Professional electric guitar players – How long did it take you to learn to play the guitar?

5 Comments

1. 10/3you says:

   February 7, 2010 at 10:44 pm

   it depends how long you practice and how determined u r but some ppl have done it for years
2. Grog_the_Slob says:

   February 7, 2010 at 10:54 pm

   I’ve been playing guitar for 15 years now and play quite regularly. Always trying to learn new styles and techniques so would say its really a life long learning process. Now if your just looking to learn one song, that’s quite different. It really depends on the person, there cordination, and the difficulty of the song they are trying to learn. Can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few weeks. To be at a level were your comfortable playing in front of other people it usually takes a couple months of steady practice.
3. the_rokker_89 says:

   February 7, 2010 at 11:27 pm

   I’ve questioned my Music Theory Professor this question, and truthfully it varies greatly. I have been playing 6 years and started teaching guitar when I reached 5 years, and from all the different people I’ve played with I have come to one conclusion. First let me define what a “professional musician” is. A professional is someone who excels in what they do as a job, a professional musician is someone who get’s “Paid to Pay”. So basically anyone, who is getting played to pay the electric guitar is a professional musician. If you want to know what a “Excellent Professional Musician” is, then it is someone who can read music “proficiently” on their instrument, and play with other musicians without distress. On average, if you practice, 4 hours a day, for 2 year’s, you could be “excellent professional guitarist”, 3 hrs, a day, 3 years, so on and so forth. The key here is, “Paid to play” I teach 12 year ancient’s who could own the guitarist from My Chemical Romance, but they are not professionals.
4. EE dude says:

   February 8, 2010 at 12:24 am

   I’ve worked as a sound engineer of and on for the last 20 years, so I’ve met a ton of guitar players. Most of them had north of 10 years playing minimum.
5. Craig says:

   February 8, 2010 at 1:08 am

   it doesnt take very long at all to learn to play and delight in yourself…as far as getting very excellent…ya north of 10 years or more…im pushing 20 years of playing and i still dont feel like im excellent