guitar tyro

[Rich D]

I'm not a guitarist, no experience, but I'd
like to learn to strum chords for a few folk
songs, to play for myself or friends (to accompany
a chorus). For instance, "This land is your land", stuff like that.
or "Wreck of the Edmund Gitzgerald", one of my faves -

So I'm not interested in "learning to play the guitar",
in the usual sense. My question is, if I attempt this,
how much time should I budget per song?

I can read piano music, but doubtful that's much help -

--
Rich

[John Nguyen]

Hi Rich!

I'm not a teacher, so you need to take what I say here with a good dose of skepticism.
From my experience back many years ago when I was a teenager, it took probably a month to learn strumming a first song. The left hand chord changes were the hardest to learn, as one needs to change the positions of the left hand fingers to keep up with the harmonic changes. I would pick an easy piece in A minor, or C major to start with. Find some chord diagrams on the internet to follow. Then I would progress to some chords with barring. The beauty of barring is that when you learn one, you'll learn all, as you change the barring fret moving up the fretboard. Your music reading ability should help a lot to figure out the harmonic changes of a song and strumming accordingly later on, as I'm sure you are very familiar with the circle of fifths in music theory. I would devote the first month for the very first song, the next four songs get two weeks each, the next five one week each, and one day each song forward as you would be very comfortable with the chords at that point.
It should be a very fun and rewarding endeavor. Let us know how you progress. Good luck!
Cheers!

John N

[Rich D]

On February 14, John Nguyen wrote:
>> I'm not a guitarist, no experience, but I'd
>> like to learn to strum chords for a few folk
>> songs, to play for myself or friends (to accompany
>> a chorus). For instance, "This land is your land", stuff like that.
>> or "Wreck of the Edmund Gitzgerald", one of my faves -
>> So I'm not interested in "learning to play the guitar",
>> in the usual sense. My question is, if I attempt this,
>> how much time should I budget per song?
>

> From my experience back many years ago when I was a teenager, it took probably
> a month to learn strumming a first song. The left hand chord changes were the
> hardest to learn, as one needs to change the positions of the left hand fingers
> to keep up with the harmonic changes. I would pick an easy piece in A minor,

> or C major to start with....

> I would devote the first month for the very first song, the next four songs get two
> weeks each, the next five one week each, and one day each song forward as you
> would be very comfortable with the chords at that point.
> It should be a very fun and rewarding endeavor. Let us know how you progress. Good luck!

Your response is appreciated and helpful.

--
Rich