Ever heard the saying “a moment of pleasure lasts a lifetime of pain”?

Okay, it may not be the most appropriate slogan for beginner mistakes on guitar, but with just enough practice of poor habits and you guessed it…they’ll last a lifetime. Unless, of course, you learn the guitar the right way in the first place.

If you played sports growing up you probably remember your coach stressing — fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. Chances are you hated this term after awhile because it usually represented something that was boring, mundane and completely unnecessary. Consequently, you probably asked the question what’s the point of fundamentals?

Similar to sports, the best guitarists began with fundamentals and then eventually progressed to more complicated skills. You can’t dunk before you shoot and you can’t master the guitar before you learn the basics. Avoid the common beginner mistakes (below) and your possibility of playing with bad habits for a lifetime will cease to disappear.

I’m a Master Guitarist from Day One

Mastering the guitar will take a lot of time.

If the above statement is not obvious then perhaps you should reassess your goals. Regardless of your age, learning the guitar takes time. Some are a little quicker learners, but you need at least six months to a year to even begin to realize the potential of the guitar.

Stick with it, start small, start simple.

I’m too Impatient to Learn Guitar

Impatience has an awful lot to do with why some expect to master guitar from day one. Unfortunately, as technology becomes more sophisticated and quicker, humans are losing the virtue of patience. The guitar, however, has not progressed at the same rate and learning the instrument is much like it was ten, twenty and even a hundred years prior. Today, more information and guitar resources exist but the method for learning guitar is pretty much the exact same.

If you have the patience, exercise it fully. If not, you better learn to get some. Of course, having a natural desire to play guitar always helps as we naturally have a tendency to stick with a subject that we’re passionate about to begin with.

One Chord at a Time

If you just started learning guitar you have probably already heard about how important chords are to mastering the guitar.

Unfortunately, a lot of beginners only want to master one chord before moving on to the next. Big mistake. It’s important to learn (and master) the major chords, but not practice them one by one. Instead, learn three to four different chords and experiment shifting between chords with a metronome. At first, this will be very frustrating but over time you will master fingerings much faster and strengthen fingers. The result is a better guitarist.

Forget the Pinky

Throughout the day, regardless of the activity, how often do you use your thumb? Index finger? Pinky?

We have ten fingers, five pairs of each, and humans almost always neglect the power of our pinkies until we understand how important they are to the hand. Pinkies are not only helpful with day-to-day chores but also playing the guitar.

Naturally, when you first start playing almost all guitarists will find that fretting with the index and middle finger are easiest while the ring and pinky finger lack the same strength. In order to solve this dilemma practicing every day will slowly built up finger strength on all four fingers of the left hand (assuming you’re right handed).

However, you can take things a step further by focusing on one simple practice technique. Whenever you play, your fingers should be hovering over the strings of your guitar ALL OF THE TIME. Therefore, when you form a D chord your pinky finger should be hovering somewhere over the high E string or B and likewise for all other chords.

Music Theory, Who needs it?

Music theory is a lot like fundamentals. Boring at first, but completely vital to fully learning (and understanding) the guitar.

Aside from the basics of What is a Scale? What are major and minor chords? What is rhythm? Harmony? — Beginners can also learn a lot by understanding the root note of a chord. The root note is the bass note. It determines which string you should start strumming or picking from and is important for not only learning chords but understanding the relationship between you and the bassist.

Unless you’re playing an acoustic show alone, the beautiful thing about live music is that it almost always consists of multiple people playing multiple instruments.

Consequently, it’s easy for those new to music to get confused about who is playing electric guitar and who is playing electric bass. Both instruments, especially from a distance, look very similar. They’re both string instruments, are composed of a body, neck and head and are played just about the same.

Let’s start with the basics:

Electric Guitar: A stringed instrument usually having six strings (non-standard 7-string and 12-string guitars also exist) with a sound that  is amplified by electrical means.

Bass Guitar: A stringed instrument usually having four strings (non-standard 5-string and 6-string basses also exist) with a sound that is amplified by electrical means.

As a result, the very first physical difference you should notice between an electric guitar and the bass is the number of the strings. Additionally, strings of a bass are generally quite thicker.

Now, let’s examine the notes of each instrument…

Guitar (thinnest string to thickest)

1st string – E

2nd string – B

3rd string – G

4th string – D

5th string – A

6th string – E

Bass (thinnest string to thickest)

1st string – G

2nd string – D

3rd string – A

4th string – E

Did you notice that the last four strings of a guitar are the exact same as the four standard bass strings? That makes the bass practically the guitar minus two guitar strings, right?

Wrong.

The first string on a 6-string bass is actually equivalent to the sixth string of a guitar. Furthermore, if the guitar had a seventh string it would not be thinner, but actually thicker. Essentially, the missing seventh string would have the same exact pitch as the second string on a 6-string bass.

The contrast in the two stringed instruments is exactly what makes them so special when combined together. You may or may not not know that the guitar is generally used for two purposes — either to serve as lead guitar or rhythm guitar. Sometimes, a band has multiple guitarists with one serving as the lead and one or/more serving as the rhythm guitar(s).

The bass guitar traditionally works more with the rhythm guitar compared to the lead guitar, because the primary purpose of the bass is to aide the drums (and percussion) in the rhythm of the song. There are, of course, differences as certain bands (i.e. Primus) are actually regarded for their bass and often it almost takes the role of the lead in the song.

Thus, the bass guitar exists to:

1. Provide the rhythmic foundation.
2. Provide the harmonic foundation.

The bass guitar and drums work well together because they are usually designed to play a supportive role to create the pulse of the music (as well as set the song’s foundation). When is the last time you found yourself tapping your foot to a beat unintentionally? That is your instinct to vibe to the pulse, or beat of the music. Bass and/or drums create the pulse.

The Major Difference

Simply, the major difference between the guitar and bass guitar is the pitch range of the instruments. The bass guitar plays notes an octave lower than a regular guitar.

Music is an art and thus there are no rules. You will find that the bass guitar traditionally plays a supportive role in the band while the guitar (with it’s higher range) is more in the spotlight. However, some bands make the guitar more of a supportive instrument. Others, do not even have a guitar at all. Regardless, the two instruments are usually very critical and at the foundation of rock ‘n roll music.

If you are a guitarist, you can learn an awful lot from watching bass guitar lessons and conversing with bass players. The same is true with bassists.