How to Fail at Learning the Guitar

Learning to play the guitar is difficult. Failing to learn the guitar and throwing the thing in the attic is much easier. That’s why this guide is for those people who want to guarantee that their initial enthusiasm for the instrument fades into disappointment as quickly and effortlessly as possible. (Smashing your guitar in a Pete Townsend like fit of rage is optional.)

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

1. Pick the wrong guitar. If you’re just starting out on the guitar, it’s important to find one that’s either really cheap or really flashy. Make sure that the strings are either too low or too high off the neck so that it will be really difficult and painful to play.
2. Cultivate poor posture techniques early on, so that they become a learned behavior. Instead of investing in a footstool, simply keep both feet flat on the floor and slouch over the neck of the guitar.
3. Invest in one of those books that promises that you can learn how to play the guitar overnight. After all, playing guitar is all about talent, not skill. Painters and novelists don’t need lots of lessons and practice to learn how to draw and write – they’re just born with it.
4. Practice irregularly. Learning how to play the guitar isn’t about commitment – it’s about looking cool.
5. Start playing the guitar really fast before you’ve learned how to fret and change chords properly. Jimi Hendrix didn’t become a guitar god by slowing down and paying attention to where his fingers were supposed to go, and neither should you.
6. Give up when your fingers start to hurt. Rock stars don’t get groupies by screaming in pain every time they bar a chord. Those calluses will just build up by themselves. Or maybe you should just start wearing rubber gloves.
7. Assume that you can learn how to play the guitar without anybody’s help. Invest in one of those “Dummies” books and a chord chart so that you can learn how to play by yourself. That way you won’t have an instructor breathing down your neck and telling you to practice all the time, forcing you to go slowly or correcting you when you do something wrong.
8. When you discover that changing chords is too hard and that a couple of week’s worth of time investment hasn’t made you sound like Clapton, make sure to give up immediately and never touch the guitar again. You’ve got better things to do with time. Like, learning how to play the saxophone.

Tips & Warnings

• An abandoned guitar gathering dust makes a good conversation piece in the corner of any living room. If a friend asks you to play it, just tell them that you’re too modest to flaunt your extraordinary guitar skills in front of company.