Rookie Mistakes New Guitarists Need To Avoid Like The Plague

As a late beginner myself, and one who didn’t even have access to the internet my first year, trust me, I made mistakes that made me lose a lot of valuable time. I know how frustrating things could be and the last thing you want to do is make it harder for yourself. So here’s some rookie mistakes you should know and avoid right off the bad so you can set yourself up for success and speedy progress!

But for now, let’s talk about mistakes you really shouldn’t ignore:

Ignoring Painful Playing

Guitar can be weird and uncomfortable, no doubts. It’s going to take a few weeks to develop calluses that allow you to play longer, but your hand is still going to cramp up attempting these new chord positions. However, if you’re more than a couple months in and you know your posture is okay, the guitar shouldn’t be hurting you to the point where you need to take regular breaks or even days off.

A couple things I’ve dealt with was heavy guage strings on my used guitar that required a lot of wrist strenght to hold strings down. Bending strings was so difficult and I didn’t understand how the videos made it look so easy. When I got my second guitar that came with lighter strings, everything was so easy and I didn’t have to put in as much effort or strenght.

That guitar also had an issue though. The fret board was curved quite a bit so there was high action between the strings and the middle frets. I brought it in for a checkup, but the guy the counter took one look at it and said it’s fine, I just need to practice more. It was really uncomfortable though, and I never had this issue with my first guitar. I looked into it and adjusted the truss rod myself to make it more straight. No more issues.

So if you find that the guitar is a bit painful to play and it’s not just because you’re breaking in a new instrument or trying a new technique, definitely look into it. Playing the guitar for an hour should be easy and fun for you, not painful.

Neglecting Music Theory

I get it. The greats didn’t need it, so why do you?

Well, for one, many of them didn’t have access to all the free information you do. Why avoid education and resources that are at your fingertips? And two, you’re going to be able to pick up, figure out, and memorize things sooooo much faster if you just put in the time to learn the basics.

Instead of blindly memorizing everything and only being able to mimic and make solos your own, you’ll be able to build things from scratch. Don’t just remember how the D chord is played, understand why it is the D chord (because the root note is on the D string).

With theory, you’ll realize how scales and modes are made, and instead of learning 30+ shapes, you’ll realize they’re all the same, just starting on a new note. You’ll understand how a E chord turns into an F chord and be able to make the most of barre chords. If you understand how chords and progressions are put together, you’ll be able to target the right notes every time as you solo.

Not to mention, if you ever intend to play with other musicians, everyone else will be able to speak the language except you. If they ask you to play a I IV V progression in the key of G and you’re standing there squinting your eyes like “…..whaaaaaat?” they’re going to be annoyed. They can’t tell you what fret to press, and very few would waste time transcribing things into tab for you when they could just get another guitarist that understands them.

I see so many 20+ year guitarists coming to Facebook groups finally realizing how beneficial it is and how much avoiding it has held them back so don’t make the same mistake. I have a beginners series for theory that starts here. If you’re still not sure, read my article on Why Beginners should consider learning Music Theory and my Music Theory is like Cooking Science article.

Not Using/Utilizing Your Amp

Maybe this is just me, but since I worked evening shifts and shared a room, I played my electric guitar acoustically for the first 6 months. While I sounded good that way, your amp will literally blow up your trouble spots.

If you’ve been neglecting muting, you will hear every open string or accidental touches with your amp. If you can’t tell if you’re holding your chords down correctly, don’t worry, your amp will tell you. Are you holding them down good enough that it rings out over a bar?

Depending on your amp, you may have built in effects like reverb, distortion and acoustic. If you aim to play on stage or have a certain idea in mind of what you want to play in the future, get used to playing with those now so you can adjust your playing accordingly.

Not Alternate Picking/Strumming

Now, I personally did not make this mistake because every other guitar teacher and tutorial warned my against it, but many beginners still do it. Why? Because it’s natural to just do downstrokes or picks when you’re starting out.

Trying to do anything upwards can be super uncomfortable, especially when you have yet to learn how to hold your pick correctly. It’s either going to be painful or you’re going to drop it many many times attempting it. But you NEED to stick to it.

Your pick naturally goes up every time you’re about to do another strum or pick, so this increases your speed greatly. There will be times when alternate picking may not be best, such as sweep picking, but if you can get alternate picking out of the way early, you’ll have more options later on.

As you’re learning strumming patterns, alternate strumming is going to help you keep time. You’ll strum downwards on 1 2 3 4, and you’ll strum upwards on the “Ands” between the numbers. Not to mention, it’ll look a lot nicer than awkwardly waiting and jacking your arm every time you need to strum. Some genres like metal may call for all downstrokes, but as a whole, alternating is the best way to go and it’ll also allow speed as you can do more strums easily.

Avoiding Barre Chords

For many casual guitarists, barre chords is where they draw the line. It’s really hard getting your index finger to lay flat while still putting your other fingers in a chord shape, and then to get the strings to ring out clearly? Forget about it! There’s capos fore a reason!

Bar or Barre chords could be considered one of the hardest obstacles a guitarist must get over to move from beginner to intermediate, but it is a very necessary one to unlock the fretboard and the many other chords that exist out there. There are only about 8 well known open chords, and that only allows you to play a handful or progressions in a very limited amount of keys. Why limit yourself like that?

Barre chords do get easier if you keep at it. As you realize the benefits of barre chords, you may even choose to use them full time. Why? Because barre chords make any chord moveable.

You just need to learn the F major barre chord and now you can play a C# major chord by moving it up 3 frets, a D major chord (which you may like more than an open D chord) on the 5th fret, and another A major chord on the 7th fret. You already know E minor? Add a barre, and now you can play a minor chord for every note. If you learned a song with only barre chords, you can easily transpose that song to another key just by moving all the chords up or down. That’s not easy to do with open chords.

So if you do want to be able to play chords for any song anytime, and especially if you’re interested in anime and Japanese music, it’s best to get over this hurdle sooner rather than later.

Not Developing Your Ear

I find in the guitar world, you’re either one of two guitarist. You can either learn songs by ear or you need to rely on tabs. Those in the second group may feel like those from the first group have some special power, but that is far from the truth.

While there are some musicians who have perfect pitch and can easily tell if the note playing is an A or C#, the majority of us can’t do that. But the more you play, the more you study and pay attention, and the more you try to learn things by ear, the easier it will get. Check out some advice from advanced musicians here.

If you’ve never attempted to play by ear, it’s time to start. Start with single note melodies, and then onto basic open chords. As you play more songs and listen to more music, learning songs by ear could get a lot easier if you put your skills into practice. There’s no better time to start training your ear than now.

Never Playing With Others

You can look at a lot of articles, and they will all tell you the benefits of playing with others. Part of being a musician is getting to interact with other musicians, jam together, share ideas, even perform on stage in a band or orchestra. One instrument may not sound that amazing alone, but combined, ooof!

Now, I’m not saying everyone should do this. If you are a casual guitarist who only cares to play for your own enjoyment, you do you! There’s no reason for you to go outside your comfort zone if it doesn’t interest you.

For the rest of you though, if you ever plan or intend to play in a group or to release your own music, playing with others has amazing benefits! It’s a chance to learn from more experienced players, it pushes you to learn and practice more than you would have otherwise, it builds confidence when you can keep up or play along with others, and it’s just a great way to figure out where you are now and where you need to improve.

Now, there’s no rush to find a band or a singer to accompany, and depending on your current skill level, you may not feel you are ready just yet, but as soon as you feel like you can play a few songs well and your chord changes or solos are not half bad, it’s definitely something to look into. This will speed up your progress and confidence immensely.

Ignoring The Details In Tabs

Not all tabs are detailed, but if you are using something like Songsterr, they will write the tabs like a regular music staff (and if you knew theory, these symbols and slurs won’t confuse you…just saying). Not every chord follows an 8 beat strumming pattern, and not all chord changes start on 1. You can check out my ultimate in-depth guide on how to read tabs here.

As a beginner, you may not know how to read tabs well or what everything means, so it’s normal to skil certain details and just get through the song. You may skip notes, may ignore muting, and neglect strumming patterns. You’re just focused on the chords or getting through the solo. While you may feel you have learned the song, you didn’t ‘really’ learn the song. It’s like putting half the effort into learning a Kpop dance routine.

If the songs you want to learn are too hard, fast, or technically advanced for you right now, focus on easier songs that are in your level or just above so you can ease yourself into it. It’s better that you spend 3 months learning many songs that expand your knowledge and skills, than to spend that same time only learning one song. I wrote an article about that here.

Not Learning Songs Thoroughly

Adding on to the point above, another rookie mistake is not learning songs or not learning them thoroughly.

This is actually a mistake I personally made. I didn’t want to be in the same box as I was with my previous instruments, only able to play basic songs and not being able to create or improvise. However, it’s really hard to create without a foundation of patterns and techniques that you’ve learned by playing songs from beginning to end.

Sure, I could create music I say this because this was me initially. I played other instruments casually growing up, but I only learned songs, easy songs, and I couldn’t create. I didn’t want to put myself in the same box with guitar…but then I would end up just doing scales or I’ll only practice chords and progressions for a minute or two. I may pull up a backing track I wasn’t feeling and just play single notes. I wasn’t used to adopting slides or pull-offs just yet.

I would start playing a song, but I would only work on it for a day or two and be okay with ‘good enough’. But being in a band, I’m forced to really stick with it and play it over and over again until it is perfect. I found myself learning new patterns and I was able to play it through chord changes for a 3 or 4 minute song. The songs forced me to work on my muting and also showed me how to move a lick through a chord progression.

I feel like my playing was 5X better and I learned a lot faster by playing through songs thoroughly and practicing them regularly.

Not Learning Chords and Rhythm

If you’re a guitarist who only focuses on lead and solos, I don’t blame you. That was my target initially as well. It’s what appeals many guitarists to electric guitar. They want to play some sick licks and blow the crowd away.

But I will give you the inside scoop now…you’re going to feel very limited if you refuse to learn some rhythm. A lot of songs only has a lick here and there, thus you’ll have nothing to do. If you ever join a band, you’re not going to be playing licks all the time. You’ll have your moment, but for the majority of the song, you will be expected to play chords.

If you really want to stand out as a guitarist, rhythm is a must. When I had my ads up for a lead and rhythm guitarist (before I picked up guitar), every single guitarist said they are a lead player. I’ve read many threads where band members complain that their guitarist can’t play chords to save their life or how their rhythm sucks.

If you look around at some big bands, if there is only 1 guitarist, that guitarist is playing lead and rhythm. They may play lead on stage, but they provided the backing track for the rhythm as well. You’re not going to be an asset to others if you can only play single note melodies. Learn more about the benefits of being a rhythm focused player here.

Not Using A Metronome/Beat

You’ve heard it over and over, and I’m here to say it again. You need to practice playing in time, and the only way you can do that is with a metronome or some kind of beat, like a drum loop.

While I don’t think you should use it right from the very beginning as just learning to move your fingers together and strumming properly takes some time, but once you got a hang of how to play, you need to start. The metronome is unforgiving and it’ll be easier to notice when you are speeding or falling behind.

Playing with the song is great, but in a band setting, you don’t have that luxury. You only have your drummer to set the tone, so you need to make sure you know how the song and your part goes, and what happens when. Not to mention, the drummer and bass will definitely care about keeping time, so if you can’t, they may not want to play with you.

If you’re playing a solo, you can’t just play at your own pace. You still need to be aware of how long and short notes are, at what point a chord change happens, and so much more to make sure your solo fits the pace and the track. You can be a great guitarist, but your solo will sound like trash if it doesn’t fit the tempo and chords of the song.

Playing with a metronome is your chance to be alone with nothing but a click keeping you in time. It may not be that fun, but you are disciplining yourself to keep tempo, which is the most valuable thing in keeping a group together. Definitely check out my article on why the metronome should be your best friend!

Not Tuning Your Guitar Every Time You Practice

And finally, last but not least, you need to tune your guitar everyday. I don’t care if you tuned your guitar yesterday or even this morning, you need to tune it everytime you practice.

Your guitar will never stay perfectly in tune for an extended period of time. Pegs may adjust, strings loosen up, the humidity makes the wood expand, or it may have moved a bit in it’s case. Pricier guitars may be better at staying in tune, but you should still check.

If you don’t check, you can be playing with a flat string, and this will not only make you sound bad, but you’re also missing the opportunity to train your ear. If your C chord is always flat or it changes every day, how would you be able to know what a C chord sounds like when you hear it in a song? Here you are thinking you’re playing the A minor scale, but it’s actually the B minor scale cause your guitar is sharp. If you’re playing in a group, you could be playing the right frets but you’re not matching them.

The more you tune, the faster you’ll get at tuning. It doesn’t take me more than 30 seconds to tune my guitar because I do it regularly. At times, I may be a little lazy and start playing, but because I know what an in-tune guitar sounds like, I can tell when it’s off and get my tuner out.

Not to mention, if you tune once a week or less, you’re going to need more time to tune as the strings will very likely be way off. So please, PLEASE, tune every time you play. There’s nothing else that helps others spot a rookie guitarist more than one who can’t even tell their chords and notes are off pitch. Here’s an article on more context on why tuning is vital to being a great guitarist and musician.

If you want to know about other benefits and why it’s necessary to tune daily, check out this article!

Bonus: Not Recording Yourself

When you start learning songs and riffs, the sooner you start recording yourself and listening to yourself, the faster you’ll notice mistakes and can work on improving them. I wrote a whole article about this here.

Conclusion

So that’s about all the tips I have for you. I know how exciting it can be to be playing this new instrument and sometimes you just want to have fun, but taking the time to learn and avoid these rookie mistakes will put you above other beginners and help you progress much faster.

Another mistake many guitarists make is focusing too much on rhythm and not on lead, often to the dismay of musicians who try to play with them. If you’re looking for an eBook that teaches you timing and chord theory, and gives you 75 chord progressions with strumming patterns to practice them with, check out my book Rhythm and Chord Progressions.

Let’s both work hard to be great guitarists! Feel free to connect with me on Instagram, @key2nostalgia.