, then you won't get to learning how to read music and things.

It will depend on you for how you'll progress, but you can gaurentee that you won't be playing a full song in a week, no way. If you're taking lessons, you'll still be on the basics in a week.

As for a "full song," if you're talking about a simple strumming song then it won't take you too long, but if it's a rock song that has a solo in it...expect to be in the learning mode for few months or so. A fingerpicking song will definitely not be masterd in a few months. Since you're a beginner, you'll probably get to fingerpicking in a year. Then once you get the song down you have to smooth out the rough edges, which again takes time.

There's really no definite, concrete answer to your question, but what I've typed is basically true in guitar.

Answer 4

Hard to say, depends on amount of time you spend to practice, how well you recieve your lessons, and how good your teacher is.