I wanted to make this blog post very simple but very helpful. If you are new to guitar or your playing has taken a bit of a dip, here are some tips that might help.

20 tips that can help your current guitar playing situation.

1. Always learn new things: There are hundreds of different techniques that you can learn on guitar, research, ask and try.
2. Learn a new chord every day. There are more than 200 chords and chord progression suggestions here – Learn some chord variations to spice up your playing.
3. Buy a guitar course, either an online course or books and DVDs.
4. Try learning another instrument too, drums, harmonica, piano, anything that you like or have an interest in. It will help you to improve your skills as a guitarist and mould you into a more rounded musician.
5. Do you hate dancing? Make it your friend, it will help you to improve your rhythm.
6. Try to play songs you like by ear . It doesn’t matter if you make mistakes, an error always equals a new learning. Trying to play songs like this will help improve your chord recognition.
7. Don’t stress when playing your guitar. Playing the guitar is fun. Love it!
8. If you play electric, try acoustic. If you play acoustic, try electric. If you’ve tried everything, learn some latin jazz or Flamenco.
9. Read and research for guitar websites like this and always post questions or comments on blogs or forums.
10. Give your instrument some love. Always clean and maintain your guitar so it’s always at its best.
11. Air your questions and doubts to other guitarists you know.
12. Something we have mentioned here hundreds of times, listen to music! Not only your favorite style but every style.
13. Learn guitar scales. The repetition will help develop consistency and technique.
14. Practice consistently. Try for at the very least 1 hour every 2 days, 40 minutes everyday would be ideal!
15. Always warm up. This is very important, every time you practice make sure you warm up for at least 10 or 15 minutes.
16. Become a guitar geek. Learn everything about the guitar, technical aspects, what type of set-up you like; strings, amps, pickups, etc. The internet is the best source of information for this.
17. If you are going to get serious about your guitar playing, buy a decent guitar. Never make a guitar buying decision hastily.
18. Use a metronome when practicing. Enough said!
19. Pay attention to your strumming hand once in awhile! Most guitar players spend way too much time focusing on their fretting hand.
20. Don’t try and take on too much. If a song or an exercise is too difficult for you, you may end up getting frustrated and giving up on the whole learning guitar thing. Not cool!

I think 20 tips are good for now. Read them all, once, twice or more but most importantly, put a few into practice starting now!

I will continue throwing out some more tips over the next few weeks!

Hope this helps!