Cheap Electric Guitars and How to Play One

If you've already purchased a cheap electric guitar and your a beginner; it's time to learn how to play. Today I'd like to talk about your options on how to go about learning to play guitar.

Option #1 - Take Professional Guitar Lessons

This is the best way to learn how to play a cheap electric guitar. A professional guitar teacher will show you how to start owning the fret board, and give you invaluable coaching and on-the-go criticism that will jump start your electric guitar playing skills. If you have the opportunity to sit down one on one with a teacher you should go for it. There are plenty of mistakes novice guitar players can make and loads of bad habits can be formed. Bad guitar playing habits can be painful to break, so if you have a teacher that can quickly spot them and correct them, you'll be far ahead of other beginners.

A good teacher will also teach you how to properly read music as they teach you to play the guitar. Learning to read music is something that many novice players find difficult, but a teacher can make it simple. Learning how to read music is not necessarily an essential part of learning to play the guitar, but it is a common difference between an amateur and a professional player.

Option #2 - Teach Yourself How to Play Guitar

This option is the path that many, including myself have taken. It's likely that if you purchased a cheap electric guitar, you probably don't have much money for lessons. If so, rest assured that you're purchase will not go wasted even if you don't have another dime to spend on a professional teacher.

When I learned to play, my only option was to buy some tablature books of my favorite bands. For those of you who don't know what tablature is (more commonly referred to as guitar tabs), it's a simple alternative to learning how to read music. Tabs literally tell you exactly which guitar string to play and which fret of the string to press your finger on. Any song can be transformed into tabs, and just about every song has been.

The first tablature book I bought was for Pearl Jam's first album Ten. I was 13 and I remember running home completely psyched to get started. I threw my guitar strap over my shoulder, opened the book and let some notes rip. It of course didn't sound anywhere close to good, but I knew I was on my way. I played for hours a day and eventually mastered every song on the album. To this day I can play Alive or Porch with my eyes closed thanks to that first tab book and all the effort I put into it. The problem was I didn't have the money to go out and buy all my favorite band's tablature books, so Pearl Jam songs were all I could play on my cheap electric guitar. At that time the internet was still a baby and I didn't even have America Online.

Today the internet is an incredible resource for guitar lessons and tablature. Any song you can possibly think of is tabbed out somewhere online. Even brand new songs are available immediately and for free. You can really speed up the learning curve if you take advantage of all the internet has to offer for a beginner guitar plater. A great place to start and find all the tabs you could ever want is ultimate-guitar.com. It's usually the first place I check when I'm looking for some well tabbed out riffs.

Now that you've got you're cheap electric guitar, choose an option and stick with it. You'll learn to play like a pro either way, as long as you put the necessary effort in.