8 Guitar Myths That Are Crazy

I remember as a child thinking, after I first picked up a guitar, that if I strum it over and over, that a great guitar song would be heard because of it. I believed in my own myth, that if I strum it, it would pour out a great song.

And so have you. You too have believed all kinds of myths about the guitar. You may STILL have some myths you believe about the guitar. Well, we’re about to see if you do.

Myth #1: You have to have started as a kid to play guitar great

Loads of buses at school. — You can learn guitar at any grade of school

This one is crazy! It’s almost like telling a rich guy who’s hanging around in the hood that he can’t learn the slang because he didn’t grow up there.

But we humans are able to adapt quite well to anything. This is why we see rich movie stars who’ve never grown up in poor neighborhoods and they are able to play the part in movies as being a person who can speak slang.

This is why you see adults being able to learn foreign languages. I worked with a guy who didn’t know how to speak english when he first moved to the United States. And then he learned it.

He was always trying to get me to learn spanish, which was his first language. He kept telling me that “IT’S EASY” to learn spanish, every time I seen him. He said EVERY TIME I see you, I want you to say one spanish word to me. I would usually see him just about four times every day and it forced me to get good at saying spanish words to him.

I’m not saying I’m no expert at spanish but I can now go to a spanish speaking store they have out here in America and say to the women: me gusta tu pelo,which means, I like your hair, in spanish.

He said the way he learned english was by going to a language speaker EVERY morning because he lived right next to the border in Laredo, Texas all his life and was wanting to learn our language real bad.

Now if you know anything about Laredo Texas you would know that there are a lot of spanish people there. Ninety five percent of them are spanish.

And most don’t even speak english there in Laredo Texas. Which was one reason why he wanted to learn english.

Well anyway, he said he would go to this language teacher every morning to learn english. And it payed off, he learned it in a short amount of time and he said it was easy to learn.

Which was why he was ALWAYS trying to get me to learn spanish because he said it’s easy, it’s not hard. Although I always told him it’s hard to learn spanish. Which was why he told me, “Every time I see you, you say one spanish word to me.”

If you know everyone I’ve ever seen, says that english is one of the most hardest languages to learn.

Which might be why many nations are now teaching their own people english. Which is weird because I didn’t even know this was happening in other countries. I always wondered, how all these people in other countries are knowing how to speak our language?

Same thing on guitar. If everyone was required to learn something on the guitar by a guitar instructor every morning before they go to work, there would be all kinds of guitar powerhouses out there. People great at the guitar.

University building with letters UNIVERSITY, on it. — Be like UNIVERSITIES and learn something new every day

A lot of people believe that it would be hard to learn how to speak a foreign language. But if they just learned it on the go every day and just make it a part of their life. Learning a new word everyday like my friend said, we’d be masterminds at speaking other languages.

Think about it, if you learned just one word everyday for a year, that would be three hundred and sixty five words you would know.

Apply that way of thinking to the guitar and have FUN doing it…. and there you go. It’ll be easy too, if we did learn it the way my friend did cause he told me, it was only a hour every morning he would go see this language teacher, to learn english.

Same thing on guitar. If everyone was required to learn something on the guitar by a guitar instructor every morning before they go to work, there would be all kinds of guitar powerhouses out there. People great at the guitar.

That sounds easy to me. A hour everyday. Now if you don’t have a hour every day to learn guitar, that’s cool! Just set aside all the time you can everyday to learn guitar and then you will have at least consistency, a system where you are teaching yourself new tricks on the guitar.

Clock hanging in the middle of a very tall building, with huge pillars around it. — Make as much time as possible to play the guitar

New things, in which your friends and people would be amazed that you can play that on the guitar and they will say, “I didn’t know you could play ALL that!” You in turn, will be happy they said that and turn and look at them and say, well, I’ve been practicing.

So the next time a friend or person or even your own self says that myth that, “You have to have started as a kid to play guitar great.” You can just look at them and say, “Oh! I heard that was a myth.”

Myth #2: The Guitar Stars Were Given Power By Divine Providence

Now, I’m not saying that you can’t be given talent from above but what I am saying is the Power from above is not going to just zapp you in one shot with power and then all in one second, you’re as good as Jimi Hendrix or as good as the greats. If he has given you the talent to play the guitar then you are going to have to WORK at it. Work at your craft.

Some of you, you’re catching on but some of y’all live in some fairytale land or Disneyland world where you think it’s just all going to be handed to you real, real, fast and with not having to work at it…..

Try this, if you want to be real, real, good at it,…. real, real, fast,…. then work at it real, real, fast and see how good you’ll get. Because in time, the hard work you put into it, will have payed off. And then you’ll be great.

Man being lifted up off his feet toward the height of the buildings surrounding him. — If you want power, then you’re gonna have to work at it

Because in time, the hard work you put into it, will have payed off. And then you’ll be great.

Yes! Some are naturals and it seems like they learned it over night but they didn’t. It just seems like it because we don’t see the hours and hours our super stars have put into it.

Prince locked himself in the closet for hours on end to become great.

Jimi Hendrix played for years on end on the Chitlin circuit, traveling and playing for the greats before he himself, became famous.

Eric Clapton had to play to plenty of songs on the radio before he became good.

Greta Van Fleet had to play at age 3 (one of them) and for years after that before they became good.

Van Halen had to learn watching Led Zeppelin little by little. And then bit by bit, here and there and from others before he became good.

Kiss had to learn guitar by making their own riffs and solos. And then splicing them solos and connecting them into solos that sounded real bad a- – , before they became good.

AC DC learned guitar by jamming until they heard something cool come out of it. Then worked on the riffs they got from jamming to perfection. Before they got good at guitar.

Nickelback learned guitar by jamming before he got good at guitar. These are his EXACT words, “ I’ll sit down and have a go with any shredder,” he puffed. “I learned by jamming along with Metallica, Megadeth, and Testament, and you cannot play along with those bands without a good right hand.”

Also Nickleback’s, Ryan Peake, bulldozer riffs can be attributed to his first tab books – Metallica’s, Master Of Puppets and Ride The Lightning. He said he learned these Metallica songs from Metallica tab books.

Slash from Guns N’ Roses has a real interesting way he learned guitar. I’ll let him tell it in his own exact words….

Slash jamming on acoustic guitar with lights flashing on him. Image by AlejandroAlvarino on Pixabay. Image from pixabay.com — Slash

[ Slash: I started playing guitar when I was roughly 14, going on 15 years old. Steven Adler, the original drummer for Guns N‘ Roses, when he and I met, he had an electric guitar at his house and he used to turn up, turn on Kiss records and crank this little guitar up and just bang on it, and it was very exciting and we were real into music.

So we decided to put a band together, and I thought I was gonna play bass and he was gonna play guitar. And I went to a local music school and I walked in there without a instrument, not knowing anything about what I was doing and went to the music teacher a guy named Robert Wallen, who I still know. And he said, OK and I say, I want to learn how to play bass and he goes, well, do you have a bass? And I said no.

So he sat me down in this room and he had a acoustic guitar and he was playing some Clapton (Eric Clapton) licks and I was like, WAIT! That’s what I want to do, and he goes, that’s not bass, that’s lead guitar and I say, well that’s what I want to do.

And basically, you know, he would learn stuff off records and teach it to me. And I just, after awhile I thought, you know what? I could do that. And so I just started to learning from records and so on.]

So it took his teenage years before Slash got good at guitar.

Myth #3: You can’t play the guitar by ear

First of all, what you been smoking to think you can’t play the guitar by ear? YES! It will take time to be able to do it. And yes, it may take a long time to be able to play the guitar by ear. OR, it may not take you that long to do it. BUT IT WILL TAKE TIME!

Think about it, when’s the last time you went outside and said, I don’t know what people are saying? Or I can’t understand some of what someone is saying? You are able to understand everything that people are saying. Why?Because you learn the frequency of what they are saying. You heard the sound of the words that people are saying.

You used your tongue to make the sound of your words to come out. At first you couldn’t talk, you fumbled your words. Your tongue wasn’t skill at making words. Then little by little and years later…. look at you now, you know the whole english language.

All because of your instrument, the tongue. You learned how to apply your tongue, learned how it worked, made sure you didn’t sound like a idiot and say the wrong words and such.

Young kids talking to each other, sitting down. — You’ve been talking since you were a kid, so now you’re real good at it

Same way with anything else, you practice it long enough, you make strives at ANYTHING and you do it little by little. Day by day. One step at a time. And you can do ANYTHING. But first you have to take the steps first to accomplish what you want to accomplish. And before you know it, it’s done.

Pick up the guitar, learn how it’s done. Then work on LISTENING, little by little. You will get better at figuring out where the notes are on the guitar.

But first you’ll have to get help learning where the notes are, from friends, foes and associates. YouTube and tab books and such. In order to have some semblance of the guitar and how to play it.

And then in time when you understand the guitar, you can just use your ear to tell you where the notes are on the guitar because you will already understand the instrument.

It just takes time.

Myth #4: I can’t play the guitar because my hands are too small or too big or my fingers are too short or too long

Blurry image of shaking hands. Black and white image.

Shoot! More like ask yourself WHAT guitar do I need first. Do I need a normal size guitar that most people play? Or do I need a small guitar that a lot of people don’t play? Or do I need a BIG guitar that most people don’t play? Is the REAL question you should be saying, first.

Because if you ask those questions first. You just have to see which guitar fits your type of body, your type of hands and fingers. And go from there.

Grab some guitars and see what guitars fit your hands and body. Shoot! The guitar store would LOVE to see you picking up a lot of guitars in there music stores because you equal money to them, if you buy one of them bad boys. The guitar.

Kid running with ukulele in field. — Shoot! Buy a ukulele if you have to, if your fingers are that small

Jeff from frethacker.com say’s it best, he says, “Guitars are made in many sizes to accommodate many playing styles and hand sizes. The key is finding a guitar that fits you and that you can grow with. They make guitars for children on up to NBA players.” /////// You can check out Jeff’s great site at frethacker.com, if you like, he has great articles there.

There are guitars for EVERYONE out there. Find your size that fits you and your good to go.

If you want to buy a normal sized guitar, that most people play, you can look at these and see if you like them by clicking here.

Myth #5: You need to practice lots of hours a day to get good at the guitar

Gold clock hanging from bars in big sun roof building.

This will make you crash land on the ground if you believe this fallacy. One, is it’s highly unlikely that anyone can play the guitar everyday for hours and hours on end, totaling, let’s say, 5 hours a day.

Not most people. Unless your a session musician or already a famous rock star, it ain’t happening, perhaps. Yes! You may find time here and there, finding a lot of hours to play the guitar, but EVERYDAY? I think not.

You’re best bet is to just play 20 minutes or more if you can, a day. Of QUALITY time, not wasted time, where you blow off a tremendous amount of time dorking around in the studio or your home and you don’t apply a good amount of practice, to said art, which is guitar.

You’re best bet is to just play 20 minutes or more if you can, a day. Of QUALITY time, not wasted time, where you blow off a tremendous amount of time dorking around in the studio or your home and you don’t apply a good amount of practice, to said art, which is guitar.

Myth #6: You can only play songs that hit the top of the charts on a expensive guitar

Different sorts of different color guitars, for sale in music store.

Nothing could be farther than truth that that. Lot’s of musicians have played on just normal guitars that have made the charts. Often saying or thinking to themselves, that it’s the player, not the instrument that makes the instrument sound good.

ANY pro musician, if you give him a low price guitar, can blast it to high heaven with all kinds of extravaganza coming out of it. And make that bad boy talk. Make it play. It’s ALL in the fingers, they say.

ANY pro musician, if you give him a low price guitar, can blast it to high heaven with all kinds of extravaganza coming out of it. And make that bad boy talk. Make it play. It’s ALL in the fingers, they say.

Myth #7: In order to learn the guitar you have to first start on an acoustic guitar

Acoustic and electric guitars are totally different beasts. One is easier to play than the other. Acoustic guitars are harder to play than electric because the strings are thicker. Electric guitars are easy because the strings are lighter and thinner.

This may make children want to give up on the guitar when they see how hard it is to press down on the guitar, if they are the weak type.

If your child wants to rock out to the electric, it would be better because it is often what will make him want to keep at it because it’s something they want to do.

It’s been said, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Meaning if your child’s already playing electric and he likes it, don’t fix it by throwing an acoustic guitar at him.

Yes, in time, get your child a acoustic if he wants one. Or if he wants one when he’s first starting out, then knock yourself out and get him one, if you so choose.

If you’re a teenager or Adult, you’ll have to decide which one is right for you. The acoustic or electric or both.

If you don’t know which one to get then go to a music store and try out the guitars there, of both types of guitars. Holding them in your hands and then play around with them to see which one fits your fancy. To see which one you like.

Man going into store with acoustic guitar. — Go to the music stores and try out the guitars there

You may see that you like the acoustic guitar better because in your mind this will make you better when you do play electric guitar later on. Because it will be that much easier because it will be easier to play because the strings are thinner, giving you great power because it feels so fluid and easy to play than the acoustic guitar, that you got so used to playing.

Or maybe you like the electric guitar better because it’s easier to play than the acoustic. It’s easier to press down on the strings and move around on the guitar. And because of the way it sounds also.

Acoustic guitars sound different than electric guitars. So this may lead you to how you pick your type of guitar. Maybe when you turn on the radio, the acoustic guitar sounds better to you than the electric. Or maybe when you turn on the radio, electric guitars sound better to you. Or maybe you are of the sort that likes both of them.

Play the type of guitar that you like.

I’ll help you out about different guitars, in this article, on my website.

Myth #8: To get a big sound you need big strings

[Laughs.] This one’s so good that it almost sounds true. But not to the well established guitarist. He knows better than to believe this one. He knows that BIG sounds can come out of big strings AND small strings.

Shoot! Tell that to Santana and see him grimace on his face as he tries to hold back his laugh. He literally made his sound blow up with big-ness. Try that with Billy Gibbons and Tony Iommi who can make their guitars sound loud on big strings and smaller strings such as .007 gauge strings and the like.

Carlos Santana
Carlos Santana

But I recommend staying away from .007 and .008 gauge strings until you get good at the guitar. Otherwise you’ll just break your strings a lot.

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