I Learned Guitar In 1 WEEK!
Written by Kai Voorhees
When a few of my friends wanted to make a band I was ecstatic. I had always been interested in being in a band, I just had never known anybody who was too. I offered to play guitar. The only problem? I didn’t know how to play.
Since my general motto in life is “say yes and figure it out later,” you can imagine I took this as another fun side quest I could take. So I started learning the next day.
A week later, I have mastered and can play three songs almost flawlessly on my electric guitar.
Here are four tips that I have found most helpful when learning guitar in a week.
1: Learn how to read tabs
This is a must when it comes to learning guitar. Especially if you want to learn songs fast. A YouTube video to learn a song is good, but if you can read tabs for songs and play it to the beat of the song, you’ll end up getting the same result faster.
There are many tutorials and articles out there about how to read tabs.
2: Do not learn notes
You might be thinking, “But don’t you need to learn notes to play guitar?”
And to that I would say “Not necessarily.”
When learning electric guitar, I thought that I would need notes to play every song. However, this is far from the truth. Most songs (especially in punk rock) can be played using basic tabs.
Most beginner songs are just a repeating pattern of just plucking one or two strings.
3: Find good beginner songs
Here are the first songs I learned:
Freaks by Surf Curse
Surf Curse used the album cover from their album“Buds” for the cover of their hit song “Freaks”
Freaks is very popular on TikTok right now. It sounds complicated but it really isn’t. This is probably one of the easiest songs on guitar I know. I once taught it to my friend (who had never touched a guitar before) in five minutes.
Deceptacon by Le Tigre
This song is also super popular on social media. It is a great vintage-sounding song that anyone can vibe to. This song is super easy to learn. I learned this in about two days.
The Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash
This song I’m still working to master. This song uses the notes G, D, and C. However, I was not able to get good at it in 1 week due to the fact that you have to switch between the notes smoothly. There are easier songs, but this isn’t too difficult.
4: PRACTICE
Like they say, practice does make perfect. I practiced for seven days straight for at least an hour a day. This was not because I was forcing myself to, but because I was having fun doing it. Practice is necessary in order to improve your skills.
In conclusion, practice does make perfect. However, there has never been a recorded time in history where someone picked up any hobby and was perfect at it in a week. We all make mistakes and they are necessary if we want to grow and get better. You do not have to pressure yourself to learn in a week. All good things take time. Just have fun and enjoy the music.
Posted on April 1st, 2026