5+1 Benefits of Learning the guitar as a kid …or even as an adult!
Playing the guitar from a young age gave me some amazing experiences and taught me a lot of valuable lessons for life. I started playing the guitar at age 13 and throughout my career as a guitar player and a teacher, I came to realise that learning the guitar enable me to communicate, understand and connect with other people, even if we didn’t have the same native language.
Music is the most important form of art we have as humans, and learning how to play a musical instrument can give you a lot of benefits, and here are, in my humble opinion, the 5 most important ones:
Connection with other people
In a world where we are bombarded with all of these social networks, it’s more and more difficult for us to get real human connections, especially for children that are born into this. Having the skill and the passion to play music, will force the kid to go out and seek other musicians to play with. To connect and share the stage, or even a magical moment of playing a song with another human being. If you’ve never played music in your life it might be difficult to understand the feeling of being a part of a band. It almost feels like you’re a part of a breathing organism.
The sensation of playing with other musicians, having common things to talk about and how easy it is to make friends if you are a musician, it’s a good enough reason to start learning the guitar!
Discipline
Music is a form of education and in order to learn something and be good at it, you’ll need to spend time practising. Learning how to play music and especially the guitar, will teach you how to have discipline with yourself. It’s a “muscle” that needs training, and with the right guidance, a younger student won’t feel like they are doing work, but rather, play music.
Emotional Release
It’s not by accident that most of the songs we’ve been listening to in the last 100 years talk about problems artists face in their lives. It’s pretty common for musicians to write songs about their struggles. It’s a form of meditation or therapy and it’s self-provided, meaning that once you know how to play basic things on the guitar, you can easily express yourself in a way that no one else can.
Exercise the brain
As simple as Ed Sheeran songs sound like, music can be way more complicated than that and as a musician, you get to exercise your brain on a daily basis. By learning about different rhythms, learning theory, applying the theory to your instrument and writing songs, you get to keep your brain sharp.
Lots of fun
For me, that’s the most important aspect of learning how to play the guitar. It’s fun. It’s a “hobby” that allows you to be creative, be spontaneous, gain courage, become a leader and learn about yourself as a human being. The guitar is the most common musical instrument to learn and that’s for a reason!
Lastly, as a bonus, I’d like to add an important aspect that I’m using daily.
Learning the guitar can lead to a really fulfilling career. Either as a player doing session work, being a rock star or playing in church or as a guitar teacher like myself.
Playing for an audience is an amazing feeling that no one can accurately describe but it feels like you’re on top of the world.
Teaching the guitar is a fulfilling career as well. You get to share your knowledge with other people and enable them to have an outlet, a way to express themselves or they might have a successful career in music.
I hope you enjoyed this blog post! If you are interested in taking guitar lessons for you or your family, make sure to book a discovery call and I can tell you more about it via zoom. Available for all ages!
Book a free discovery call with me and learn more about my guitar lessons!
