Guitar Essay Example

The guitar is a universal instrument; it comes in many different shapes and sizes. Some guitars may have six strings, other guitars may have twelve. Some guitars may be acoustic and others electric and since the guitar is one of the most popular instruments in the world, playing it may be rewarding. How many people make a living off of just playing the guitar! Learning how to play may just take months for some while for others it may take years. Playing the guitar has three important parts to it, learning how to play the guitar, the different styles of the guitar and strumming the guitar.

The guitar is a fairly easy instrument to play and many talented people are self-taught. There are many resources available to them to learn. A good way to learn is through YouTube videos. There are also countless articles online about the topic. Just look up “how to play guitar” and numerous results will come up. Another way to learn is through a skilled teacher. Some people may be self taught but  might use a teacher to polish more advanced skills. There are a lot of ways students could learn how to play the guitar.  

The guitar is an instrument that has a variety of styles and genres, country, folk, metal, pop, and worship to name a few on a broad spectrum.The easiest and most popular styles are pop and worship, for the sole reason that most of the songs only use four chords. These chords are played over and over again, making the songs easy to learn and memorize. The songs usually use a combination of these chords: C, D, E, Em, F, F#m, G, A, Am, Bm. Knowing these chords are all a person needs to play the acoustic guitar successfully. There are, of course, many more styles. Rock and metal are the most popular styles to play on the electric guitar, that being because it suits the electric guitar better. When the electric guitar is plugged into the ampere it converts the sound of the strings, making the strings sound more electric.  The most important thing when it comes to guitar styles is being creative and able to learn new things. Practice makes perfect, the more a musician spends time learning the craft the better musician he will turn out to be. Not to mention having fun with it. 

The guitar is a rhythmic instrument so strumming is something vital to playing the instrument. Strumming is usually done with a pick to the rhythm of the song. Strumming comes naturally to some and mechanically to others, the more rhytimally aware the guitarist is the more smooth the strumming will sound. There are different levels to strumming, the most basic being strumming with a pick. A more intermediate skill is fingerpicking, which involves ear training. When fingerpicking, the guitarist uses the fingers to pick out the melody of the song. There are countless fingerpicking patterns, and there is no right or wrong pattern. In fact the more creative a person gets, the better the fingerpicking can sound. It is all about what sounds good to the musician's ear. 

The guitar is an amazing instrument. It comes in a wide variety of styles, sounds and sizes. Learning how to play the guitar can be rewarding in some ways. The different styles and sounds are captivating and sometimes breathtaking. When strumming the musician has all the control on what he wants to do. Even though learning something may take some time it is something that can be used for a greater plan, that is God’s plan. God gives His children the gift of music so that they can use it to glorify His name. “My heart, O God, is steadfast;  I will sing and make music with all my soul.” (Psalm 108:1)