Music BlogWhat It’s Like at your First Guitar Lesson

What It’s Like at Your First Guitar Lesson

As a brand-new guitar student, you might be wondering what your first guitar lesson will be like.  It’s only natural to be a bit curious about what it will be like.  Will your teacher be nice?  Am I going to find it confusing and difficult?

While every guitar teacher has their own unique style and prefers to focus on slightly different things for a beginner, there are a few things that are consistent.

 Let’s start with a few things you should know first:

1. Your guitar teacher want’s you to have fun
2. He want’s you to succeed.
3. He want’s you to learn how to love the guitar

Now that you know that your teacher just want’s what is best for you, we can go over some of what will happen in your first lesson.

At the beginning of the lesson your teacher will likely ask you what kind of music you like.  This is to help him get to know you and what you want to learn.  He is going to begin developing a plan to get you playing the kind of music that you really want to play.

Your guitar teacher will show you the different parts of the guitar and explain what they do.  Things like the tuning machines (for tuning, obviously), or the sound hole (the hole the sound comes from, obviously), the guitar neck, bridge, etc.  It’s very important to know all the guitar parts so you know what your teacher is talking about when says things like “that note is on your 3^rd fret”.

Then you may work on some or all these things, not necessarily in the same order:

1. The names of the guitar strings (they are E, B, G, D, A, and E by the way) and play them each out loud. 
2. The notes on the frets (those little metal bars on the neck of the guitar.
3. Where to place your fingers to get the best sound
4. Basic guitar chords for strumming cool songs!
5. Standard notation (these are the notes that are written on the page if you are using a method book).
6. Guitar Tabs (This is a special guitar language that uses a simple grid system to find the notes)
7. Songs that you want to play!!!
8. Songs that you should learn to play to improve your skills

There are many more cool things that you might learn in your first guitar lesson because there are so many cool things you can learn on the guitar!

By the end of your first lesson your new guitar teacher will have given you some very important fundamentals, given you something fun to play at home, and has started developing a long-term plan for your success in music!

And on that note…Have Fun!

Not a guitar student yet?  Contact Oakville Academy of Music today to get started!